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Oracle Enterprise Manager vs Quest Foglight for Databases 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Enterprise Manager
Ranking in Database Development and Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (4th)
Quest Foglight for Databases
Ranking in Database Development and Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of Oracle Enterprise Manager is 6.7%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Foglight for Databases is 7.8%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Muzaffar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good stability and has an easy implementation process
It is a good tool for monitoring databases. It enhances the overall visibility within the database The older version of the product works with Flash technology. Although the latest version works with Java, it still requires Flash technology. It should utilize only a Java plugin to visualize your…
Vadim Kulikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels at displaying intensive database queries and enables me to address things before they become real problems
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. It could be just the nature of the beast, it could be the fact that it's web-based, as opposed to Spotlight being a fat client running on C#. I use both tools in conjunction with each other; they are a part of the toolset. Foglight might not be as helpful. It's also possible that part of the issue is how Foglight is deployed. We always try to save on cost and because it requires a SQL license, you don't necessarily have the luxury of putting it on a super fast server. It could be related to that. But I have noticed that it's not as responsive for determining, in real time, what's going on. The way I have understood things is that there was an attempt to merge Spotlight functionality with Foglight. They have somewhat done that, even though I still feel that they're not going to be able to completely kill Spotlight. That tool is done so well and it's really serving a purpose in terms of a real-time, very fast analysis of multiple metrics. I don't like what they did with Foglight because it's an attempt to merge. It's like a sports car versus a heavy-duty truck. They are both fantastic, but when you try to jack up a truck to work fast, it doesn't work very well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are a number of different user interfaces you can choose from."
"The most valuable feature is the monitoring because it's very useful for checking and troubleshooting compared with other products, like Nagios for example, that have some interaction with Oracle."
"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."
"Oracle Enterprise Manager helps to control servers."
"I have found the uptime of all of our systems to be most valuable with this solution. This is important because we need to guarantee specific uptime and preventive maintenance. We need to know upfront if there are going to be any issues on the database so we can proactively solve those."
"The single-pane and single interface in the centralized system is the most valuable feature."
"I mostly use the top events, and look at how the execution is happening on the database; and monitoring the cluster level rates. I even look at the execution plan."
"The most valuable features of Oracle Enterprise Manager are the data guide and online monitoring."
"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."
"One of the hardest things to do in database management is to evaluate performance deviation across time. The adaptive baseline that Quest is using is by far the most helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean I use it on a daily basis, but it is something that I have not been able to find in any other tool, at the same level."
"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."
"Foglight's Change Tracking capabilities are another huge feature. It is wonderful to be able to do that. People don't realize the amount of information that Foglight gathers from a given server or instance. It gets down to the version of SQL, the disk array, everything that's there. Any change that's made, any upgrade to SQL, shows up on the dashboard almost immediately. You don't know how much time you save just having a tool in your back pocket that does that for you."
"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."
"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 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."
"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
 

Cons

"The solution's agents work with Java, and the Java code sometimes consumes a lot of memory on the CPU."
"It is complicated to run it on Google Chrome."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"I would say mostly backup and recovery, through the Enterprise Manager. Or any corruptions, to be able to fix them through Enterprise Manager."
"There's a lot of documentation to go through as a new user."
"My opinion is that this solution needs to improve consolidation. That is what our business needs the most right now."
"The tool's pricing is costly."
"Setting up the Oracle Enterprise Manager is challenging as it requires setting up a separate server."
"Better communication and alerts regarding the transaction logs getting full would also be beneficial. What I have noticed is that if the log files on the SQL server are full, we cannot log in and have to do some cleanup on the Foglight DB. It would be good if they could monitor that and alert us when it is getting too full."
"When holding data for two years for 20 SQL Servers, the reporting becomes sluggish and unresponsive."
"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 system is not that stable. We have been facing a lot of issues. We built a new store environment of Foglight, an environment for monitoring the Lowe's store servers, which are all Db2 servers. The objective is to monitor 800 Db2 servers in each Foglight instance. Up to 150 Db2 servers, the environment was working fine. The moment it crossed 150 or 160, we started having a lot of stability issues."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is part of Real Application Testing, so no new investment is necessary for clients who already are already using RAT."
"The licensing is the responsibility of our customers."
"Oracle Enterprise Manager is a free tool from Oracle."
"There is only the standard licensing fee. There are no other costs."
"The pricing is very high."
"Evaluate your requirements carefully. Elaborate DR and HA setup of OEM can become expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution is free."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
77%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
3%
Government
2%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Oracle Enterprise Manager?
What I like most about Oracle Enterprise Manager are its features, particularly the active session history. It provides insights into SQL, and I use it regularly to identify potential issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Enterprise Manager?
The licensing is based on the core, and it is required to have a server for the solution.
What needs improvement with Oracle Enterprise Manager?
Setting up the Oracle Enterprise Manager is challenging as it requires setting up a separate server.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Foglight for Databases?
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 insta...
What needs improvement with Quest Foglight for Databases?
It would be helpful to have more communication about new features. The concept of intensive database queries sounds beneficial, but I am not aware of how to access this feature. Better communicatio...
What is your primary use case for Quest Foglight for Databases?
We use it for monitoring SQL databases, specifically to assess database contention. Additionally, we utilize it for real-time monitoring before deploying changes to production environments.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

7-Eleven, Halliburton, Cisco, Garmin, Nationwide, Korea Telecom, Allied Irish Bank
CommitDBA
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Enterprise Manager vs. Quest Foglight for Databases and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.