I came across a very interesting article about MySQL development tools — a solid roundup of admin and management tools that were popular at the time.

MySQL Admin and Development Tools Round-Up

If you work with MySQL regularly, having a good GUI tool makes a big difference for things like writing queries, inspecting table structures, and managing users. Back then phpMyAdmin was the go-to for web-based management, and tools like MySQL Workbench, Navicat, and HeidiSQL were popular desktop options.

These days MySQL Workbench is the official tool from Oracle, and it handles most admin tasks well. For a lighter alternative, DBeaver is a solid free option that works with MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and many other databases.