It is the successor to DBDesigner 4 from fabFORCE.net, and replaces the previous package of software, MySQL GUI Tools Bundle.

[3] It was written in 2002/2003 by the Austrian programmer Michael G. Zinner for his fabFORCE.net platform using Delphi 7 / Kylix 3.

[4][5] While being a physical-modeling only tool DBDesigner4 offers a comprehensive feature set including reverse engineering of MySQL databases, model-to-database synchronization, model poster printing, basic version control of schema models and a SQL query builder.

[18] On January 23, 2014 the MySQL Workbench Team announced[19] its first public beta release of Version 6.1.

On August 19, 2014, the MySQL Workbench Team announced[21] its first public beta release of Version 6.2.

[22] New features are shortcut buttons for common operations, "pinning" of the results tab, Microsoft Access Migration,[23] MySQL Fabric Integration, Spatial View Panel to visualize spatial and geometry data, Geometry Data Viewer, Result Set Width, SQL editor tabs are properly saved, Shared Snippets, a new Run SQL Script dialog, Model Script Attachments, Client Connections management has a new "Show Details" window where more information about connections, locks, and attributes is displayed, performance columns can display sizes in KB, MB, or GB, the migration wizard can resume operations of data copying if interrupted, MySQL connection password is remembered across the MySQL Workbench session.

On March 5, 2015, the MySQL Workbench Team announced[24] its first public beta release of Version 6.3.

[25] New features include a "fast migration" option to migrate the data from the command-line instead of the GUI, a SSL certificate generator, improved SQL auto-completion, a new table data import and export wizard, and MySQL Enterprise Firewall support.

The first General Availability (GA) release appeared on July 27, 2018[29] again together with the server following the new policy for aligning version numbers across most of MySQL products.

The new versions add support for new language features in MySQL 8.0, such as common-table expressions and roles.