Beyond Robo 3T.
Modern, maintained, and full-featured.
Robo 3T (formerly Robomongo) earned a loyal following for being free and lightweight — but development has stalled and it lacks many features modern teams now expect. MQLens carries that torch forward: still free, still native and tiny (~14 MB), but with full power Robo 3T never shipped — aggregation pipelines, visual explain plans, every auth mode, encrypted credentials with biometric unlock, SSH tunnel, SOCKS5 proxy, GridFS, schema analysis, and an AI query assistant. Apache-2.0, zero telemetry.
MQLens vs Robo 3T / Robomongo
Lightweight roots, modern capabilities.
| Feature | MQLens | Robo 3T |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (Apache-2.0) | Free |
| Actively maintained | Yes — actively developed | Development has slowed significantly |
| Runtime / installer size | Native (Tauri/Rust + WebView) ~14 MB | Qt-based, modest footprint |
| Telemetry | Zero | Minimal |
| Credential encryption | AES-256-GCM + Argon2id, biometric unlock | Limited — connection strings stored with minimal protection |
| Authentication support | SCRAM-SHA-1/256, X.509, MONGODB-AWS, GSSAPI/Kerberos, LDAP — all mechanisms | Basic auth; development has slowed and it lacks many auth features modern teams expect |
| SSH tunnel | Yes | Yes |
| SOCKS5 proxy | Yes | No |
| TLS / custom CA / client cert | Yes | Basic TLS |
| Aggregation pipeline editor | Yes | No |
| Visual explain plans | Yes (find + aggregate) | No |
| Bulk edit (update-many / delete-many) | Yes — guarded confirmation | Limited |
| Schema analysis | Yes | No |
| Index management | Yes | Basic |
| GridFS browser | Yes | No |
| Embedded mongosh | Yes | Embedded shell (older mongo shell) |
| AI query assistant | Yes — bring your own key, stays in backend | No |
| macOS / Windows / Linux | Yes — all three | Yes — all three |
When Robo 3T is still worth considering
If you are on an older MongoDB deployment, only need basic document browsing and a shell, and already have years of Robo 3T muscle memory — it still works for that narrow workflow.
Try MQLens — it's free
All builds are GPG-signed; macOS bundles are Apple-notarized. See verifying downloads. Browse all releases →