Is DBX really a 25 MB database client? We measured it on a Mac
Published
The 25 MB number is real but belongs to the CLI and the Windows installer. The Mac download is 36.91 MiB, 67.34 MiB installed, next to DBeaver at 199.80 MiB.
DBX claims a ~25 MB database client, no bundled Chromium and, unlike DBeaver, no Java. We downloaded release v0.6.34 (desktop) and packages-v0.4.107 (CLI), and measured both on a Mac.
1.Result
| Application | On disk | Runtime it ships | Runtime size |
|---|---|---|---|
| DBX 0.6.34 | 67.34 MiB | system WebKit | 0 |
| DBeaver | 199.80 MiB | bundled JRE | 94.50 MiB |
| NoSQLBooster for MongoDB | 198.63 MiB | Electron Framework | 125.18 MiB |
| Postman | 450.96 MiB | Electron Framework | 187.07 MiB |
DBX installed on a Mac
67.34 MiB
Against 199.80 MiB for DBeaver on the same disk, measured the same day
The “25 MB” number, as shipped
25.00 MiB
The Windows installer; the CLI package is 25.22 MiB and the Mac download is 36.91 MiB
CLI launch, dbx --version
9.7 ms
Median of 20 runs, against 38.4 ms for the JRE DBeaver bundles
| Command | Median | Min | Peak RSS |
|---|---|---|---|
| dbx --version | 9.7 ms | 9.6 ms | 7.8 MiB |
| dbx capabilities | 9.9 ms | 9.6 ms | 8.1 MiB |
| sqlite3 --version | 17.9 ms | 17.7 ms | 3.6 MiB |
| node --version | 21.1 ms | 20.8 ms | 22.1 MiB |
| psql --version | 29.5 ms | 28.7 ms | 5.1 MiB |
| java -version (the JRE DBeaver bundles) | 38.4 ms | 38.3 ms | 32.3 MiB |
| Artifact | Size | Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64.dmg (macOS) | 36.91 MiB | 520 |
| DBX_0.6.34_x64.dmg (macOS Intel) | 40.13 MiB | 47 |
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64.app.tar.gz | 37.10 MiB | 115 |
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64-portable.zip | 34.26 MiB | 26 |
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64-setup.exe (Windows) | 25.00 MiB | 33 |
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64.deb / .rpm (Linux) | 38.31 MiB | 26 / 20 |
| DBX_0.6.34_arm64.AppImage (Linux) | 108.06 MiB | 21 |
| dbx-cli-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | 12.61 MiB | 4 |
| dbx-mcp-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | 13.76 MiB | 7 |
Decision
- Use it when
- disk and start-up time matter: 67.34 MiB installed and a 9.7 ms CLI launch.
- Against 199.80 MiB for DBeaver on the same disk
- Skip it when
- you want a scriptable CLI alone.
- Without the desktop app only 10 engine types work
- No SQL ran on this machine
- Read the number
- “25 MB” is the CLI (25.22 MiB) and the Windows installer (25.00 MiB).
- The Mac download is 36.91 MiB
- Solid detail
- the published SHA-256 matches our download byte for byte.
- The app is signed and notarized (Developer ID, xianbin yin)
Details worth knowing
- No bundled Chromium, verified: one 66.65 MiB executable, no Frameworks directory, Resources holding only icon.icns (706 KB), and 0 files matching chromium/electron/cef/chrome.
- The web view is the OS one: otool -L links /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework (624.2.5). That is why nothing Chromium-sized ships.
- “100+ databases” is true for the product, not the bare CLI. 10 types work directly (postgres, redshift, mysql, doris, starrocks, manticoresearch, sqlite, rqlite, kwdb, questdb); the other 62 need the desktop bridge.
- DBX is about one third the size of the two database clients already on this disk, and neither rival’s runtime is in the bundle.
Not measured
- No SQL statement was executed: connections are created in the app, and the GUI was never launched on this headless machine.
- GUI cold start and UI memory unmeasured; Windows/Linux sizes come from release metadata, not installs.
Every size here is MiB (1024-based), the unit du prints. 36.91 MiB is 38.71 MB in a browser’s decimal display; mixing the two is how a 25 MB claim becomes 30 MB in someone else’s post. Raw rows: docs/analysis/2026-10-05-dbx-25-mb-claim.jsonl.