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Quest Foglight for Databases vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 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

Quest 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
SolarWinds Database Perform...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of Quest Foglight for Databases is 8.0%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is 9.6%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels in identifying various database performance issues, including long-running queries, wait times, deadlocks, and other performance-related issues.
There's room for improvement on the dashboarding side. Specifically, the health dashboard of the database instances. Some of my customers deal with a large number of monitored database instances. It would be beneficial if they could have a single dashboard for instances, for example, from number one to thirty. This way, I could monitor all these 30 instances and quickly identify any performance issues on any of them. The dashboarding capability definitely needs improvement. In future releases, there should be custom reports and dashboards are crucial. Not everyone needs to see the same page every time. For example, if I'm interested in MYSQL databases, I should have a view that focuses only on MYSQL databases. Customization like this, where users can tailor their dashboards to specific needs, is essential for improving the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
"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 real-time activity screens are also helpful... if there is something that is running slowly, we can eliminate the database as being an issue and perhaps look at the server, network activity, or something outside of the realm of the database as being the issue."
"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."
"We went from basically 30% coverage of our production environment to 100% coverage."
"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 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."
"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is anomaly detection. It alerts you when things outside the norm are happening, and the feature that analyzes your indexes informs you if you have wide or overlapping indexes. It also helps identify SQL query bottlenecks, letting you know if something is taking longer than usual, if a query plan has changed, and if you need to update statistics. In terms of usage, it is straightforward to use, learn and understand. The patching process is smooth and explains each feature, including links to external resources for further reading."
"What I like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that it's a powerful solution that lets me advise customers about performance, and it also gives a lot of supporting information."
"The platform solves and prevents delays in receiving answers from databases."
"In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network layer, database layer, or elsewhere."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can help us identify issues we cannot see manually."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer helped us locate the performance issues quickly."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer's most valuable features include the notification of consuming the SQL queries, collecting data, and notifying about managing space and tables."
"Monitoring is most valuable, and being able to know that there is an issue or problem and I need to go look is also valuable. So, monitoring and learning are the most important features."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should provide customization options allowing users to add different columns."
"The solution should add little details on the server so that an independent team could easily do the implementation."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should include more details on how everything works."
"One area where the tool could improve is by adding support for additional databases. For instance, supporting newer databases like Couchbase or MongoDB would be beneficial."
"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."
"The areas where it currently lags are in reporting and dashboarding. The reports and dashboards are somewhat static, and we cannot create custom dashboards for specific customer needs."
"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 could be less expensive."
"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."
"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."
"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."
"I don't remember the exact licensing cost for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer, but it's within the range of $2,000 to $3,000 a year."
"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."
"The pricing of the solution is average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
14%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
In IT, problems often occur in areas such as applications, web interfaces, or databases. The tool allows users to easily determine the root cause of these issues, whether they stem from the network...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
One area where the tool could improve is by adding support for additional databases. For instance, supporting newer databases like Couchbase or MongoDB would be beneficial.
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer?
We use SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer for performance monitoring, tuning, and troubleshooting performance issues. It's mainly related to performance and the database community. Database a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Confio, SolarWinds DPA, Ignite8
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CommitDBA
GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University
Find out what your peers are saying about Quest Foglight for Databases vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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