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IDERA ER/Studio vs Quest Foglight for Databases vs SQL Sentry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of IDERA ER/Studio is 3.0%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Foglight for Databases is 8.2%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Sentry is 5.6%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Aaron Cutshall - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for data modeling and has a scripting language to write your own scripts
The solution has streamlined our data modeling processes quite a bit. It's a central focus in our data modeling and data cataloging efforts. The tool's reverse engineering capability to bring in existing database structures and create models from them has benefitted our data architecture needs. With the tool's data dictionary capability, we're able to maintain consistency in our models, name use, and actual data domains. The solution's reverse engineering helps with understanding legacy databases. In fact, I've been asked to reverse-engineer several more legacy databases so that we can have them modeled and cataloged. The solution is deployed on the cloud server, but it’s only within our network. The solution has a lot of capabilities. I like the fact that it has a scripting language that allows you to automate and write your own scripts. I think that's been a big bonus for us. I highly recommend the solution because of its capability for logical models, where you can put your business definitions and logic. While less expensive, some other tools can't do that. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Stuart Dairiki - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers efficient database monitoring and performance troubleshooting with powerful workload analysis
I find it extremely helpful to use Foglight to triage any database issues, specifically performance issues using what Foglight calls PI investigator. It is a very powerful workload analysis tool that helps me understand where bottlenecks are. It allows me to see performance issues as end users report them. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It enables me to obtain information quicker and easier compared to manually compiling it. Foglight provides us with a near-real-time activity database. It's not 100% real-time. It has less than a minute latency. It allows us to see performance issues as end-users report them. We started seeing benefits pretty much immediately. We use Foglight to display intensive databases. However, it's not something we monitor regularly. It's only something we kind of dig into as we troubleshoot and triage issues. It does help us determine potential IT help issues. When we use Foglight, we find it helps drill down holistically into potential bottlenecks. It helps us to see what is going on in the database. Foglight allows us to monitor multiple database platforms. We use, for example, Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres, Amazon Redshift, and SAP HANA. It gives us insight into our entire landscape of production workloads in near real-time. The solution saves costs when performing root cause analysis. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It allows us to obtain information quicker and easier than by manually compiling information.
SM
Lets you know when your jobs are taking longer than average and allows you to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times
To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product. Another thing that's good about the product is that it will let you know when your jobs are taking longer than average so that you can foretell that there's going to be an issue coming up. Your SQL agent job is taking longer.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is simple to use."
"When validating the model, the ability to provide sub-models to developers, and generate a physical model from the logical, makes it easier to review a logical model with stakeholders."
"It does the job."
"It's easy to model and has a user-friendly interface. I like the team portal because, once we upload, the entire team can see the model."
"The most important features are logical and physical models that we can compare and develop. Also, the Data Dictionary can be created out of your studio. Finally, database schemas help understand the logic that's behind the scene, behind the SQL tables. Especially when there are a lot of them, the schemas help everyone understand the business processes."
"It was a very good tool at the time since it was complete."
"We can track changes to our data models and tie those changes back to specific tasks or efforts that we identify."
"My overall rating for the solution is ten out of ten."
"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."
"The profiler allows us to look at the profiles of the database queries that are being run over time. It allows us to go back to our customers and say that these are some of the queries causing them some headaches. It gives us the opportunity to provide suggestions on how to improve their experience."
"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"This solution has identified blocking, deadlock, memory pressure, and high CPU consumption issues."
"To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product."
 

Cons

"One limitation I have found in ER/Studio is that when you want to make some changes to the table definitions, you have to go item by item. You cannot do it globally. Another issue concerns defining the foreign keys between the different tables. It is a little more tedious in the ER/Studio than in ERrwin. With ERwin it is direct."
"What I would like to see improved is the reliability of the releases, releases that are a little less buggy."
"The screens are a bit outdated. They could use a new look and feel."
"ER/Studio lacks a pure cloud option for deployment."
"I would like to see better documentation/help for the Data Architect tool. Creation of tutorials would be nice, as there are some features which are not as clearly defined as they should be."
"We would always like to see Repository performance improve, checking in and checking out."
"I cannot evaluate any areas for improvement at this time."
"I'd like the ability to debug the errors ourselves instead of having to call them. There are certain types of errors that, I wouldn't say they come up regularly, but when you have an error it is very often the same type of error. Knowing that it's a Type III or Type I, it would be nice to have some kind of debugging facility for us to use to find out where the problem that threw that error occurs. That would be a really cool feature."
"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."
"It would be amazing if they could enable the 'Performance Investigator' functionality across all database platforms."
"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."
"It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"If we can get details on wait types from system views, it will help identify a more detailed root cause."
"There could be some more metrics on the high availability to let us know when there are issues synchronizing between the hosts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The setup cost may have been around $1500 to $2000."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"I'm a firm believer that all software is overpriced these days but, comparatively speaking, I think ER/Studio is worth the money."
"It is priced fairly. It's around the same as erwin and other competitors' costs."
"The price of this product is okay."
"The process of licensing could be much simpler, from our experience."
"I feel the product's pricing is a good value."
"Pricing is expensive and on the higher-end."
"Pricing is very reasonable. We were able to construct a pretty easy contract with Quest, who were very easy to work with and very amenable to what we are trying to do. It worked out well for us."
"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."
"The price of Foglight could be a little more competitive in Chile, and it should be lowered for long-time customers— at least by 20 percent. Sometimes the price is a limitation. We have seven instances and nearly 5 million users. If Quest Foglight could reduce its prices for the clients that have been with it for a long time, we would be able to have more instances."
"This is like the "Cadillac" of performance monitoring software. It's not cheap... I am currently with a company that I was able to convince that the product is worth the cost."
"The price is worth it, if you have the time to go through the information."
"It is cost-effective. With our EA, it is really based on the scale of our database environment. We found the Quest team to be reasonable and flexible when it comes to pricing and scaling of licenses."
"It's fairly expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IDERA ER/Studio?
In terms of pricing, ER/Studio is slightly more expensive compared to Erwin, by about five to ten percent.
What needs improvement with IDERA ER/Studio?
ER/Studio lacks a pure cloud option for deployment. Both Erwin and ER/Studio do not have AI or machine learning featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Foglight for Databases?
The pricing is palatable. We've already done one renewal and we are in our second contract. We're happy thus far.
What needs improvement with Quest Foglight for Databases?
It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms. ...
What is your primary use case for Quest Foglight for Databases?
I primarily use the solution for database monitoring, specifically for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, SAP HA...
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Also Known As

IDERA ER Studio, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Newmont Mining, Entrust, Accolade, TalkTalk, Catalina, Protective Life, NTT Data, dir systèmes, Microsoft; American Express, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca, Coriant, Fedex, GlaxoSmithKline, PepsiCo, Prudential, Wells Fargo
CommitDBA
Coeo, Stack Overflow, GreatAmerica Financial Services Corporation, Hawaiian Airlines, Hennepin County Medical Center, Racing Victoria, Citrix, Insight, Shi, Woodforest National Bank, Telular
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Quest Software, SolarWinds and others in Database Development and Management. Updated: April 2025.
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