Quest Foglight for Databases vs SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer comparison

Quest Foglight for Databases vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

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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

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SolarWinds Database Perform...

Ranking in Database Development and Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of Quest Foglight for Databases is 7.8%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is 8.9%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

Eric Fouarge

Global Head of Engineering for Cloud Operations at SAI Global Compliance

We have complete visibility into multiple database platforms, but we'd like better insights into Postgres

We had some licensing constraints with our previous solution Idera. When we crafted the contract with Quest on Foglight, we were able to go from basically 30% coverage of our production environment to 100% coverage. We have better visibility into the environment since putting it in place. We implemented the solution’s Angular UI. It took us a day to do it, and we just stepped in and started using it. It was pretty straightforward and easy. The overall data availability in the Angular UI is good. We are not seeing any gaps from the legacy UI to the new UI for the things that we were relying on. Everything that we expected to be there is there. It proactively alerts us of long-running queries. In terms of the capability to quickly diagnose and resolve emerging issues, some things are disconnected from the rest of our observability platform. It takes a few steps to get from incident to resolution, but once we step into Foglight, we are able to quickly get to the data that we need to understand what is going on. It provides real-time activity data. We run a 24/7 shop. If there are any database performance issues, we have to act on them pretty quickly. We do not use it much to display intensive database queries. It is not really our core use case, but when we are troubleshooting application performance, it does get used in that manner at times. It enables us to drill down and see what is causing the issue to an extent. Because we run a dynamic ORM, it is a little difficult to ascertain exactly what is happening from a database query perspective, but that has nothing to do with the tool itself. It is more about how we dynamically generate the SQL queries. It enables us to monitor multiple database platforms. We have Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, and MySQL. Prior to having Quest Foglight for Databases, we did not have anything centralized to provide this level of insight into our platform, and we now have it. It does exactly what it is supposed to do, and it does not do anything more, which is what we want. We do not want it to start venturing outside of what it is good at and what it is built for.

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Fausto Espinosa

Production manager at Cobiscorp

Powerful monitoring solution with good technical support

I don't remember the exact version of the SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer I'm using, but it's the most recent. Four operators and three administrators currently use the solution in my company, but only administrators see everything, while the rest only see the dashboard. The advice I would give to others who want to implement SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is that support is needed to successfully implement the solution. I would rate SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer nine out of ten. My company is a customer of SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its reporting capabilities are immense."

"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."

"We went from basically 30% coverage of our production environment to 100% coverage."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

More Quest Foglight for Databases pros

"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."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support for older databases and the ability to manage them in a centralized dashboard."

"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 helped us locate the performance issues quickly."

"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."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer can help us identify issues we cannot see manually."

"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."

"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."

More SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Quest must release a Spanish version. That's critical because not everyone speaks English in Latin America. It's an excellent product, so it's super important that they offer the application and customer service in Spanish."

"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."

"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."

More Quest Foglight for Databases cons

"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."

"It is capable, but I don't believe it has the right value matrix. It also depends on the budget of the company."

"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."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should be easy to implement and it should have more facilities to make it better."

"There is room for improvement with the pricing of the platform."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer should include more details on how everything works."

"Technical support for this solution needs to be improved."

"The solution should add little details on the server so that an independent team could easily do the implementation."

More SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."

"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."

"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 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."

"It could be less expensive."

"The pricing is fairly reasonable, and it becomes more cost-effective with larger volumes of instances."

"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."

"Customers need to pay for the subscription-based license annually."

"There are no extra costs for maintenance or using the solution's support."

"The pricing of the solution is average."

"SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a little bit expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

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 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.

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...

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Product Reports

Quest Foglight for Databases

Download Quest Foglight for Databases product report

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer

Download SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer product report

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer report

Also Known As

No data available

Confio, SolarWinds DPA, Ignite8

Overview

Foglight identifies and resolves performance issues across your applications, databases and virtual environments. The Foglight family of products easily integrates with your existing tools, so you can monitor and analyze data from almost any source across your infrastructure and view it through a single interface with our customizable, unified monitoring platform

Quest Software

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer is a powerful monitoring service that allows customers to monitor their databases. It offers system metrics such as RAM consumption, IO, network traffic, etc. The service is available for both on-prem and cloud deployments, making it a versatile solution for businesses of all sizes.

The most valuable feature is its ability to monitor and learn from the data it collects, helping identify issues and problems before they become major problems, and saving businesses time and money. The service also provides supporting information for performance advising, which helps optimize database performance.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

CommitDBA

GSI Commerce, Liquid Digital Media, ProLogis, Indiana University

Quest Foglight for Databases vs. SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer