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IBM Informix vs SQL Server 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 (9th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 SQL Server is 10.7%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.7%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other87.5%
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.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, this is a great product. It works really well, is very stable, and is very scalable."
"My advice is to take it; you will never regret it."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"It allows for performance tuning to maximize performance."
"The Always On tool improves the SQL server availability."
"It is easy to use for a BI specialist."
"In Poland, SQL Server is the most popular database engine, and overall, our customers like it."
"The solution is easy to use."
"SQL's performance is good enough if you have a low amount of data."
"My advice to others is SQL Server is a good tool to work with and there are a lot of community resources available to help you out in case you are stuck anywhere."
"The Microsoft SQL Server is a great and powerful data storage capable to provide many functionalities starts on free version until the power with BI resource and mirroring."
 

Cons

"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often. Other solutions are much more actively pushing out upgrades and improvements."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"Improvement in SQL Server should focus on lowering the high cost, especially for environments requiring extensive CPU and memory usage like data warehousing"
"SQL Server could improve by providing something similar to an interface or dashboard where a developer can do debugging, this would make a developer's work easier."
"The interface could be updated to make it slightly more user-friendly."
"They do not offer the SQL Server Management tool via the installation. It is a separate tool I use when I'm trying to configure the mirroring with SQL Server Mirroring."
"The product overall would benefit from the addition of better tutorials to help master the skills necessary to actually build a project database. Right now, what is available isn't sufficient."
"SQL is a highly unstable server - there are patch updates on the Windows server every week, which is why we only use it for non-critical systems."
"The pricing of the product could be better."
"Something that could be improved is the cost because it's very high. That's the only thing I'm concerned about but the technology is good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"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."
"It requires the purchase of a license."
"The product’s price depends on the specific server requirements."
"It's cheaper than Oracle."
"With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations."
"There is no licensing cost for SQL Server."
"SQL Server offers three versions. You can get a free trial for 30 days."
"We didn't have any licensing costs for SQL Server."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
4%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

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 Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise118
 

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 ...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

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
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.