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IBM Informix vs MySQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

IBM Informix
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 6.2%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MySQL6.2%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other92.0%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Consultant at i2c
Has offered a cost-effective option despite frequent technical issues and limited market demand
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this frequent. The good thing is they cover those bugs in the next release within weeks or days on demand. IBM Informix should become hybrid and should include AI features similar to other DBMS systems such as Snowflake, Redshift, and DataBricks. This would help its value rise with the market.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities
Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Not looking at Informix would really mean a shot in your own leg before walking a long distance."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"It is very easy to install IBM Informix, very easy to scale, and support is quite better."
"This solution has made financial reporting possible by allowing financial people the opportunity to set Informix to "Auto Pilot" so that they can attend other duties."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"Flexible Grid provides the ability to automatically create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and stored procedures on all nodes within the grid as a single operation."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"Amazon has come up with Aurora, a MySQL hybrid that has helped us get up to speed without actually thinking about MySQL underlying optimizations."
"We majorly use the application now, and using MySQL to read our select queries helps us to achieve stability."
"For anyone who wants to learn SQL, MySQL is free on Linux, Windows, or Mac Operating Systems."
"It’s been used as the main databases for a lot of the developments we have done."
"It has provided a low-cost, high-availability solution without complex active/standby management using Linux HA."
"MySQL is a very useful database which is used by a lot of companies, so it should be really good."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that the product is cross-platform, because it reduces server TCO, for my small company."
"The large user base and the amount of available plugins and modules."
 

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"The product needs a lot more marketing involvement from IBM."
"The solution doesn't include functionality like data anonymization."
"Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal."
"Slower performance when using InnoDB as compared to MyISAM for using simple queries"
"The data masking functionality should be improved as well as the native encryption functionality in the MySQL database."
"I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. It does break down a little at times."
"I would like to have features that allow us to jump between the cloud and our on-premises system."
"The stability could be better. It's not as stable as I would prefer it to be."
"When it comes to stability SQL Server is better than MySQL. This is an area they could improve."
"The dynamic scalability, clustering, dynamic replicas safeguard against failures, ease of setup and use all need to be improved."
"Even for the best database, we always want the database to perform much better, so we wish MySQL would be much better, in terms of performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"The free edition can be enough to handle moderate-size implementations, but you may want a pay for edition to benefit from more functionality, such as replication."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten. The solution is not cheap but it’s a fair value. The pricing depends on the use cases of our customers. Some of our customers use the community edition which is license free and a good fit for their use cases. However, we encourage our bigger customers to sign up because of the scalability issues. The paid versions get direct technical support from Oracle."
"There is a licensing cost because we are going for a proprietary product. There are some other versions for which there is no licensing cost."
"We've never bought a commercial license. We just use the open-source community edition."
"I use the open-source free community version."
"This product has a good price point."
"It has a community version."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"The pricing falls within the moderate range."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
There is a cost reason to move from IBM Informix. It is relatively cheaper than Oracle. The second reason is that moving the whole application to a new database would require significant cost. The ...
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this f...
What is your primary use case for IBM Informix?
We are using IBM Informix for OLTP systems. We are using IBM Informix although it is a technology that is not very popular compared to others. We are using it because our application was initially ...
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.