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IBM Informix vs MySQL 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)
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
 

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 MySQL is 8.5%, down from 8.8% 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…
Muzzamil  Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Native encryption ensures secure data management with a simple deployment
The most valuable feature is the on-premises data encryption facilities. By default, we can provide encryption, and this feature in MySQL is why we prefer it over other databases. The native encryption in MySQL encourages us to use this database model more frequently compared to Oracle and other databases. With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment. It perfectly supports our ROI, and we have no issues with its functionality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"For IoT business cases, having Informix Enterprise Edition work on edge computers, like Raspberry Pi and using Informix replication, makes complex situations simple to build and maintain."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"Table partitioning is most valuable. It is easy to use."
"For starters, it's free, which is always nice, and it's also pretty straightforward to use. It's a nice conventional database."
"It has a lot of features. The RDBMS, consistency, and multi-user features are valuable."
"My main reason for using MySQL for this small customer database company and for some kinds of scientific projects was that I had to do the installation myself. I didn't have a database administration team behind me. Therefore, I was looking for something very easy to handle. MySQL is easy to install, connect, and do all such things."
"It is a stable solution."
"The one interesting thing about this product is that it is open source. It comes from an open source product. MySQL has been positioned as open source, but it also provides support."
"Fully scalable and stable SQL-based RDBMS, with a straightforward and easy setup."
"MySQL is the best option for the Laravel PHP framework."
 

Cons

"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"​MySQL is not easily scalable on cost effective consumer grade hardware.​"
"The documentation is pretty weak and should be improved."
"The performance issues in the product can be considered as an area where improvements are required."
"Improvements are required in character set support, scalability, and big data sets."
"It requires a training platform."
"The licensing cost of the solution is expensive, which MySQL needs to consider improving."
"Stability needs improvement and the backup needs to be enhanced."
"The GUI interface probably can be improved. Let us say I want to see the relationships in the database. In the query analyzer, I would like to go and drop the tables and create relationships between the tables. I haven't found a feature like that in MySQL. It was a shortcoming even in SQL Server. MySQL can have more performance monitoring tools. I know Google has these tools, but within MySQL, there are not that many tools to monitor things like performance and database locking. They might be in there, and I might not be familiar enough to know where they are. I am a pretty new user of MySQL."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten. The solution is not cheap but it’s a fair value. The pricing depends on the use cases of our customers. Some of our customers use the community edition which is license free and a good fit for their use cases. However, we encourage our bigger customers to sign up because of the scalability issues. The paid versions get direct technical support from Oracle."
"When you know the setup will continue to grow, make sure you have the paid support."
"The pricing falls within the moderate range."
"There is a license needed for this solution."
"We do have a couple of clients who choose to use the paid, enterprise version of the solution and who take full advantage of it."
"We're using the open-source version right now, which is free. I do see some value in some of the more enterprise functions. We're using the open-source version right now, and I was interested in the MySQL Enterprise version really for the tools that they provide, but we decided not to make the purchase."
"The pricing is not much expensive, it's cheap."
"For the on-premise version, no license is required."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
66%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
4%
Retailer
3%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

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...
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

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
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.