Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Oracle SQL Developer vs dbForge Studio for SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

dbForge Studio for SQL Server
Ranking in IDE
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle SQL Developer
Ranking in IDE
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IDE category, the mindshare of dbForge Studio for SQL Server is 3.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 4.1%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle SQL Developer4.1%
dbForge Studio for SQL Server3.6%
Other92.3%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

Lucas Dreyer - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable, scalable solution with excellent administration
The initial setup is straightforward. It's quite easy to create databases, administrate databases, and set up a backup. It's quite easy to install and to manage. Deployment can take up to three hours if you are installing the full SQL server. Setting up just the database is a couple of minutes. I haven't set up a full backup, or any of that myself. I've set up backups to local disks, however, and that's quite easy to do. Setting up jobs, or maintenance jobs that are running statistics on variables, shrinking, translating locked files, etc., only take a few minutes to set up. A full configuration would take two hours maximum.
Vikram_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved development efficiency through reusable components and intuitive programming features
When errors occur while programming, they are very generic. Even when searching the internet, the errors remain generic and it takes considerable time to understand the fix. This was predominantly felt because we were mostly working on writing code and developing features. Error handling needs to be improved. The patches and upgrade process is very long. In the last year and a half, I haven't upgraded, so we don't know if latest features have arrived. Another issue is with sessions. If we were working on code and then switch off our laptop for two to three days, the session would keep running. This consumes many resources and flags to the team that a user has been continuously using Oracle SQL Developer. There should be a timeout period for inactive sessions.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's quite easy to install and use from a local machine or laptop, as well as on a server."
"I like the ease of use and quick data usage."
"It allows us to implement a form of test driven development (TDD) for database-resident code."
"You can install it on every platform. It just works. The other thing is that it's free. And Oracle is committed to the development of the tool, so it has been improving."
"The most valuable features of Oracle SQL Developer that I use. However, I do not use all of them"
"You do not have to install it, just dump it on the OS, then use it."
"Ability to analyze performance, using Explain Plan statement."
"Using execution plan, I am able to do lots of query tuning."
"I have a lot of flexibility with it."
"It's easy to deploy, I can copy it onto the system and run it without having to install it and this makes it a very good solution for quick use."
 

Cons

"The only issue that I have is that it depends on hardware resources, it takes a lot, that is the only set back with the solution."
"The lock files and login are two features we've had issues with. As far as I can see, there's no way to switch off the login in SQL Servers. If there could be a way to switch off the login, for transactions, or in operations, or tables, that'd be great."
"There is room for improvement in the Real Time SQL Monitoring."
"Oracle SQL Developer could improve the speed, it is a bit slow."
"The stability depends on what version you're using. There are more successful versions and are less successful versions. For example, 17.3 is less successful. There were many bugs. Now, we are trying to pull all the developers to upgrade to 17.4."
"Scalability has room for improvement. Often if you have to do a heavy load of queries or are getting large result sets you have to be careful not to overload the Java virtual machine that's running."
"It would be nice to have the ability to access DBs than Oracle."
"I think it would be great to have an overview over the sessions it opens so that we could easily see and control which connections to the database we want to keep open, which ones are hanging; and it would be great to make them independent from each other."
"I would like it to support background processes better."
"It's more stable sometimes and less stable other times. I have used it in Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's variable, it's not the same stability. I think that can be improved on."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Because it's 2012 version, it's a one-off enterprise license that we have never had to upgrade."
"It has the advantage that it's free. The next best competitor would cost several thousand dollars."
"It's a free tool."
"It is basically free."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IDE solutions are best for your needs.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
23%
Insurance Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Oracle SQL Developer?
Oracle SQL Developer has disadvantages, such as the inability to execute or debug a query in a stored procedure, which is something we had in TOAD, a licensed tool with a richer feature set. So, we...
What is your primary use case for Oracle SQL Developer?
I have been working with Oracle SQL Developer for different database entities, such as scheduling jobs that run on data and send mail notifications using an SMTP server. Additionally, we handle var...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle SQL Developer?
I recommend users looking to implement Oracle SQL Developer to consider using cloud solutions instead of relying solely on Oracle DB, as the cloud offers better scalability and reduces maintenance ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Boeing, Sony, Honda, Oracle, BMW, Samsung
Prinova
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle SQL Developer vs. dbForge Studio for SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.