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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 June 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 10.6%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.6%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other87.6%
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

"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"The most valuable feature is concurrency and locking because my customers usually use databases in OLTP mode. So, for a large number of competitive users. Other features that are well valued are quick large-scale data types. It is better than Oracle."
"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."
"It supports in-house-built applications in .NET and VB6"
"My advice is to take it; you will never regret it."
"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The product can scale if a company needs it to."
"The most valuable feature of SQL Server is that it is easy to set up."
"The tool helps us by being available always."
"The most valuable features of SQL Server are the speed, great support, and it is from a known vendor."
"I love SQL Server's Common Table Expression, and in addition to that, I like its lead and lag functions, which helped us reduce a lot of code when comparing rows in SQL Server."
"SQL is stable."
"SQL Server is a highly stable solution."
"SQL Server's performance is fine."
 

Cons

"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."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"The solution should offer replication. It would be helpful if the solution would allow us to access third-party tools."
"For me, it's always too expensive. The problem is that Informix sometimes competes with free products, so yes, it's very expensive, but when we're talking about licensed products like SQL Server or anything, the midsize pricing could be significantly improved."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal."
"The solution is rather expensive."
"Since this is a relational order system, scalability has a limit."
"I would like to see SQL Server add the ability to write to multiple sites or support replication between multiple sites at the transaction level."
"As SQL server could not support the number of connections we desired, we were forced to go with Oracle."
"There should be more security updates for the product."
"I would like to see native plugins built for other platforms versus having to buy third-party plugins to tap into S3 buckets and AWS Cloud. Right now, it does not have those built-in plugins."
"As a software developer, it can be hard to do something in Oracle that is SQL Server specific, and vice-versa, sometimes."
"Occasionally the performance, as good as it is, is a bit off. We sometimes experience memory spiking. If they could maybe fix that aspect of the solution, that would be quite helpful for our organization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For me, it's always too expensive."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"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 am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"We're looking at alternative solutions because we think Microsoft's licensing costs have been expensive."
"If you are looking for a small setup and do not want an open-source solution or invest too much money in your database then SQL Server is a very good choice."
"For licensing, we pay yearly. The licensing is very expensive, and it should be cheaper."
"We are on an annual enterprise license for the solution and the cost of the license could be reduced."
"The product is expensive."
"Its price is fine. You have to buy the license and support."
"The licenses are purchased annually."
"We purchased our license and the pricing is fine for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.