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Foglight for Databases vs Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 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

Foglight for Databases
Ranking in Database Development and Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essent...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of Foglight for Databases is 3.8%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials is 4.8%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Foglight for Databases3.8%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials4.8%
Other91.4%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Stuart Dairiki - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
CS
Director, Enterprise Data Management at Glatfelter Insurance Group
SQL Search and change automation functionality help us manage our code repository and databases
The biggest problem with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt is just how heavy it is; it seems to take a lot of resources. It takes a lot of memory and a lot of processing power to run, and that tends to slow things down a bit. Making it a little more lightweight while still doing the same thing, as much as possible, is what we would like to see in the future. I've noticed that Microsoft SSMS runs much quicker without RedGate installed than it does with it installed. From bootup of the app to opening query windows and connections, SSMS is quicker without Redgate than with, by a significant margin. The other area for improvement is regarding licensing. Every month or two my SSMS loses it's redgate license key and I need to re-enter the key to continue using Red Gate, even though the license is annual.

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 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."
"What I really like is the SQL PI feature, which allows us to drill down into queries and identify what is causing contention in the database. Using the SQL PI feature, I am able to drill down into the queries, see what is blocking, and try to improve it."
"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."
"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."
"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"The platform is very stable."
"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."
"It is easy to track the reports, this is what is most valuable for me."
"The most valuable feature is SQL Search."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I get a lot of alerts that, while important, are not critical. Then I have to dig in and figure out how to turn alerts off, but not the logging. I want to be able to go back, once we get the other big issues out of the way, and start fine-tuning some of those other areas, but I don't necessarily want to receive an email for all of them."
"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."
"The monitoring capabilities for Postgres should be at par with SQL Server. This is the area where we push back on our Quest representative. We want more insights into Postgres."
"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 monitoring capabilities for Postgres should be at par with SQL Server. This is the area where we push back on our Quest representative."
"I would like to see the bandwidth increase allowing me to easily analyze more data."
"The biggest problem with the Redgate SQL Toolbelt is just how heavy it is; it seems to take a lot of resources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."
"The cost is about $3,500 USD per individual to buy, and then it's about 20% per year for renewal."
"Our fees are paid on an annual basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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. I've been talking to their product development team about enhancements that I wo...
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 HANA, and AWS Redshift.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

CommitDBA
Thinger.fi, Churchill College Univeristy of Cambridge, Margin Business Solutions Ltd., 4Penny.net, Sportinginsider.net, Lockheed Martin, Phillip Securities Pte Ltd, Nmbrs
Find out what your peers are saying about Foglight for Databases vs. Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.