LocalDB vs Oracle Database comparison

Microsoft and Oracle are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #14 with an average rating of 10.0, while Oracle is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3. Microsoft holds a 2.0% mindshare in SQL, compared to Oracle’s 12.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

LocalDB

Read 6 LocalDB reviews

1,523 Views
1,523 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Oracle Database

Read 290 Oracle Database reviews

8,706 Views
8,184 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

LocalDB

Oracle Database

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Oracle Database and LocalDB compete in the database management systems category, with Oracle Database holding the upper hand due to its extensive features that cater to large-scale enterprise needs.

Features: Oracle Database provides remarkable features such as high availability with solutions like Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Data Guard, which ensure minimal downtime. It excels in scalability and performance handling significant data volumes efficiently. Extensive security measures bolster system integrity, crucial for enterprises handling sensitive data. LocalDB, on the other hand, supports application developers with easy integration into applications. It is lightweight and doesn't require extensive configuration, catering well to small to medium projects. It offers features like fast setup, seamless integration with SQL Server, and is free, which is beneficial for budget-conscious projects.

Room for Improvement: Oracle Database faces challenges related to its high cost and complex licensing structure, which can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. Additionally, its initial setup and configuration can be cumbersome for new users. LocalDB needs enhancements in integration capabilities and enterprise scalability to broaden its application beyond local development, as it currently lacks the robust features needed for larger deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle Database offers robust deployment options including on-premises and hybrid models, accompanied by extensive support systems, albeit at a high cost and with a steep learning curve. Its support framework is appreciated, though improvements in response time are desired by users. LocalDB is straightforward to deploy and community support is adequate for basic queries, but it lacks extensive customer service, reflecting its focus on smaller scale, local development environments.

Pricing and ROI: Oracle Database is positioned at the higher end of the pricing spectrum, necessitating careful consideration of ROI for its comprehensive capabilities, suitable for large enterprises with significant budgets. LocalDB is free as part of SQL Server Express, offering a cost-effective solution for smaller operations, though it doesn't provide the same complex development potential that Oracle Database offers to large enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed LocalDB vs. Oracle Database Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

LocalDB vs. Oracle Database

July 2025

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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

LocalDB

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

14th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Database

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

290

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of LocalDB is 2.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Database is 12.9%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj

Founder & CEO at imfine.club

The database always has structured data, like rows, columns, and bases

LocalDB is an excellent solution for learners, beginners, and projects of negligible size; it is very good. Any startup can use a local database to start. Once they grow beyond its limits, they can migrate to a MS SQL server that's also available on-premises. I rate it ten out of ten.

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Ismail Aboulezz

Chief Executive Officer at LeaseWeb

Continuous updates improve performance and add valuable features to meet workload demands

Oracle Database is easy to install, customize, troubleshoot, and maintain. Its data management capabilities include data quality, data integration, data architecture, modeling, and data security, which are very important for data-driven companies. Furthermore, Oracle Database's performance and scalability features meet workload demands, and its continuous updates improve performance and add valuable features.

Read full review

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 was simple."

"The solution is fast."

"The initial setup is very straightforward. The guidelines are very easy to follow. Maintenance is very easy and requires very little manpower."

"The most valuable feature of LocalDBis the connection between the application and DB."

"LocalDB is an excellent solution for learners, beginners, and projects of negligible size; it is very good."

"The solution has an endless capacity."

"It is reliable. It's very stable."

"RDBMS with good performance and technical support. It's a scalable, stable, secure, and easy to implement solution that can be deployed both on cloud and on-premises."

"I really appreciate the performance of Oracle. When using AWR records you can really see where a problem is. You can get advice about which queries are the heaviest for the database. You also can see advice for indexes. If an index isn't used, then you can just remove it to improve performance. This is a really good feature. Also, the JDBC connection is quite good. Finally, the object types are really good, the types of tables you can use in PL/SQL are also really helpful."

"The most valuable features of Oracle Database are the Data Guard because it does replication and the integration layer, such as GoldenGate."

"You can scale the solution without any issues."

"There is a lot of functionality in Oracle Database. The reports and the GUI are good."

"It does what I want it to do. It has got a lot of features. Anytime I need a feature, I am able to find it in Oracle Database. It has never happened that I found a feature in any other database, but I was not able to find it in Oracle."

More Oracle Database pros

Cons

"The internal connection features of LocalDB could improve."

"The ALM features can be improved, but the database by itself is reliable."

"The initial setup is complex and requires a skilled person."

"It is only for a small amount of data. Local DB is made for the purpose of small-volume optics."

"The solution needs to create a management tool. Right now, the solution has tools for creating a local installation, but it's too simplistic. We need something that's a bit more complex so that we can extend the tools with our scripts."

"Oracle needs to improve its cluster technologies. They need to improve in the cluster technology using ARC due to the fact that sometimes people think that they have a redundant server when they are using ARC with the cluster and think that will increase the performance. In reality, if they are using ii with a big workload, sometimes the performance is not increasing, and can sometimes actually impacts it in such a way that there's some degradation in the performance."

"I have contacted the support from Oracle and they are sometimes slow."

"Frankly speaking, Oracle Database is very expensive."

"The Oracle Database could improve on integration with other infrastructure systems like Active Directory."

"Technical support needs improvement."

"The solution can be quite expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises. Not too many companies can actually afford the pricing."

"When it comes to Oracle, the only complaint that I have is their support. For business-critical cases, finding support is a little bit difficult because of the timezone difference. They should provide faster support to resolve issues on time."

"Oracle itself does not provide an excellent migration tool to users, which is a shortcoming where the product needs to improve a lot."

More Oracle Database cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is too high for LocalDB."

"The fees are fair."

"Our licensing costs are between $40,000 and $50,000 per year. Those are the costs that cover maintenance and licensing."

"It is quite expensive."

"It's not cheap, but sometimes, you get what you pay for."

"It's expensive. I would say that it is more expensive than other competing products."

"My company has opted for perpetual licensing. We only need to make payments toward the licensing of the product."

"You buy it initially, and then you pay for yearly support if you need support. If you don't need support, you can also use it without the support."

"Its price is already low. Oracle has a competitive and cheaper price as compared to others. Oracle Cloud is cheaper than other clouds. The pricing is very competitive for Oracle Cloud to be in the market. Their pricing makes customers interested in using this product even though Oracle doesn't have a local data center at this moment."

"Generally, when you buy Oracle Database, and if you're buying it for your own data center on the on-prem side, you have to go by the processor cores and the list price is around $47,500 for the enterprise edition per core."

More Oracle Database pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for LocalDB?

It's free of cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with LocalDB?

Technically speaking, you don't need to get any updates because it's not online. It's on-premise. So once it is installed, then you get a desktop-grade version. But the purpose of LocalDB is not th...

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What is your primary use case for LocalDB?

There were multiple systems, some planned, like the mainframe, the gold database, a website, and a manual Excel spreadsheet. These were the various data sources, and we wanted to bring everything i...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

SQL Server vs LocalDB

Compared 72% of the time

MySQL vs LocalDB

Compared 15% of the time

MariaDB vs LocalDB

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Database In-Memory vs LocalDB

Compared 6% of the time

More LocalDB Competitors

SAP HANA vs Oracle Database

Compared 22% of the time

SQL Server vs Oracle Database

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs Oracle Database

Compared 11% of the time

Tibero vs Oracle Database

Compared 9% of the time

MariaDB vs Oracle Database

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle Database Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Relational Databases Tools

August 2025

Download LocalDB product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Database

August 2025

Download Oracle Database product report

Also Known As

No data available

Oracle 12c, RDBMS

Overview

LocalDB is a lightweight version of the SQL Server Express Database Engine that is targeted for program development. LocalDB starts on demand and runs in user mode, so there is no complex configuration.

Microsoft

Oracle Database is a top-ranking multi-model database management system by Oracle Corporation. Through Oracle database services and products, clients receive cost-optimized and high-performing versions of Oracle Database, as well as in-memory, NoSQL, and MySQL databases. The solution is available by several service providers on premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid installation. It can be run on vendor servers as well as on Oracle hardware, including Exadata on-premise, Oracle Cloud, or Cloud at Customer.

Users can select from various types of Oracle Database solutions, depending on what they aim to do with this product. Based on their specific needs, they can choose among options that include:

Autonomously managed Oracle databases: This type of database eliminates the complexity of operating and securing Oracle Database, while simultaneously ensuring high levels of performance, scalability, and availability for users.
Oracle Database on Exadata: Users who seek particularly fast platforms can select this type of running solution. Exadata is a computing platform that is optimized for running Oracle Databases and it serves as the fastest platform for Oracle Database.
Oracle Database on-premises deployment: The product allows for deployment on-premises for clients who have data residency and network latency concerns. This option also offers customers the benefit of updated Oracle Cloud technology, including Exadata and Autonomous Database.
Oracle Database in the cloud: Organizations can use a specific version of this tool in the cloud, benefiting from complete control over the versions they run and when these versions change.

Part of this product is a fully automated database service called Oracle Autonomous Database, which facilitates the development and deployment of application workloads for organizations. It is built on Oracle Database as well as on Oracle Exadata. This service supports various data types and simplifies application development and deployment from modeling and coding to extract, transform, load process (ETL), data analysis, and database optimization. The service achieves high results in:

Performance
Availability
Security for online transaction processing (OLTP)
Analytics
Batch
Internet of Things (IoT) workloads

Oracle Database Features

Oracle Database has various features which users can utilize in their work with the solution. Among these features are the following:

Backup and recovery: Oracle Database ensures the integrity of users' data in system failure situations. This feature utilizes a tool named Recovery Manager (RMAN), which allows administrators to perform cold, hot, and incremental database backups, as well as point-in-time recoveries.
Clustering: This feature enables high availability of systems in order to run without interruption of services on occasions when one or more servers in a cluster fail. Included is a tool called Oracle Real Application Clusters.
Data dictionary: Through this set of internal tables and views, Oracle Database can be administered more efficiently.
Logical data structure: Through its feature for logical data structure, Oracle Database stores data in a way that allows users to interact with the database without knowing where the physical storage of the data is located.
Memory catching: Through the memory caching architecture feature, users can scale up very large databases and still perform at a considerably high speed.
Partitioning: This feature allows users to divide large tables into different pieces and store the pieces across storage devices.

Oracle Database Benefits

Oracle Database offers its users various benefits. Some of these include:

The solution decreases costs for organizations and provides a high return on investment (ROI) through the multiple services and features it offers.
Oracle Database has high-security protection which includes encryption, key management, data masking, and activity monitoring, that secures organizations' data within the tool.
The tool offers users the ability to use a single database for all data types, simplifying the process for them.
Oracle Database can be deployed in multiple places, including data centers and public and private clouds, which allows great flexibility for users.
The product allows applications from different platforms to communicate with the database through its networking stack.
Oracle Database is ACID-compliant, which helps maintain data reliability and integrity.

Reviews from Real Users

Paul S., president at Advance Consulting Enterprise, likes Oracle Database because it gets the job done, doesn't fail, and suitable for massively scalable applications.

An Oracle DBA at a computer software company describes Oracle Database as reliable with good performance and very good stability.

Oracle

Sample Customers

AstraZeneca, Kienzle Automotive GmbH, Kodak Alaris, Unilever, Floatel International and Kongsberg Maritime, MyHero

Agncia 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), FundaÊo 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 Estatstica, 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 Ro 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

Buyer's Guide

LocalDB vs. Oracle Database

July 2025

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