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IBM Informix vs MariaDB 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
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (9th)
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 6.9%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nazzareno Maria Rezzini - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports multiple business intelligence tools, but the technical support services need improvement
IBM Informix is a central database solution across various environments, supporting multiple applications and business intelligence tools The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The…
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

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."
"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."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"It supports in-house-built applications in .NET and VB6"
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"Replication, all levels of replication, query charting, and the MongoDB embedded are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is a relational database, which is fairly reliable...It is a stable solution."
"I like the global transaction IDs (GTIDs) feature. It's quite reliable for replication between a master and a replica server, and it's a feature that MySQL also has but implemented differently."
"It's open source."
"Visual Studio offers unit testing integration and extensive searching capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the query speed it offers."
"The stability of MariaDB is good, it has high availability."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is a cloud-based tool, so it is pretty fast."
"I am editing."
 

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often."
"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"MariaDB can improve by adding more features. There are a lot of features, which are available in Oracle, and which are not available in MariaDB. We hope they will introduce the features soon."
"It should work across all fields like SQLite, as it is the basis of any application, even apps for phones and the like."
"An improvement would be scaling it up to the levels of Oracle, especially when it comes to resilience, so that we can do higher transactions for two databases or power our operation."
"While MariaDB is a good relational database, it can be inflexible for complex use cases."
"The customer service and support are okay. But the response time is slow. Moreover, the material is not available freely."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
"In future releases, mainly the addition of security features would be beneficial for MariaDB."
"It does not have tools for debugging procedures and functions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."
"The product is not expensive."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"It's an open-source solution."
"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"The tool is open-source."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
62%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Retailer
3%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Informix?
It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license.
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The product's performance could be better com...
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
No data available
 

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
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.