Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Foglight for Databases pros and cons

Vendor: Quest Software

4.2 out of 5

15 reviews
94% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Foglight for Databases provides real-time analysis of database server issues with extensive reporting and SQL PI for query performance insights. It includes Change Tracking for server configurations, and visualization features for resource management. However, reporting lags with two-year data on 20 SQL Servers, and alerts require improvements. Postgres monitoring should match SQL Server, stability needs enhancement for monitoring over 150 Db2 servers, and data modeling could improve custom report creation.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Foglight for Databases provides real-time data, aiding in the analysis of ongoing database server issues with immense reporting capabilities.

SQL PI feature allows detailed investigation into queries, identifying contention and performance issues, significantly improving performance analysis.

Change Tracking capabilities offer immediate insights into server and instance configurations, saving significant time and providing comprehensive monitoring.

The platform efficiently visualizes multiple database servers on a single interface, offering a 360-degree overview of resource utilization and DB parameters.

SQL Performance Investigator allows for in-depth analysis of platform activities, offering detailed investigation across instances and time periods.

CONS

Reporting becomes sluggish and unresponsive when holding data for two years for 20 SQL Servers.

Communication and alerts regarding full transaction logs need improvement.

Monitoring capabilities for Postgres should be at par with SQL Server.

System stability issues arise when monitoring over 150 Db2 servers in each Foglight instance.

Data model improvement is needed for creating custom reports.

Foglight for Databases Pros review quotes

Senior Database Consultant at Novaccent

Oct 2, 2018

Its reporting capabilities are immense.

Read full review

KS

Sr. Database Administrator at a sports company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 29, 2020

The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact.

Read full review

AN

Anthony Nicoletti

Database Administrator, Information Technology at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 9, 2020

Foglight's Change Tracking capabilities are another huge feature. It is wonderful to be able to do that. People don't realize the amount of information that Foglight gathers from a given server or instance. It gets down to the version of SQL, the disk array, everything that's there. Any change that's made, any upgrade to SQL, shows up on the dashboard almost immediately. You don't know how much time you save just having a tool in your back pocket that does that for you.

Read full review

Foglight for Databases

Free Report: Foglight for Databases Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Foglight for Databases. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

VE

Vinothsingh Elumalai

Lead Software Engineer at Lowe's Companies

Dec 20, 2020

We can visualize all the different types of DB servers that we are monitoring in a single pane of glass. It uses a 360-degree overview of the database, for each of those databases that we are monitoring. That includes what kind of resource utilization is happening and what kind of DB parameters are getting monitored, as well as the different types of DB parameters that are being offered for each database type.

Read full review

reviewer1515096

Senior Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 21, 2021

Foglight is also able to help the DBAs proactively fix problems before they become an issue. It provides them with real-time activity screens that help in this regard. The DBAs are able to go to these screens and look at what's happening in real time, and that buys them time. It helps them see problems ahead of time and find solutions to them.

Read full review

JW

Database Administrator at AmTrust Financial Services, Inc.

Mar 14, 2021

The real-time activity screens are also helpful... if there is something that is running slowly, we can eliminate the database as being an issue and perhaps look at the server, network activity, or something outside of the realm of the database as being the issue.

Read full review

Manager of Database Services at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 8, 2021

The ability to monitor multiple database platforms streamlines our database operations. The single pane of glass is what we were really after when we picked Foglight. We knew we wanted something that could monitor cross-platform because it does save a lot of time to use the same tool. The one thing that I like with Foglight is that we don't have to install anything locally, like agents, directly on the database servers. That was also a big seller because it simplifies things.

Read full review

reviewer2011635

Sales & Operations Planning Manager at a retailer with 201-500 employees

Nov 2, 2022

The alarms alert proactively if there are any potential or ongoing issues with the databases that we support. That means we can take preventive or corrective action before the issue becomes a big issue. And the SQL PI features enable us to drill down into performance issues in our databases so that we can improve performance, which is important.

Read full review

Senior Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Nov 11, 2022

One of the hardest things to do in database management is to evaluate performance deviation across time. The adaptive baseline that Quest is using is by far the most helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean I use it on a daily basis, but it is something that I have not been able to find in any other tool, at the same level.

Read full review

OG

Osvaldo Gaete Cabezas

IT engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 16, 2024

The most valuable feature is the in-depth capability SQL Performance Investigator provides. It allows you to drill down to the smallest detail that occurs on our platform. It does a highly detailed and atomic follow-up of what one wants to look for in relation to time and our different instances.

Read full review

Show 4 more reviews (out of 14)

Foglight for Databases Cons review quotes

Senior Database Consultant at Novaccent

Oct 2, 2018

When holding data for two years for 20 SQL Servers, the reporting becomes sluggish and unresponsive.

Read full review

KS

Sr. Database Administrator at a sports company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 29, 2020

I get a lot of alerts that, while important, are not critical. Then I have to dig in and figure out how to turn alerts off, but not the logging. I want to be able to go back, once we get the other big issues out of the way, and start fine-tuning some of those other areas, but I don't necessarily want to receive an email for all of them.

Read full review

AN

Anthony Nicoletti

Database Administrator, Information Technology at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 9, 2020

One thing that I would like, and it's probably something that I could set up internally, is something other than a dashboard which I have to look at to know that a server is down. I'd like bells and whistles to go off... If I look at the dashboard I know there's a server down. But if I'm not looking at it, if I'm looking at some other problem, I want to know about it. You can do that, you can use SMSs and alerts to your phone, and I could set it up to handle that, but it would be nice if, out-of-the-box, Foglight did that.

Read full review

Foglight for Databases

Free Report: Foglight for Databases Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Foglight for Databases. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

VE

Vinothsingh Elumalai

Lead Software Engineer at Lowe's Companies

Dec 20, 2020

The system is not that stable. We have been facing a lot of issues. We built a new store environment of Foglight, an environment for monitoring the Lowe's store servers, which are all Db2 servers. The objective is to monitor 800 Db2 servers in each Foglight instance. Up to 150 Db2 servers, the environment was working fine. The moment it crossed 150 or 160, we started having a lot of stability issues.

Read full review

reviewer1515096

Senior Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 21, 2021

I would like the rule development code to be made available so we don't always have to be referred to professional services for custom solutions. For example, if we want to exclude certain databases from a particular rule, we shouldn't have to go to support and to professional services for that solution. If the code and syntax were available, we have resources that could quickly turn something like that around.

Read full review

JW

Database Administrator at AmTrust Financial Services, Inc.

Mar 14, 2021

When we decided to go with Foglight, a lot of people stopped using the diagnostics part because it was very intimidating... They still won't use it because they feel it's too intimidating. They will open something up and not know what to do. It's not very user-friendly. You have to click on a lot of stuff to find the information.

Read full review

Manager of Database Services at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 8, 2021

The data model needs improvement when it comes to creating custom reports. That is an area where it needs a bit of improvement. Foglight gathers a lot of information around our databases as part of its monitoring. While I know all this information is in there, trying to pull the metric we want out for custom reports is sometimes hard to find. One nice thing about Foglight is that you can create custom dashboards, which you can easily convert to reports. We would be doing a lot more of that if it weren't for the challenging data model.

Read full review

reviewer2011635

Sales & Operations Planning Manager at a retailer with 201-500 employees

Nov 2, 2022

The version that I'm using is not the latest version, so there might have been some improvement, but the OS monitoring is a bit lacking, and the high-availability option is a bit complicated to set up and it doesn't work all the time.

Read full review

Senior Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Nov 11, 2022

Foglight does have a component that allows you to look at things in real time, but it's not as friendly or as efficient in terms of responsiveness as Quest Spotlight is. Foglight might be lacking in this department.

Read full review

OG

Osvaldo Gaete Cabezas

IT engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 16, 2024

Quest must release a Spanish version. That's critical because not everyone speaks English in Latin America. It's an excellent product, so it's super important that they offer the application and customer service in Spanish.

Read full review

Show 4 more reviews (out of 14)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Database Development and Management

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs Foglight for Databases

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA ER/Studio vs Foglight for Databases

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs Foglight for Databases

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs Foglight for Databases

Spotlight vs Foglight for Databases

Toad for Oracle vs Foglight for Databases

SQL Sentry vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA DB Optimizer vs Foglight for Databases

Precisely Optimize DB2 vs Foglight for Databases

See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

Database Development and Management

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs Foglight for Databases

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA ER/Studio vs Foglight for Databases

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs Foglight for Databases

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs Foglight for Databases

Spotlight vs Foglight for Databases

Toad for Oracle vs Foglight for Databases

SQL Sentry vs Foglight for Databases

IDERA DB Optimizer vs Foglight for Databases

Precisely Optimize DB2 vs Foglight for Databases

See all alternatives

Related questions

42

What are your top recommended replacement solutions for Quest Foglight for Databases?

79

What is the best GUI tool for development and management of a PostgreSQL database?

111

What is the best backup solution for Sybase ASE 15.5?

206

Which Database Activity Monitoring tool is best for cloud environments?

42

What are your top recommended replacement solutions for Quest Foglight for Databases?

177

Which low-code (no-code) database solution do you prefer?

36

Why is Database Development and Management important for companies?