Testing a new feature or building a sales demo means you need data — customer names, orders, dates — but using real customer records is a privacy risk and an empty database makes every screen look broken. The fix is fake data that looks realistic without being real: rows of plausible names, addresses and order histories generated on demand. Two tools built specifically for this keep showing up as each other's alternative: As of Now and Mockaroo.
The short version: As of Now is the newer, visual-first option — no SQL required, relational consistency kept between records, and dates that auto-refresh so a demo built in January still looks current in June. Mockaroo is the established generalist — a decade of format support (CSV, JSON, SQL, Excel) and API mocking that As of Now doesn't attempt. Here's what actually separates them.
As of Now — fake data that doesn't go stale
As of Now builds fake-but-realistic sample data — customers, orders, dates — through a visual interface, with no SQL or schema-writing required. Its standout feature is that dates regenerate automatically, so a demo dataset built months ago still shows "yesterday" and "this week" instead of timestamps that quietly reveal the demo hasn't been touched since spring. It also keeps relational consistency between records — an order still belongs to the same fake customer across exports — which matters when you're demoing a real workflow, not just filling a table.
Watch out for: it's still in beta, the free plan caps out at 3 saved models and 50,000 rows per model, and the Pro plan — which is meant to add a CLI and AI-generated text fields — isn't available yet, so if you need those specifically, they're not there today.
Pick As of Now if: you're building sales demos or QA fixtures that need to look freshly generated every time someone opens them, and you'd rather click through a UI than write a data schema by hand.
Mockaroo — the established generalist
Mockaroo generates realistic test data in CSV, JSON, SQL and Excel formats, and can also create mocks for back-end APIs — useful when the thing you're testing isn't a demo dataset but an integration that expects a specific response shape. It's been around long enough that most developers have used it at least once, with a wide field-type library (names, addresses, credit card numbers, custom regex patterns) covering edge cases As of Now's newer catalog hasn't built out yet.
Watch out for: generated dates and values are static once exported — there's no auto-refresh, so a dataset made for a demo six months ago will show visibly old timestamps unless you regenerate it manually. Paid plans start at $60/year for higher row limits and saved schemas.
Pick Mockaroo if: you need a specific export format (Excel, raw SQL inserts) or API mocking that As of Now doesn't cover, and stale demo dates aren't a concern for your use case.
| As of Now | Mockaroo | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Visual, no SQL | Field-by-field schema builder |
| Export formats | XLSX, CSV, JSON, SQL | CSV, JSON, SQL, Excel + API mocking |
| Dates stay current | Yes, auto-refresh | No, static once generated |
| Free tier | 3 models, 50,000 rows/model, unlimited exports | Limited rows, no card required |
| Paid plan | $19/mo (Pro, upcoming features not all live) | From $60/year |
| Maturity | Beta | Established, ~decade in the market |
If the demo or test dataset is something people will look at repeatedly over time — a sales demo environment, a staging database you keep around — As of Now's auto-refreshing dates solve a real annoyance Mockaroo doesn't address. If you need a one-off export in a specific format or you're mocking an API response, Mockaroo's maturity and format range still make it the safer default.