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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
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 5.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MariaDB5.7%
IBM Informix1.9%
Other92.4%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"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."
"Replication, all levels of replication, query charting, and the MongoDB embedded are the most valuable features of this solution."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"For non-production purposes. I'm just using it for my personal project, so it works quite well. I haven't faced any errors yet."
"From a customer perspective, MariaDB is a good choice for cluster configuration. It's also easy to operate and cheap."
"The solution's features have effectively met our operational requirements as a standard SQL database."
"A valuable feature is that we can use it for quite a few things, all the things you'd expect from a server—along the lines of Linux's Lightweight Directory."
"The product has been stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is the power it provides. It is a powerful solution."
"Configuration, setup, and schema design are good features in MariaDB, and typical database features we have used include backup, configuration, recovery, archiving, and ETL."
"It is an absolutely stable solution."
 

Cons

"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal."
"There is not much support available."
"The dashboard and pricing need improvement."
"Integration with AWS could be improved."
"The solution can improve by having support for more integration. However, at this time it is working well for us."
"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."
"The price could be less expensive."
"MariaDB's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The scaling for database online transactions needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For me, it's always too expensive."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"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."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4000.00 per year and the licensing is based on the software and the number of posts that you make."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"We use the solution's free version."
"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"This is an open-source product, which can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
8%
 

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 Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

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?
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 do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
MariaDB is in the pricey range, especially for huge databases handling terabytes of data. The cost depends on the volume of data and different features enabled during configuration, such as backup ...
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
Complex queries in MariaDB where the query needs to parse thousands of lines or data values face some performance issues. For small and medium-size volume, it is pretty good. If it goes beyond cert...
 

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: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.