12 critical questions to ask vendors before buying a text-to-SQL tool

A technical guide published on DEV Community outlines 12 evaluation questions buyers should ask text-to-SQL vendors before committing to a purchase. The article argues that product demos are misleading because they typically showcase clean, small schemas, while real-world databases are far more complex and error-prone. Key concerns raised include how vendors measure accuracy, what verification badges actually certify, and whether identical questions phrased differently return consistent results. The piece warns that wrong answers from such tools are especially dangerous because end users, particularly in finance, often cannot distinguish correct outputs from plausible-looking incorrect ones. Buyers are advised to test vendors live during meetings using questions with known answers rather than relying on polished demonstrations.