What has changed in WoodFireERD, written for the people who use it.
The Windows application carries version numbers, and the website is updated continuously — its
changes are dated instead. Releases that change nothing you can see are not listed.
Documentation, covering how to get started, how to do each thing the application does, and what
it does not support.
Release notes, so you can see what has changed without asking.
Articles, on working with SQL Server schemas. The first one is about changing a column's identity,
which SQL Server will not let you do in place.
1.0.0 - 2026-09-16
First release.
Added
Read a SQL Server schema from a live database, or from a DACPAC file exported by SSMS.
Nothing is written to your database — WoodFireERD needs no write permission on it.
A diagram that grows one table at a time. Pick a table and see the tables related to it, then
follow relationships further out, in either direction, as far as you want to look. The whole
schema is never drawn at once.
Two arrangements. Layered lays the diagram out in a column per level, for following a chain
of tables. Star puts one table in the centre with a ring per level around it.
Read the relationships. Open a box to see its columns with their keys, select a table to
label its relationship lines with the columns they join, and click a line to jump to the table
that owns the foreign key.
Edit the schema. Add and change columns, primary keys, foreign keys, indexes and triggers,
and write T-SQL for views, functions and procedures. Scripts are checked for syntax errors and
for tables they name that are not in your schema, before they reach the diagram.
Export a migration script. Review every change you have made, then export ordered T-SQL,
wrapped in a transaction, with a header counting the statements that drop data. You run it
yourself — WoodFireERD never runs anything against your database.
Save your work as a project file on your own machine. It holds the schema and your edits, and
never a password, user name or connection string, so it is safe to commit alongside your code.
Refresh a project to read the database again. You see what has changed before anything is
applied, your own edits are kept, and changes made by other people are merged in rather than
turning up in your next migration script as deletions.
A Windows desktop application for databases that are not reachable from the internet. It is
the same designer, running on your machine, and it updates itself.
Light and dark themes, on the website and in the Windows application.
Accounts and plans. Sign in with an email address and a one-time code — there is no password
to set. Free opens schemas of up to 25 objects; Pro and Unlimited open larger ones and add
migration scripts and the Windows application.
A contact form, for questions about a plan or about your database.