Brent Ozar gives us the lay of the tooling land:
Every time there’s a new release of SQL Server or SQL Server Management Studio, you can grab the latest version of SSMS and keep right on keepin’ on. Your job still functions the same way using the same tool, and the tool keeps getting better.
And it’s free. You don’t have to ask the boss for upgrade money. You can just download it, install it, and take advantage of things like the cool new execution plan est-vs-actual numbers (which also cause presenters all over to curse, knowing that they have to redo a bunch of screenshots.)
I spend a lot of time jumping back & forth between SQL Server and Postgres, and lemme just tell you, the tooling options on the other side of the fence are a hot mess.
Yeah, Management Studio is the best of the bunch. I’m using Azure Data Studio more at home but still need a couple of plugins to use it often at work. And those two beat pretty much every other tool I’ve ever worked with.