Requirements

Last modified: June 12, 2025

Microsoft SQL Server compatibility

• SQL Server 2025
• SQL Server 2022
• SQL Server 2019, 2017, 2016 SP1, 2016, 2014, 2012, LocalDB
• SQL Server 2008, 2008R2 (including Express edition)
• SQL Server 2005 (including Express edition)
• SQL Server 2000 (limited support)
• SQL Server installed on Linux
• SQL Server on Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)
• ApsaraDB RDS
• Azure SQL Database (SQL DB)
• Azure Synapse Analytics Dedicated SQL pools
• Azure Synapse Analytics Serverless
• Azure SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI)
• Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Azure Private Link for Azure SQL Database
• Heroku Cloud

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio compatibility

• SSMS v21
• SSMS v20
• SSMS v19
• SSMS v18
• SSMS v17
• SSMS 2016 (including Express editions)

Note

Starting from version 7.0, the SQL Server Management Studio add-ins in the dbForge for SQL Server product line will no longer support integration with SSMS 2012/2014. However, previous versions of the SSMS add-ins will remain compatible with SSMS 2012/2014.

Services Compatibility

• StrongDM

System requirements

• Microsoft Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11
• Windows Server 2008/2012/2016/2019/2022/2025
• .NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher installed. You can download .NET Framework here.

Note

.NET Framework is pre-installed in Microsoft Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11.

Permissions required to use Data Compare

dbForge Data Compare can compare and synchronize data of a SQL Server database. To perform this effectively, a user needs access to the schema and the data objects of a database and may require additional privileges depending on the options of data synchronization.

SQL Server 2008 and later

Task	Permissions
Comparing data	db_owner role and SELECT permissions for the system view sys.sql_expression_dependencies
Synchronizing data	db_owner role

SQL Server 2005

Task	Permissions
Comparing data	db_owner role
Synchronizing data	db_owner role

Note

• Minimum permission you need to have to compare data with the tool is VIEW DEFINITION permission.
• If you want to compare encrypted objects, you need a system administrator role.
• With Data Compare, you can’t synchronize objects that are encrypted, in case they’re encrypted in the source.

SQL Server 2000

Task	Permissions
Gathering information about the database schema	PUBLIC role
Comparing data	db_owner role (recommended) or SELECT permissions (minimum)
Synchronizing data	db_owner role (recommended) or INSERT and UPDATE permissions in addition to SELECT permissions

Permissions issues

In case you don’t have the right permissions:

• Some objects may be missing from the comparison results
• The synchronization itself and synchronization scripts may fail or have unexpected results
• The “Disable foreign keys”, “Disable primary keys, indexes and unique constraints”, “Disable DML triggers”, “Disable DDL triggers”, or “Reseed identity columns” options require access Data Definition Language modification, so it may be necessary to add the user to the db_ddladmin role or DBO role to allow the synchronization to succeed if any of the mentioned options is configured