---
title: "Why I built nuzur"
date: "2025-12-18"
author: "Maykel Farha"
excerpt: "The story behind nuzur: from MySQL Workbench frustrations to building a modern, web-based visual database tool."
slug: "why-i-built-nuzur"
image: "/blog-images/why-i-built-nuzur.png"
---

# Why I Built nuzur

I am a very **visual person**, so whether I was building a system that required a database or not, I would usually end up using **MySQL Workbench** or something like **LucidChart** to model my entities and relationships; this is also the best way to share with others.

## The Breaking Point

Don't get me wrong — both of these tools are great, and I still use them, but both of them lack functionality. To make the story short, the day I decided to build **nuzur** was when I upgraded my computer and **MySQL Workbench completely broke**. It didn't even open, and this lasted for **weeks**. I remember finding a large thread on their community page of people complaining just like me.

## The Search for Alternatives

In the meantime, I started looking around for other options, and there are many of them. I downloaded all the apps I could find, free and paid, and **none of them really gave me what I needed**. Another common thing I noticed is most of these apps (that specialize in databases) are **old-fashioned apps** that you need to install on your machine and update regularly.

## The Vision

Then it all came together. I wanted something that:

- **Allowed me to model visually my domain**
- Was **web-based** and accessible anywhere
- Was **always up-to-date**
- **Anybody could use on any machine**

I remember saying: _"If MySQL Workbench and Figma had a baby, that is what I want"_ — and that is what I started to build right after I quit my job in **May 2024**.

## Built for Everyone

I built this app for myself to use it on my upcoming projects, and I want to share it with others, making it useful, trying to **automate processes**, and allowing **nontechnical folks** to access the design and the data. I believe that understanding the **data structure of a system** is something that everybody involved in a project should be aware of.