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IBM Informix vs Oracle Database comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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)
Oracle Database
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (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 Oracle Database is 10.4%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Database10.4%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other87.8%
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.
Philemon Olusegun - PeerSpot reviewer
Qhse Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable backups and high-capacity data management have transformed large-scale census projects
When it comes to how Oracle Database can be improved, for me it is all about training and development in terms of gamification, creating awareness, and spreading the word to aspiring database administrators and database developers. As I have used it in the past and in recent times, many people are trying to get into IT, so the opportunity exists. Oracle has the market opportunity to take this time to spread its offerings and ensure that many aspiring professionals are aware of its services and products. From my perspective, there is not much to add regarding the needed improvements for the interface and the documentation. I give it a nine because I think Oracle sometimes can make things complicated. You have many services, many products, and many tools for different use cases. So it is difficult for someone who is only used to a particular product, such as Oracle Database, to understand all the other products and services that it provides. Probably streamlining it and making it available with categorized use cases for specific job roles would help. If you are a database developer, these are the tools that you need to be familiar with in Oracle's suite of products, and if you are a database administrator, these are the tools. Categorizing them based on the job role or function of people who are accessing these products and providing training capabilities on how to use them and how these products interchange and talk to each other would be very important because that is one of the things I struggled with when I started my journey as an Oracle Database administrator. Having that visibility of all the software products and providing free training and documentation on how you can improve and which products are best suited for integration to your product from Oracle would go a long way to help organizations and professionals. Regarding Oracle Database's AI capabilities, I am very keen on its governance and security. I think more work needs to be done on the security and ensuring that the database for a large number of people is watertight. AI is here to stay; however, governance and more stress testing of the AI capabilities needs to be done to ensure there is no breach of data. I would rate it currently at 6 over 10 and there is room for improvement. As long as there are government policies and Oracle policies that can mitigate any breaches of data and serious security issues, releasing people's records over the internet, there is always room for improvement in that regard.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"My advice is to take it; you will never regret it."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"It supports in-house-built applications in .NET and VB6"
"For IoT business cases, having Informix Enterprise Edition work on edge computers, like Raspberry Pi and using Informix replication, makes complex situations simple to build and maintain."
"We don't have any problems with the Informix Database."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"I do appreciate having that power to do it, even though 90% of the time I don't use those features, it's nice to have them should I need them."
"Because we are servicing the end clients, I need to meet the SLA; the performance is the key prize for us, and when a customer comes in and logs into the website, that needs to happen within a few seconds for the SLA, which has improved performance and, ultimately, gained the customer’s satisfaction."
"Oracle Database is a Gartner-listed number one database, renowned for its robust and mission-critical capabilities."
"You can scale the solution without any issues."
"Definitely the quality, enterprise-wide they have all the bells and whistles if you need a stable, secure environment, Oracle's the only way to go."
"The best thing about Oracle Database is that it performs well when measured on any scale."
"The most valuable feature is the searching; it takes less time to search."
"It is easy to set up on their engineered systems."
 

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"The solution should offer replication. It would be helpful if the solution would allow us to access third-party tools."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"In my opinion, the packages could be improved. The version I use doesn't allow for packages. I can do some general procedures, but no packages like in Oracle. So, develop separate modules in SQL language. This would be most beneficial for me."
"The product needs a lot more marketing involvement from IBM."
"The consumption of memory and the client memory has been increased exorbitantly in the most recent past."
"Oracle Database could improve by making migration less difficult and having better integration. For example, having the ability to communicate, using native features, to different databases. Mostly connectivity to different databases, such as open-source databases or any other database."
"The price of the Oracle Database should be cheaper."
"The look and feel of it needs improvement."
"Everything is good but pricing-wise, it's still struggling with that. It's very difficult to justify their costs sometimes in the board room."
"The dashboard is not user-friendly, and I would like to see it improved."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The premier support isn't enough. Oracle ACS is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"Our customers sometimes complain about the price of the license, as it is very high for them."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"Pricing for this solution is on the high side. Their licensing policy also needs to be improved."
"The license cost of Oracle Database is more expensive, and this could result in some clients moving away from it."
"It could be cheaper. We pay for the license on a yearly basis."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"The tool's price is high. The price is very high in the Asia-Pacific region. The European and US regions don't find the tool's prices high."
"We pay for an annual license as well as monthly support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing 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 Business87
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise180
 

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 ...
How do you run Oracle Database at your organization and why?
My company has been using Oracle Exadata Database Service for some years now, and we are happy with it. I will allow myself to answer your questions about why and what benefits it provides us with ...
Do you know of any disadvantages of Oracle Database?
Undoubtedly, Oracle Database is a top product in its category. But it does have its disadvantages, and for me and my organization, that has been the limitations of the product. When it comes to Ora...
What is the best use for Oracle Database?
Oracle Database is flexible and can be used for many things. My company's main use case for this product is for storing data. We benefit from its high level of security as well as from the fact tha...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
Oracle 12c, RDBMS
 

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
Agncia Nacional de guas, Anbima, Aria Systems, Asiana Airlines, Astelit LLC, Australian Finance Group, Banco Occidental de Descuento, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, BT, Caja de Seguros S.A., Casas GEO S.A.B. de C.V., Comic Relief UK, Corsair Components Inc., CSAM Health AS, CSOB Group, Datacraft Solutions, DenizBank A.S., Department of Treasury and Finance WA, Office of State Revenue, Deutsche B_rse AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Deutsche Messe AG, Digicel Haiti, DPR COSEA, Essar Group, Essatto Software Pty Ltd, Farmšcia e Drogaria Nissei Ltda., Fomento Econ‹mico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V. (FEMSA), FundaÊo Petrobras de Seguridade Social, Future Group, GFKL Financial Services AG, Grupo Posadas S.A.B. de C.V., Grupo Sinosserra, Guerra S.A. Implementos Rodovišrios, Hanatour International Service, Hays plc, Henan Mobile Co. Ltd, Hochschule Hof, Hong Kong and China Technology (Wuhan) Co. Ltd (Towngas Technology), Industries Corpa_al C.A., Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatstica, Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial, Kcell, LinkShare Corporation, MercadoLibre Inc., MetLife Inc., Nextgen Distribution, €BB-IKT GmbH, Octagon Research Solutions, Pacific Lutheran University, Paragon Data GmbH, Ping ltd., PJSC Trustbank, Prodaub _ Processamento de Dados de Uberl_ndia, Purdue University, Redknee Inc., Robi Axiata Limited, Shanghai Infoservice Technology Co. Ltd, Shanghai Sihua Technologies Co. Ltd, Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de M_xico, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Suddenlink Communications, Suprajit Engineering Limited, Tallink Grupp, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., Therap Services LLC, Think Passenger Inc., Trafigura, Transmed S.A.L Lebanon, ValeShop, VelQuest Corporation, Vodafone Group plc, West Virginia Network, WIND Hellas Telecommunications S.A
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. Oracle Database and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.