AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to How to use LLMs to generate accurate SQL for real-world data

Hey HN, We are Zain and Ashish, founders of Vanna AI. We recently embarked on an experiment to see if large language models (specifically LLMs) could help in generating SQL queries for real-world datasets. We initially started this project as a web app but realized that it was most useful and had broadest applicability as a Python package since you can then incorporate it into an existing workflow (Jupyter notebook, Slackbot, etc). We've had some good success with customer datasets but we've generally heard a lot of skepticism so we decided to write a paper about the methodology we're using…

Vanna AI is a Python package that uses large language models to generate SQL queries for real-world databases. Developers can integrate it into existing workflows like Jupyter notebooks or Slackbots to automate SQL… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. How to use LLMs to generate accurate SQL for real-world data launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
Vanna AI – Open-sourced text-to-SQL in Python▲33
Hey there HN! We've just open-sourced Vanna – a Python package that allows you to transform questions into SQL. We've leveraged LLMs to enable you to "ask" databases what you need, bypassing the need to "write" complex SQL. Quick Overview: - "Train" using DDL statements, documentation, or known correct SQL statements. - "Ask" questions in natural language and receive SQL, tables, and charts in return. - Open Source Flexibility: Swap storage mechanisms, customize LLMs, and choose your databases. - Local or Hosted: Operate everything locally or use our hosted version for free (including…
2023 · vanna.ai · its alternatives →
2
Python package for generating accurate SQL via LLMs using RAG▲7
Hello HN! We’ve been working hard on Vanna, our RAG framework for SQL generation and we’ve been updating our documentation. Please have a look — we have a ton of Jupyter notebooks for any combination of desired use cases. At it’s heart, we have abstractions that help you: - “train” a RAG “model” i.e. add metadata for the retrieval augmentation system to reference when constructing the LLM prompt (yes, we know that the terms “train” and “model” are somewhat confusing and we’re open to changing those terms if you can suggest better ones) - “ask” questions, which will generate SQL, run it,…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)▲436
I spent a few hours last weekend testing whether AI can replace code by executing directly. Built a contact manager where every HTTP request goes to an LLM with three tools: database (SQLite), webResponse (HTML/JSON/JS), and updateMemory (feedback). No routes, no controllers, no business logic. The AI designs schemas on first request, generates UIs from paths alone, and evolves based on natural language feedback. It works—forms submit, data persists, APIs return JSON—but it's catastrophically slow (30-60s per request), absurdly expensive ($0.05/request), and has zero UI…
Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
4
Marvin – build AI functions that use an LLM as a runtime▲127
Hey HN! We're excited to share our new open-source project, Marvin. Marvin is a high-level library for building AI-powered software. We developed it to address the challenges of integrating LLMs into more traditional applications. One of the biggest issues is the fact that LLMs only deal with strings (and conversational strings at that), so using them to process structured data is especially difficult. Marvin introduces a new concept called AI Functions. These look and feel just like regular Python functions: you provide typed inputs, outputs, and docstrings. However, instead of relying on…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
5
LLMs can generate valid JSON 100% of the time▲854
Outlines is a Python library that focuses on text generation with large language models. Brandon and I are not LLM experts and started the project a few months ago because we wanted to understand better how the generation process works. Our original background is probabilistic, relational and symbolic programming. Recently we came up with a fast way to generate text that matches a regex (https://blog.normalcomputing.ai/posts/2023-07-27-regex-guide...). The basic idea is simple: regular expressions have an equivalent Deterministic-Finite Automaton (DFA) representation. We…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
6
We open sourced our entire text-to-SQL product▲464
Long story short: We (Dataherald) just open-sourced our entire codebase, including the core engine, the clients that interact with it and the backend application layer for authentication and RBAC. You can now use the full solution to build text-to-SQL into your product. The Problem: modern LLMs write syntactically correct SQL, but they struggle with real-world relational data. This is because real world data and schema is messy, natural language can often be ambiguous and LLMs are not trained on your specific dataset. Solution: The core NL-to-SQL engine in Dataherald is an LLM based agent…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
7
Dataherald AI – Natural Language to SQL Engine▲215
Hi HN community. We are excited to open source Dataherald’s natural-language-to-SQL engine today (https://github.com/Dataherald/dataherald). This engine allows you to set up an API from your structured database that can answer questions in plain English. GPT-4 class LLMs have gotten remarkably good at writing SQL. However, out-of-the-box LLMs and existing frameworks would not work with our own structured data at a necessary quality level. For example, given the question “what was the average rent in Los Angeles in May 2023?” a reasonable human would either assume the…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
8
Improve Text-to-SQL Accuracy with LLM▲17
A repository that contains models, datasets, and fine-tuning techniques for DB-GPT, with the purpose of enhancing model performance in Text-to-SQL - eosphoros-ai/DB-GPT-Hub
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
9
FinetuneDB – AI fine-tuning platform to create custom LLMs▲152
Hey HN! We’re building FinetuneDB (https://finetunedb.com/), an LLM fine-tuning platform. It enables teams to easily create and manage high-quality datasets, and streamlines the entire workflow from fine-tuning to serving and evaluating models with domain experts. You can check out our docs here: (https://docs.finetunedb.com/) FinetuneDB exists because creating and managing high-quality datasets is a real bottleneck when fine-tuning LLMs. The quality of your data directly impacts the performance of your fine-tuned models, and existing tools didn’t offer an easy…
2024 · finetunedb.com · its alternatives →
10
TensorZero▲307
Hi HN! We're Gabriel & Viraj, and we're excited to open source TensorZero. To be a little cheeky, TensorZero is an open-source platform that helps LLM applications graduate from API wrappers into defensible AI products. 1. Integrate our model gateway 2. Send metrics or feedback 3. Unlock compounding improvements in quality, cost, and latency It enables a data & learning flywheel for LLMs by unifying: • Inference: one API for all LLMs, with <1ms P99 overhead • Observability: inference & feedback → your database • Optimization: better prompts, models, inference strategies • Experimentation:…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
11NL
Natural Language to SQL "Text-to-SQL" API▲62
Hi HN- Today, we are releasing the hosted API for our natural language to SQL engine, which allows you to: (1) Explain Your Data: Feed in dictionaries, dbt, schemas, Confluence docs - we'll understand the business context to your data. (2) Train Your AI: Fine-tune an LLM (including GPT-4) specifically for your data, increasing accuracy and lowering latency (3) Trust the Answer: See confidence scores with each AI-generated query, stay in control. (4) Conduct complex SQL queries Problem background - Developers struggle to build NL-to-SQL into products because LLMs do not work out-of-the-box;…
2024 · dataherald.com · its alternatives →
12
TuneTrain.ai▲79
Do you know that Small Language Models (SLM) can outperform LLMs if trained (fine-tuned) on domain specific datasets, like your companies knowledge base? The issue: fine-tuning a SLM usually requires a dataset of 10k - 100k records, which is huge. I created a platform for applying "human in the loop" augmentation techniques on your small dataset, so that you can start with maybe 100 records and build-up quickly huge datasets and launch a training without prior knowledge. I implemented 2 techniques, based on LLM distillation, however: more to come. HN, what Do you think? Do you see value in…
2025 · tunetrain.ai · its alternatives →
13
How we leapfrogged traditional vector based RAG with a 'language map'▲162
TL;DR: Vector-based RAG performs poorly for many real-world applications like codebase chats, and you should consider 'language maps'. Part of our mission at Mutable.ai is to make it much easier for developers to build and understand software. One of the natural ways to do this is to create a codebase chat, that answer questions about your repo and help you build features. It might seem simple to plug in your codebase into a state-of-the-art LLM, but LLMs have two limitations that make human-level assistance with code difficult: 1. They currently have context windows that are too small to…
2024 · twitter.com · its alternatives →
14
DB-GPT, an LLM tool for database▲156
open-source agentic AI data assistant for the next generation of AI + Data products. - eosphoros-ai/DB-GPT
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
15TL
Tiny LLMs – Browser-based private AI models for a wide array of tasks▲142
2023 · tinyllms.vercel.app · its alternatives →
16
Local LLMs by Sttabot AI▲112
Build local LLMs using top data science libraries
2023 · its alternatives →
17
LLM Explorer▲152
Find your best LLM for a local inference
2023 · its alternatives →
18
LLMWare – Small Specialized Function Calling 1B LLMs for Multi-Step RAG▲51
Hi, I was a corporate lawyer for many years working with a lot of financial services and insurance companies. In practicing law, I noticed there was a lot of repetition in the tasks I was working on even as a highly paid attorney that could be automated. I wanted to solve the problem of dealing with a lot information and data in a practical way, using AI. This motivated me to start AI Bloks/LLMWare with my husband, who had a deep background in software and is a very early adopter of AI. We have been on this journey with our open source project LLMWare for the past 4 months, producing a…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
19
Datatune ▲38
Modern AI tools use SQL/Code generation agents or RAG to access the user data to perform transformations. However, the drawback is that this doesn't provide row-level intelligence, especially in case of semantic intelligence is required to understand how to perform the transfromations on each row of the data. We've released Datatune (https://github.com/vitalops/datatune) as a tool to let users connect entire user Data with LLMs and Agents, to help users access their entire data with just a prompt. While building Agents for a customer who had large amounts of data, we…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
Misata – synthetic data engine using LLM and Vectorized NumPy▲24
Hey HN, I’m the author. I built Misata because existing tools (Faker, Mimesis) are great for random rows but terrible for relational or temporal integrity. I needed to generate data for a dashboard where "Timesheets" must happen after "Project Start Date," and I wanted to define these rules via natural language. How it works: LLM Layer: Uses Groq/Llama-3.3 to parse a "story" into a JSON schema constraint config. Simulation Layer: Uses Vectorized NumPy (no loops) to generate data. It builds a DAG of tables to ensure parent rows exist before child rows (referential integrity).…
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
21
FiddleCube – Generate Q&A to test your LLM▲78
Convert your vector embeddings into a set of questions and their ideal responses. Use this dataset to test your LLM and catch failures caused by prompt or RAG updates. Get started in 3 lines of code: ``` pip3 install fiddlecube ``` ``` from fiddlecube import FiddleCube fc = FiddleCube(api_key="") dataset = fc.generate( [ "The cat did not want to be petted.", "The cat was not happy with the owner's behavior.", ], 10, ) dataset ``` Generate your API key: https://dashboard.fiddlecube.ai/api-key # Ideal QnA datasets for testing, eval and training LLMs Testing, evaluation or…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
22
Open-source AI data generator (now hosted)▲39
Hey HN! A few months ago we shared our AI dataset generator as an open source repo, and the response was incredible (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44388093). We got requests from folks who wanted to use it without the hosting overhead, so we created both options: a hosted version (https://www.metabase.com/ai-data-generator for instant use and the source code fully open (https://github.com/metabase/dataset-generator) for anyone who wants to self-host or contribute. Looking forward to seeing how you use it and what you build on top of…
2025 · metabase.com · its alternatives →
23
Marvin 2.0 – a lightweight, multi-modal AI toolkit▲20
Hey HN! We just released Marvin 2.0. Marvin is an AI toolkit for developers who want to use LLMs with traditional software. We still see significant challenges integrating LLMs because of how difficult it is to get them to reliably accept and return structured data. Marvin consists of independent, functional tools that address this problem in a variety of ways. Marvin has always been focused on using LLMs to work with native Python datatypes and Pydantic models. In 2.0 we've expanded this significantly with dedicated APIs for the most common use cases we've seen over the last year:…
2024 · factsmachine.ai · its alternatives →
24
LLM, a Rust Crate/CLI for CPU Inference of LLMs (LLaMA, GPT-NeoX, etc.)▲45
G'day, HN! I'm one of the maintainers of `llm`. I've been working alongside a trusty group of contributors to bring this project to life, and we're now at a point where we're ready to share it with the world. Large language models (LLMs) are taking the computing world by storm due to their emergent abilities that allow them to perform a wide variety of tasks, including translation, summarization, code generation, and even some degree of reasoning. However, the ecosystem around LLMs is still in its infancy, and it can be difficult to get started with these models. `llm` is a one-stop shop for…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

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