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IBM Informix vs SQL Server comparison

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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
28th
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
6.5
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.2%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.2%
IBM Informix1.9%
Other87.9%
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.
Shakti Gupta - PeerSpot reviewer
SQL server database administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Hybrid data platform has strengthened performance, security, and incident response for production
SQL Server is very mature, but I see areas for improvement, especially in performance tuning, troubleshooting, and automation. Although tools such as Query Store and dynamic management views are powerful, some troubleshooting tasks still require senior SQL Server database administrator expertise. It would be valuable to have more intelligent, built-in recommendations for root cause analysis, indexing, blocking, and query optimization. I would also like to see simplified and consistent management across on-premises SQL Server and Azure SQL services, as managing hybrid environments sometimes requires different tools and approaches. Finally, improved patching, updates, monitoring, and cost and license transparency could make SQL Server easier to manage at the enterprise scale. One area I would improve in SQL Server is its documentation and troubleshooting guidance. SQL Server documentation is comprehensive, but for complex production issues, I would like to see more real-world troubleshooting examples, especially for scenarios such as Always On synchronization issues, blocking and deadlocks, performance degradation, and upgrade features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is very simple."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"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 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."
"Informix can support huge quantities of data with less memory and less capacity."
"The scalability is very good."
"The solution seems to be pretty flexible."
"I like that it's relatively stable."
"When all of these are considered, our business is able to run faster, more securely, with SQL as the back-end."
"In my point of view, the MS SQL is the most inexpensive database commercial solution."
"The installation is really easy."
"Excel integration is one of its most valuable features."
"It is a typical database solution, and it is working well so far. It is easy to use, and it is also very common and popular, which makes it easy to find a support partner."
"MS SQL is the easiest of the three I tried."
 

Cons

"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"Informix is very sturdy, but the problem for us is the marketing action around Informix."
"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"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."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often. Other solutions are much more actively pushing out upgrades and improvements."
"The main area of SQL Server that can be improved is the price. The cost is substantial for using the tool."
"Microsoft support is an issue unto itself."
"The way SQL Server pivots data could be improved. For example, I would like built-in comma-separated pivot and unpivot functions."
"I would not recommend this solution."
"SSAS-MD is difficult to make changes. It's a very complicated product in general — that's the issue."
"The increasing cost of the platform is slowing adoption by the SMB space"
"SQL Server could integrate better with other platforms."
"For a big amount of data, when we are speaking about IoT Segments, and Big Data projects, there are performance issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"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."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."
"We are on an annual enterprise license for the solution and the cost of the license could be reduced."
"Licensing fees increase depending on size and performance. If you want higher performance, you should go for a different course."
"We pay per second of usage, but there are different offerings of the license."
"The pricing from Microsoft is quite expensive compared to Oracle."
"SQL Server is expensive if you use the advanced SQL version, but if you use the standard version, it's not expensive."
"The price for the Standard Edition is approximately $3,000 USD per core. Once you include technical support, SQL Server is cheaper than PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"We did a one-time payment. Its price, in general, can be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 Enterprise122
 

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: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.