Tried dbForge as an SSMS alternative and surprisingly solid
Been on SSMS forever, only tried this because a project basically forced me to switch for a bit. Figured I'd write something up since I went in pretty skeptical.
The autocomplete is actually good. SSMS IntelliSense loses context constantly (aliases in subqueries, complex CTEs, anything nested enough) dbForge Studio for SQL Server just keeps tracking. Not magic, but noticeably more reliable in the situations where SSMS gives up. Which for me is a lot of the day.
As SSMS doesn't have it natively, I was always reaching for something external. Having it right there cut a real friction point out of release prep. The diff output is readable too, not just a wall of generated SQL you have to decode before acting on it.
Tab behavior is a smaller thing but I kept noticing it. After reconnecting, SSMS tabs can act strangely, especially if there are a lot of them open. dbForge keeps state better. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over the course of a whole day.
Startup is slower and the UI is busier than SSMS. For quick administration tasks, I still reach for SSMS, that part just fits better.
But for actual development work (heavy query writing, comparing environments, prepping a release) it earned its place. Didn't expect to keep using it past the project but here we are. SSMS isn't going anywhere but this sits next to it now.
Still on SSMS as your main thing, or has something shifted that?