ChatDB
ChatDB is a free suite of 52 browser-based data tools for converting, viewing, editing and querying CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, SQLite and GeoJSON files. Everything runs locally: no upload, no account, no installation. Two of them answer plain-English questions.
What is ChatDB?
ChatDB is a catalogue of 52 free data tools that run entirely inside the browser. There is nothing to install, no account to open and no file to upload: the page reads the file from your own machine, processes it there and hands back the result.
The catalogue is organised into families - readers, editors, converters, formatters, compressors, AI and GIS - plus a separate image section. Together they cover CSV, Parquet, JSON, XML, YAML, Markdown, SQL, Gzip, Excel, SQLite, GeoJSON, Shapefile, KML and GPX, along with fourteen image formats, audio and video. Typical jobs include turning a CSV into compressed Parquet, checking a Parquet file's schema and metadata, editing a spreadsheet of up to roughly 300 MB and exporting it as CSV, Parquet or JSON, profiling column distributions, or previewing a Shapefile on a map.
The technical foundation is WebAssembly, with DuckDB WASM executing SQL locally. Two tools add artificial intelligence: CSV AI and Parquet AI use Llama-3-70b to translate a plain-English question into SQL, which then runs against your file in the browser. Only the column schema leaves the machine; the rows never do.
The product has a history worth knowing. ChatDB launched in 2023 as an AI assistant connected to live databases, published an open-source text-to-SQL model called NaturalSQL 6.7B in January 2024, and added dashboards and charts. On 11 August 2024 it announced it was sunsetting that product, closing accounts on 17 August and deleting the associated data, in order to concentrate on file-based tools. The same post promised 100 GB files, more compression formats and an API; the API has not shipped.
The site is clearly maintained: version v2.4.1 sits in the footer, the copyright reads 2026, and several tools carry a "New" badge. What is missing is the publisher: no company name beyond the brand, no address, no about page and no contact page. A single email address serves for both legal and GDPR matters.
What it does
- Convert files between CSV, Parquet, JSON, Excel, GeoJSON, KML, GPX, Shapefile and fourteen image formats
- Open and read Parquet, SQLite, multi-sheet Excel and gzipped CSV files directly in the browser
- Edit a CSV in a spreadsheet view: sort, filter, deduplicate, correct cells, then export
- Ask a question in plain English and let the AI write and run the SQL on your CSV or Parquet file
- Profile a dataset: column statistics, distributions, size, delimiter, row and column counts
- Compress, decompress or split a CSV, and compress or convert images
- Preview and convert geospatial data on a map without a desktop GIS
When to use ChatDB / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if ChatDB is the right fit.
When to use ChatDB
- Data analysts and BI practitioners who need to inspect, clean or convert a CSV or Parquet file without waiting for a warehouse query
- Data and analytics engineers converting between CSV, Parquet, JSON and Excel, or checking a Parquet schema and metadata before ingestion
- Anyone handling confidential or regulated files that must never be uploaded to a third-party server
- GIS analysts, cartographers and surveyors previewing or converting GeoJSON, Shapefile, KML and GPX data without opening a desktop GIS
- Non-technical professionals - marketers, product managers, researchers, students - who want to question a CSV without writing SQL
When not to use ChatDB
- Teams that need a live connection to a production database: that product was discontinued and its accounts closed on 17 August 2024
- Engineers looking to automate conversions inside a pipeline: there is no API, no command line and no scriptable mode
- Organisations in regulated sectors requiring a signed DPA, a subprocessor list or a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, none of which is published
- Teams that need shared workspaces, saved projects or version history: without accounts, nothing persists between sessions
- Anyone working on datasets far beyond browser memory - the CSV editor itself is capped at roughly 300 MB per file
How to use ChatDB
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Open chatdb.ai and go to the Tools page, or press Command-K from anywhere on the site
- Filter the 52 tools by family - reader, editor, converter, formatter, compressor, AI, GIS - or by file format
- Open the tool you need: no sign-up, download or configuration is required
- Drag and drop your file onto the page, paste rows directly, or load the sample dataset to try the tool first
- In the CSV editor, pick your delimiter if needed, then sort, filter, deduplicate and edit cells in the table
- In CSV AI or Parquet AI, type your question in plain English and let Llama-3-70b generate the SQL
- Read the answer in the interactive table, then refine your question or your filters
- Export the result as CSV, Parquet or JSON, or download the converted or compressed file
- Carry on offline if you lose your connection: once the page is loaded, every operation is local
- Use the Share tool button to send a colleague straight to the same tool
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Genuinely free, with no announced usage limit, no account and no time-limited trial
- Structural privacy: files never leave the machine, and the tools report zero bytes transmitted
- Unusually broad coverage for a free service - data, geospatial, image, audio and video in one place
- Zero friction: no sign-up, no installation, and a Command-K switcher between tools
- Keeps working offline once the page has loaded
- The AI tools remove the need to know SQL to interrogate a CSV or Parquet file
- Actively maintained: version v2.4.1, a 2026 copyright and several recently added tools
Cons
- The publisher is not identified: no legal entity, no postal address, no about page and no contact page
- A single personal email address handles both legal and GDPR requests, and no support address exists at all
- No API, no command line and no scriptable mode, so nothing can be automated or embedded in a pipeline
- Nothing is saved: without accounts there is no history, no shared workspace and no collaboration
- The privacy policy still describes the discontinued database product - credentials, accounts, subscriptions, billing - and no longer matches the catalogue
- The terms of service are minimal, dated 22 August 2023, and still carry a template canonical tag pointing at www.yourdomain.com
- No DPA, no subprocessor list, no certification, and no published position on model training
Pricing & Plans
ChatDB is entirely free of charge. There is no pricing page - /pricing returns a 404 - no amount appears anywhere on the site, and no account is required, so there is nothing to bill. The model is permanent free access rather than freemium, which is also why no free trial is offered: there is no paid tier to trial. One documentary reservation remains: the terms and privacy policy inherited from the discontinued database product still mention subscriptions and billing that the current catalogue does not use.
- unrestricted access to all 52 tools
- with no account
- no published usage limit and no paid tier
- the only documented ceiling is a file size of roughly 300 MB in the CSV editor
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how ChatDB handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR is addressed explicitly, though briefly. The privacy policy, last modified on 7 June 2025, carries a dedicated section, "Your Data Protection Rights Under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)", listing seven rights: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, withdrawal of consent and complaint to a supervisory authority. Rights are exercised by writing to caleb@chatdb.ai. On transfers, the policy states that data is moved to and processed in the United States, and cites the European Commission's standard contractual clauses under Article 46.2(c). What is missing is just as clear: no Article 27 EU representative, no data protection officer, no DPA, no subprocessor list and no certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001. ChatDB never states in so many words that it is compliant.
Who owns the data?
ChatDB never takes ownership of the files you process, because in most cases it never receives them: every tool runs inside your browser, and the CSV editor reports zero bytes transmitted. The privacy policy states that personal or proprietary data from user databases is never stored on the platform, and that stored data is permanently deleted once you remove it in the app. The two AI tools are the single exception: your rows stay local, but the column schema is sent to an external model to generate the SQL. Credentials inherited from the discontinued database product were encrypted at rest and tokenised through Basis Theory in transit.
Reuse rights
The terms of service claim no licence over the content you process and set no restriction on what you do with your own results: files you open, edit, convert or query remain yours to reuse without asking permission. The restrictions the terms do impose concern the service itself - no unauthorised access, no tampering, no automated copying by robots or scripts, no unlawful use - and not the data you bring with you. One caveat matters: both legal documents were written for the earlier database product and were never rewritten for the current file tools, so this silence should be read as an absence of rules rather than as an explicit grant of rights.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The files you process are not hosted anywhere: every tool runs in the browser, and the CSV editor reports zero bytes transmitted. Hosting therefore concerns only the personal data the site itself collects. On that point the privacy policy is explicit: data is transferred to and processed in the United States, including for users located elsewhere, with the European Commission's standard contractual clauses cited as the transfer mechanism. The site resolves to 76.76.21.21, an Amazon address geolocated in the United States, and brand assets are served from Amazon S3. No hosting region is offered as a choice, no European option exists, and no data centre or jurisdiction is named beyond that transfer to the United States. The two AI tools add one further flow: the column schema of your file is sent to a Llama-3-70b endpoint whose location the site does not document.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting ChatDB.
- No identifiable legal entity stands behind the site, so recourse in the event of a dispute is close to non-existent
- Accepting an AI-generated SQL query without reading it can produce a confident, well-formatted and simply wrong answer about your own data
- The privacy policy describes a product that no longer exists, which makes it an unreliable account of what actually happens today
- The absence of a DPA, a subprocessor list or any certification rules the service out in regulated environments
- The AI tools send your column names to an external model, and column names can themselves be confidential
- Nothing is published about whether submitted data is used to train models, so the question simply has no answer
- The previous product was closed six days after its announcement, so no continuity or availability should be assumed
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
There is effectively no setup. No installation, no configuration, no account, no API key and no connector: you open a tool page, drop a file on it and work. The AI tools require no SQL knowledge, since the model writes the query for you. The only useful prerequisite is knowing which format you are handling - CSV, Parquet, GeoJSON and so on - so that you pick the right tool from the catalogue. Command-K switches between tools, and a sample dataset can be generated if you want to try the editor before using a file of your own.
Deployment
Supported languages
Behind ChatDB
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Are my files uploaded to a server?
Do I need to create an account?
How much does ChatDB cost?
Which file formats are supported?
How do the AI tools work?
How large a file can I handle?
Is there an API?
Can I still connect my own database?
Who publishes ChatDB?
How do I exercise my GDPR rights?
Should you pick ChatDB?
ChatDB is one of those rare free utilities that earns its place by being useful immediately. Fifty-two tools, no sign-up, no installation, and a design decision that matters more than any feature: the file stays on your machine. For anyone who regularly needs to look inside a Parquet file, tidy a CSV, convert a Shapefile or compress an image, that combination is hard to beat, and it makes the tool genuinely usable on confidential material that would never be allowed near an upload form.
The reverse side is equally plain. Nobody stands behind it publicly: no legal entity, no address, no contact page, and one personal email address for every legal and privacy question. The two legal documents describe a product that was shut down in August 2024, and one of them still carries a template canonical tag. There is no DPA, no subprocessor list and no certification, which rules the service out wherever a contractual framework is required. And the precedent set by that shutdown - accounts closed six days after the announcement - is a reminder that nothing here is guaranteed to last.
The sensible reading is that ChatDB is an excellent everyday utility, not a piece of infrastructure. Use it to unblock a task in thirty seconds, to check a schema, to convert a file no other free tool will open. Do not build a recurring process on it, do not assume it will still be there next year, and read the SQL the AI writes before trusting the number it returns. Judged as what it is - a free, well-maintained, privacy-respecting toolbox - it is a very good one.
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