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Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 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

Oracle Application Express ...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
3rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (2nd)
Oracle Visual Builder Cloud...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
19th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 7.5%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Application Express (APEX)7.5%
Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service1.1%
Other91.4%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rodrigo-Mesquita - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid application development empowers big projects in months
The ability to quickly develop applications without needing to code a lot is very valuable. It is very quick to create a page, and one can use AI to speed up software development. It is easy to learn. In my company, we could develop a very big application in a couple of months.
Sherif Bashar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers low-code/no-code concept makes development much easier and faster and offers good community support as the development team actively answers questions on the community every day
There are very minor things, like the feature called "action chains," that could use a bit of enhancement. But the team is perfect; they're working on it. An action chain is a sequence of actions triggered by a button or an event. It executes code in order, from top to bottom. For example, it could call a code, call a REST service, and then insert data into a database. It needs enhancement because it can be a bit complex for fresh grads or new developers to understand. It would be better if it was made more readable. That's the main point. But if you have experience, you'll understand it easily. One more thing I want to add about Visual Builder: up until two years ago, it supported native mobile development. That's not available anymore. They replaced native mobile development with progressive web apps, and most customers are complaining about that. We need native mobile development back – the ability to put apps on stores like Google Play or the App Store. That feature is not available right now, and they deprecated it starting in 2024. It's very important. Otherwise, clients go with Flutter or other mobile development tools. It would be good for Oracle to regain that capability. We need the native mobile development feature back.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to build very fast data-driven UIs."
"This product will speed up development time with helpful production aids."
"It provides attractive GUIs allowing professionally-styled applications without the need to know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript."
"Oracle APEX is very easy to use and comes with a lot of ready-made components that speed up the process of creating reports and dashboards."
"With only a browser, it is very easy to develop in a web environment."
"In our experience with Apex, we find that minimizing reliance on HTML and JavaScript is preferable, especially considering our background as seasoned programmers adept in PL/SQL. Incorporating HTML and JavaScript can pose challenges due to potential compatibility issues when updates are made to JavaScript. We also make use of JAPER report integration for generating reports, a practice integral to our reporting procedures."
"Oracle APEX allows our company to complete webpage projects easily in a fast turnaround time."
"Oracle APEX's reporting features are simple yet powerful. The ability to quickly create CRUD screens has simplified many RAD discovery processes, while the APEX environment allows the product owners and dev teams to quickly understand the complex solutions and employ usage statistics to identify areas requiring improvement. The option to add external JavaScript tools in screen development enables the development of complicated mobile or web usage scenarios in rare cases where the APEX UX is not enough."
"The most valuable feature was the visual drag and drop on the components."
"The tool is very easy to use."
"You don't need a dedicated IDE to develop. You can work from any browser, which is very convenient. And, with the cloud concept, your code is stored in the cloud, so you can modify it from anywhere, at any time."
"VBS is another tool that allows users to create enterprise applications without needing to store their projects in traditional databases like SQL."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The action chains are really helpful, and the trigger event, along with those action chains, has been very helpful."
 

Cons

"During the upcoming versions, we can modify the current configuration."
"Oracle is more of a database-oriented solution and is not very flexible in app development."
"The problem of sending emails arises when Oracle Application Express (APEX) is inside Oracle Cloud Infrastructure since it is a bit complicated or difficult to understand where to take care of the setup part to be able to just send out emails properly."
"When exporting, we can't export dynamic reports, only static reports. For example, when we want to export charts or tables it is only exported as a static report so we can't drop down on these reports; however, we can see this information when we are on the dashboard itself."
"Some of the application interfaces of Oracle Application Express are not very attractive and could be improved."
"It has a bit of a strict framework, you have to make all the time adjustments in their JavaScript. Another downside is that it's only available for Oracle databases."
"The collaboration and the workflow engine could use some improvement."
"Another issue I used to encounter was with the debugging functions. I believe this is an area where Oracle APEX could improve significantly in terms of displaying error messages or error pages. It is very difficult to detect bugs or which bugs you are having when it comes to errors or which errors you have."
"The initial setup of Oracle VBCS can be challenging for those unfamiliar with DBS."
"I would improve the license structure as, for some companies, it may seem a little bit expensive, depending on what they're doing."
"The tool has minor bugs."
"The feature called "action chains" could use a bit of enhancement."
"There are some bugs in VBCS."
"There was an attempt to enable front-end development, it did what it intended to do, but the side effects were too bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe APEX comes bundled with the database, including autonomous database and other related database products, so the pricing is quite reasonable."
"There is a trial version available that can be used free of charge."
"The solution is moderately priced, where it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"To my understanding, my organization is using the free version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), but I'm unsure because I haven't checked the pricing or licensing cost for it."
"Apex is not priced separately; instead, it is associated with the Oracle database. A free option for Oracle database and Apex can be downloaded and installed on this complimentary database version. This aligns with our current approach."
"The pricing is mid-range so is neither expensive nor cheap."
"APEX itslelf is a free product, but you will need to license peripheral components."
"Oracle Application Express (APEX) is free, so this is another magic of the solution. You just get charged for the database license, which I don't need."
"It's not expensive when you consider what it provides: low-code/no-code development, faster development time, good quality, and good stability."
"Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service is much too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise28
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
I consider Oracle Application Express (APEX) to be good value for the money because it has infinite quality for money since it's included in any Oracle database license. It's free once you have the...
What needs improvement with Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
One of the things that could be done to improve Oracle Application Express (APEX) is if Oracle decided to open it up to other databases. It needs to be an enterprise database; therefore, it needs t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service?
I actually don't have much experience with pricing, so I can't comment on it right now.
What is your primary use case for Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service?
There was a requirement to build a custom form to raise AI invoices, using Oracle Fusion. We created a form, and another use case was that users wanted to create and update customers.
 

Also Known As

Oracle APEX
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hepart AG, pharmasol, SATLOG, Collège Bois-de-Boulogne
Transcom Worldwide, Latham Pool Products
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs. Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.