SQL Server Schemas: dbo, Ownership and How Migration Tools Handle Them
What a schema is in SQL Server, why everything lands in dbo, how default schemas work, and how Flyway, Liquibase, EF Core, DbUp and FluentMigrator target schemas.
Supported database
Microsoft SQL Server schema diagrams from migrations
Run your migrations on a real SQL Server 2017, 2019, 2022, 2025 in Docker and get the resulting schema as an SVG. 17 migration tools can draw on SQL Server.
Versions
Pass the version as the version field with databaseType=MSSQL. Each one is a stock image, started fresh for every drawing.
| Version | Image |
|---|---|
2017 | mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latest |
2019 | mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest |
2022 | mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest |
2025 | mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-latest |
What the diagram shows on SQL Server
Tables land in dbo unless the migration says otherwise. SQL Server takes longer to start than the other engines, so the first seconds of a drawing are spent waiting for it.
The types are the names the engine's JDBC metadata reports, without lengths: an integer column reads int, a short text varchar, a calendar date date. Tables are read from dbo; the migration tool's own bookkeeping table is left out.
Migration tools that draw on SQL Server
- Flyway
- Liquibase
- golang-migrate
- Alembic
- goose
- Prisma Migrate
- DbUp
- FluentMigrator
- Doctrine Migrations
- Laravel
- ActiveRecord (Rails)
- Django
- EF Core
- MikroORM
- Knex.js
- Sequelize
- TypeORM
Not offered on SQL Server
- dbmate (no SQL Server driver in dbmate)
- Atlas (SQL Server is not in the Atlas Community edition)
- Drizzle ORM (Drizzle has no SQL Server migrator)
- Sqitch (Sqitch has no SQL Server engine)
- Diesel (Diesel has no SQL Server backend)
The PetClinic sample, drawn from Flyway migrations on Microsoft SQL Server 2025. Open the SVG.
Run it
Draw on SQL Server 2025
The same request works for every tool; only migrationType and the files change.
curl -X POST https://schemadrawer.com/api/v1/drawing \
-H "Request-Id: $(uuidgen)" \
-F "userId=5f0c1d2e-3a4b-4c5d-8e6f-7a8b9c0d1e2f" \
-F "migrationType=FLYWAY" \
-F "databaseType=MSSQL" \
-F "version=2025" \
-F "files=@db/migration/V1__create_owners_and_pets.sql" \
-F "files=@db/migration/V2__create_vets.sql" \
-F "files=@db/migration/V3__create_visits.sql"
# {"jobId":"0b6e2f4c-8d1a-4c3e-9f7a-2a5b6c7d8e9f"}
- uses: schemadrawercom/action@v1
with:
sql-directory: db/migration
output-path: docs/schema-diagram.svg
migration-type: FLYWAY
database-type: MSSQL
database-version: '2025'
github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
From the blog
Reading about SQL Server
Choosing Column Types: VARCHAR vs TEXT, TIMESTAMPTZ, NUMERIC vs FLOAT
A practical guide to column types in PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle and SQLite: strings, timestamps, money, booleans, JSON, enums and what diagrams report.
Transactional DDL: Why PostgreSQL Rolls Back Failed Migrations
Which engines run DDL in transactions (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite), which commit implicitly (MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle), and how to write migrations for both.
Draw your SQL Server schema now
Upload the migration directory, pick the version you deploy to, get an SVG back.