What you get with these add-ins are much better intellisense which makes developing faster and it means that you can use longer, more descriptive names, so no more cryptic table and column names to save the cost of a new keyboard for the Sql developers!
The Redgate tool is about GBP 225 the Apex tool is free (seriously!)
They both offer similar features so choosing between them is hard, if you are inclined to use SSMS then I would trial them both out and see which you prefer. I am including two versions of this editor, SSMS with Redgate Sql Prompt and the ApexSql Complete add-ins. Sql Server Management Studio with add-ins When you use one of these IDEs you also need to make sure you use the features - using them as if they were SSMS or notepad is completely wasteful. Each editor has its own set of features and at a minimum you should be using ones of these IDEs to develop code.
What you get in this category of editors is time savers and improved code quality, intellisense is a massive time saver and things like formatting T-SQL and expanding wildcards to column names help to improve the quality of the code. Basic help such as intellisense and extra features SSMS is not all bad, there are some redeeming features such as the ability to use plug-ins or add-ins and there are some features like the ability to see query and execution plans which make it really useful but as a modern development environment by itself, it really is no frills. Personally I see SSMS more as a tool to manage Sql Server, rather than as a development environment. Sql Server Management StudioĮven though Sql Server Management Studio or SSMS has improved since it was first released with the addition of intellisense in 2008, it still isn't great. Using notepad should only really be used to quickly look at a script to see what it is doing.
There is nothing stopping you spending hours creating a schema and writing code that will never work. What you don't get with a basic editor is any help, you don't get intellisense or information about how the database schema is made up - in short you get no feedback as to whether you have made a simple (or indeed a more complicated) mistake. Using a text editor like notepad will let you write and examine scripts which can be deployed to sql server, it is fast to open files and to save again but that is about the only good point! More advanced editors with features like compilers and refactoring.Editors with basic help such as intellisense.These choices basically break down further into 3 categories:
Visual Studio with Sql Server Data Tools (SSDT).
In this series of blog posts, I am talking about how to use agile or modern development practices to help us become better Sql developers. Choosing a Development IDE for Sql Development NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 2015, it is now 2020 - that is 5 years so please consider this a historical artifact that is probably out of date.