Jam SQL Studio Azure Data Studio Dashboards, Rebuilt Properly
ADS server and database dashboards with insight widgets were genuinely useful — and genuinely painful, because every widget was a block of JSON you hand-edited in settings. With Azure Data Studio retired, Jam SQL Studio rebuilds the idea as first-class SQL Dashboards: chart, stat, table, and pivot tiles configured visually, with live previews, refresh schedules, parameters, cross-filtering, and alerts.
Free for personal use • No account required • Mac, Windows, Linux • Last updated July 2026
What ADS insight widgets did — and where they hurt
Azure Data Studio let you customize its server and database dashboards with insight widgets: a T-SQL query plus a JSON definition (dashboard.database.widgets in settings.json) that rendered a count card or a small chart, with an optional details pane. Teams used them for backup status, session counts, slow queries, and database sizes.
The friction was always the authoring model. There was no visual editor: you wrote the widget JSON by hand, restarted your view to see it, and debugged typos in settings. Widgets refreshed when the dashboard opened — there were no refresh intervals, no parameters, no thresholds or alerts, and a widget was bound to the one server or database whose dashboard hosted it. None of the recommended ADS migration targets (the VS Code MSSQL extension, SSMS) carries the feature forward.
Jam SQL Studio's SQL Dashboards keep what worked — small query-backed widgets on a grid, close to your database work — and replace the JSON-in-settings authoring with a real editor.
ADS insight widgets vs Jam SQL Studio dashboards
Feature-by-feature, for the widget workflows people actually built in ADS.
| Capability | Jam SQL Studio Dashboards | ADS Insight Widgets |
|---|---|---|
| Authoring | ✓ Visual dialog with live query preview | ✗ Hand-written JSON in settings |
| Tile types | ✓ Chart, stat, table, pivot, markdown note | Count + chart insights |
| Engines | ✓ SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQLite, Kusto — mixed per tile | Bound to the host connection's dashboard |
| Auto-refresh | ✓ Per-tile intervals, read-only policy, pause when hidden | ✗ Refreshed on open |
| Parameters | ✓ Time range, lists (incl. query-driven, cascading), free text | ✗ |
| Cross-filtering | ✓ Click a chart mark to filter other tiles; drill to a query tab | ✗ |
| Alerts | ✓ Thresholds + OS notifications on stat tiles | ✗ |
| Ready-made DBA widgets | ✓ 48-template catalog across six engines | A few built-in insights |
| Sharing | ✓ Definition export/import with connection remap; PNG/PDF; HTML snapshot (Pro) | Copy JSON between settings files |
| Still maintained | ✓ | ✗ Retired Feb 28, 2026 |
Migrating an ADS widget in three steps
- Import your connections. Manage Connections → Import reads Azure Data Studio's saved connections (passwords are re-entered once on first connect — Jam SQL Studio never decrypts another tool's secrets).
- Copy the widget's query out of your ADS
settings.json(dashboard.database.widgets→ the insight'squery), open Dashboards in the main toolbar, click Add tile, and paste it into the SQL source. The live preview shows the result before anything is saved. - Pick the tile type. A count insight maps to a stat tile (with optional thresholds and an alert rule); a chart insight maps to a chart tile with the full chart builder. For the common DBA widgets — sessions, waits, sizes, backups — skip the paste entirely and insert the matching template.
The full ADS replacement guide covers the rest of the migration: notebooks, execution plans, schema compare, and the connection importer.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Azure Data Studio dashboards and insight widgets?
They retired with the product. Microsoft retired Azure Data Studio on February 28, 2026, and its server/database dashboards with insight widgets — the count and chart widgets you configured as JSON in settings — went with it. The recommended migration targets (the VS Code MSSQL extension and SSMS) do not offer an equivalent customizable query-widget dashboard.
How do I recreate an ADS insight widget in Jam SQL Studio?
Take the widget's query from your ADS settings JSON, open Dashboards in Jam SQL Studio, click Add tile, and paste the query into the SQL source. A count insight becomes a stat tile and a chart insight becomes a chart tile — configured in a visual dialog with a live preview instead of hand-written JSON. A built-in template catalog also covers the common DBA widgets out of the box.
Do Jam SQL Studio dashboards only work with SQL Server?
No. Every tile picks its own saved connection, so one dashboard can mix SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, Oracle, SQLite, and Kusto/Azure Data Explorer tiles — something ADS dashboards, which were bound to one server or database connection, could not do.
Can Jam SQL Studio import my Azure Data Studio connections?
Yes. The connection importer reads Azure Data Studio's saved connections (and those of other tools) so you don't retype servers and logins. It never decrypts another tool's stored passwords — those are re-entered once on first connect.
Rebuild your ADS dashboard in an afternoon
Free for personal use — 2 dashboards, every tile type, templates, parameters, and alerts included. Pro removes the cap.