We performed a comparison between Oracle Database and SQL Server based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Of the two solutions, a lot of users favor Oracle. However, users are happier with the price of SQL Server.
"It stores a lot of data in a short time."
"The solution is easy to use. It also offers a Database Vault."
"Technical support has been helpful so far."
"We use the relational databases for government contracts."
"A very reliable solution."
"It is user-friendly. Its performance and security are also very good. There are 300 million records for our one-year data, and we can easily query this data. You can use Oracle Database as a source for easily integrating with different databases and applications. It supports Java platforms and other applications very well. It works with SAP products better than Microsoft SQL Server."
"Overall, from a technical perspective, the solution is very strong."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the cost optimizer and partition exchanges."
"It is a pretty good solution. The on-premise version 2019 has many features, and they had introduced a really good and stable environment in version 2019. It has very good integration with big data clusters and other things. It covers pretty much everything that you can do with a SQL server. You can use any language to connect to it, which is not there in other solutions. They have also introduced Python, and it also has ArcScale. PaaS is a modern, scalable database. You can use Power Automate and a lot of features in this. It is very easy, and you don't have to worry about versions and upgrades. Microsoft keeps on adding new features to this solution. Microsoft is improving its connectivity on an ongoing basis. It connects well with Office 365. If you see something not working, in a couple of weeks, it is going to work because there is a team working on it. You can vote for the things that are missing, and Microsoft can work on them depending on the product that they're launching."
"It's easy to use and fairly intuitive. I do development and data analysis, so we do a lot of work with SSIS and SQL Job Scheduler. Deploying new databases is very simple with things like BACPAC."
"I like that it's relatively stable."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is replication because we had several replicas of the SQL Server database in different geographical locations."
"Enables us to convert to bigger DBs and more easily move or upgrade between branches."
"Very stable relational database management system that offers ease of management, querying, and scaling. It has well-designed databases."
"The most valuable feature of SQL Server is that it is easy to set up."
"The solution could be more scalable."
"The licensing cost could be better."
"They should reduce its price and provide faster support."
"I am not very satisfied with the support at times. You don't always get the support at the time you want and need it."
"I would like to see more patches."
"Oracle Database required some time to learn the basics and how it works. However, this is typical for database solutions."
"The integration could be improved. If you are integrating with other Oracle products, it is fine, however, if your goal is to integrate with third-party products, Oracle isn't as good."
"There are actually a lot more features for the Oracle Databases. It is almost impossible for a single person to know and give all the features."
"Scalability is an area that needs improvement, and the deployment is difficult, which why I'm looking for an appliance to deploy it in a much more scalable way."
"The remote access aspect needs to be improved in terms of security."
"There are a lot of improvements in the cloud space about which we open a case with Microsoft every now and then. These improvements are not in terms of features or functionality. They are more related to their own compatibility or connectivity on which they keep on working to improve the product."
"The treatment of database storage could be improved."
"There are a few use cases where we do need the Active-Active options instead of Active-Passive, yet those kinds of options are not available for Microsoft."
"It would definitely be better if SQL Server were free."
"I would like the SQL Server to be able to provide cloud support. We use the solution with a Korean provider supporting only MySQL rather than Microsoft SQL Server, which would be preferable and cheaper. This would prevent us from having to pay for troubleshooting and hosting the server."
"SQL Server needs to improve in performance and monitoring because there are no specific monitoring solutions to detect and analyze events for issues in the database. You have to use another monitoring solution. If Microsoft could provide an update to this solution or provide a monitoring solution specifically for SQL Server, it would be very valuable."
Oracle Database is ranked 2nd in Relational Databases Tools with 283 reviews while SQL Server is ranked 1st in Relational Databases Tools with 260 reviews. Oracle Database is rated 8.6, while SQL Server is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Oracle Database writes "Supports a large volume of transactions compared to other databases". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SQL Server writes "Easy to use and provides good speed and data recovery". Oracle Database is most compared with SAP HANA, MariaDB, IBM Db2 Database, Amazon Aurora and MySQL, whereas SQL Server is most compared with MariaDB, SAP HANA, LocalDB, IBM Db2 Database and Teradata. See our Oracle Database vs. SQL Server report.
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As always, it depends: First look is the area: on-premise server (your own hardware) or in the cloud?
If you want to use your own server, look at the operating system? In my opinion, SQL Server fits best on Windows; Oracle on Unix/Linux. Next is your size of data and the application you want to use: rule of thumb: the more data, the more I tend to Oracle; but Oracle is not 'automatically better'! You need an expert to configure the system for optimal use! A simple setup is often not enough! (There are a lot of screws you can turn, but turning the wrong ones is a negative! And more Hardware is not the solution to a slow system). I think the first step is to look at which app creates and consume which data, where in your network is your data needed and then decide the RDBMS. I have worked for years in a mixed environment; we use a large Oracle RDBMS on AIX to store the large amount of data of several production systems; but also some SQL Server RDBMS to distribute data for some evaluations or reports. In the Oracle RDBMS are 30 Years of data of the whole production process; in SQL Servers are consolidated data for reporting. So first make a compilation of your existing data and application and the future requirements; then you can decide; and the result can also be a mixed world!