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IBM Db2 Warehouse vs Oracle Database Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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 Db2 Warehouse
Ranking in Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Database Appliance
Ranking in Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse is 2.5%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Database Appliance is 5.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Sherpard  Muzuva - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced features enhance business intelligence, but complex management calls for improved user guidance
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more user-friendly and easier to master. They should implement a more comprehensive graphical user interface with additional features. For instance, when users encounter problems, the system should provide better guidelines and troubleshooting directions, except for hardware-related issues. They need to implement tools that would help users perform basic troubleshooting rather than solely relying on support. Other databases have features where users can investigate specific issues using error codes. From my experience, many minor issues could be resolved before escalating to support.
Ahmed-Yehia - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced performance and simplified operations with integrated features
All improvements for ODA are already applied or enhanced in Exadata. ODA is mainly for small businesses or limited businesses and is used predominantly for database warehouses and not for OLTP databases. You can only scale storage, not developer nodes. It's priced a little higher, which could be optimized for small or medium businesses.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."
"The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data."
"Provides good security and reliability."
"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."
"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."
"The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support."
"The product’s valuable feature is its capability to pre-configure and pre-install the settings."
"The database is solid."
"The solution's function we use to benefit the customers is database verification."
"The Oracle database is able to get the data, process it, and return it to the company's CEO's and CFO's within a single day, and thus they are able to find out yesterday's P and L by today. It has drastically reduced the amount and time of processing from seven days to one day."
"The tool is a specific and effective system. I am impressed with its usability."
"The performance due to the all-flash of ODA is very nice."
"We value the appliance architecture with its “everything-in-a-box” highly standardized setup."
"The product is excellent. It is simple and reliable in terms of installation and maintenance."
 

Cons

"Responding to support tickets takes a lot of time. It can range from two to four days, even for critical issues."
"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."
"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."
"It takes a long time to have a new version or release, similar to Oracle."
"In terms of improvement, IBM Db2 Warehouse should be more scalable."
"The biggest challenge anyone could have with Db2 Warehouse is their references or online resources and documentation. They are very, very, very limited on the web."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"In my opinion only one single command should be used for all ODA models, as it’s confusing."
"They could incorporate a more secure and internet-centric management system for the platform."
"In terms of what can be be improved, I'd say Artificial Intelligence, AI. It would be really helpful if AI was incorporated within the solution."
"Technical support is not so great. It could be much better. The maintenance, for an enterprise system, isn't so great. It's also extremely expensive."
"I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It has some problems. Databases are huge. This leads to needing more and more RAM and capacity resources, making it hard to scale. Because of this, we use Exadata. That's definitely a point for improvement."
"The solution's initial setup is not easy."
"There is room for improvement in better integration with third-party tools, such as Power BI or Redshift."
"Even though the solution can handle a lot of data, it's just too expensive currently."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."
"Compared to Oracle Exadata, Oracle Database Appliance is affordable."
"The price of the solution should be less expensive. However, they will increase the price more."
"The solution may be expensive, but when we consider the problems it solves, the stability it provides, and the fact that we don't have to buy separate parts and assemble them into a system, it becomes more affordable."
"I don’t know ODA and alternative system prices. But Oracle the database license is quite expensive and a lot of my customers plan to migrate to open source databases like PostgreSQL."
"Oracle Database Appliance is a very expensive solution. If you have opted for the on-premises licenses from Oracle, then you have to pay yearly. If you have opted for the cloud subscriptions offered by Oracle, then you can pay either monthly or yearly."
"The price should be lower."
"Get benefit from the capacity-on-demand features. License your cores according to your licenses."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing seven and a half or eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more u...
What do you like most about Oracle Database Appliance?
Oracle Database Appliance provides high stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Database Appliance?
While I'm somewhat familiar with standard licensing, pricing isn't really my area of expertise. However, Oracle is on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, along with SAP.
What needs improvement with Oracle Database Appliance?
There is room for improvement in better integration with third-party tools, such as Power BI or Redshift. When dealing with federated data sources, this integration can be a challenge.
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
X5-2
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited
LifeLock, Incarlopsa, Al Yusur Industrial Contracting
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. Oracle Database Appliance and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.