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Quest Foglight for Databases vs Toad for Oracle 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
Toad for Oracle
Ranking in Database Development and Management
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
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 Toad for Oracle is 4.8%, down from 5.3% 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.
Bikramjeet Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced query optimization and tuning features
Sometimes when I write a query, it gives an unusual error code. Toad for Oracle does not have a particular resolution within the application. Then, I have to search for the code and find a solution. I would like Oracle to implement error codes so that we don't have to search for solutions on Google. It would be more convenient if the error codes were included within the application.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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 PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."
"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"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 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."
"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."
"Toad has a lot of features that are very useful, fast, and well developed."
"Toad for Oracle has proven to be better than other tools since we have never experienced any crashes."
"It is very easy to manage all of the objects."
"The schema browser is the most valuable feature. The way it presents the objects in our database."
"The most valuable feature of Toad for Oracle is the fashion browser and the Schema browser. It is very complete."
"The most valuable feature is the navigation within the UI, where you can right-click on an object in an SQL query and go right to it, versus going through all of the menus to find what you are looking for."
"The product's most valuable features are UI and monitoring."
"A quite simple feature that I have not encountered elsewhere is the "Make Code" feature. I can easily export a complex SQL statement to a programming language. This is a great timesaver as I do not have to type in all of the escape/concatenation characters just to create a SQL statement in C# or C++."
 

Cons

"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."
"It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms."
"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."
"It would be amazing if they could enable the 'Performance Investigator' functionality across all database platforms."
"When holding data for two years for 20 SQL Servers, the reporting becomes sluggish and unresponsive."
"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 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."
"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."
"There should also be a better "cancel query" option as sometimes one cancels a query, but then it still might run for a long time, and then one has to crash Toad in order to cancel the query."
"It would be better if they had an online option allowing me to connect from anywhere on any device. Sometimes I face some errors, depending on the network and setup. It's not a big issue."
"Toad for Oracle does not have a particular resolution within the application."
"It would be beneficial if Toad for Oracle could incorporate OEM features, as having monitoring capabilities in the same interface would simplify workload and management tasks."
"Toad for Oracle could improve code completion, it is very slow."
"Query optimization is still very resource-intensive."
"The way the dialog boxes appear can be improved."
"Sometimes it works in some areas, but in others, it doesn't. Like when you copy, you find that it's blank and doesn't copy anything. So, there are some objects that do copy, and sometimes they don't."
 

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."
"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."
"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."
"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."
"The professional edition is about $1,000 AUD ($700 USD) and the developer version is about twice that much."
"Toad for Oracle has a relatively high cost compared to other similar tools."
"In my opinion, this solution is a little expensive, but I understand that good programs cost more money."
"The product's pricing is just right because if it were slightly higher, it would not have been as widely adopted as it currently is in our organization."
"The pricing is okay, it's reasonable."
"I would rate it six, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"My advice is to try to use the three-year maintenance agreement if possible."
"There are paid and free-for-use versions of the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Performing Arts
5%
 

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 Toad for Oracle?
The product's most valuable features are UI and monitoring.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Toad for Oracle?
The licensing cost for Toad for Oracle is relatively high, with their license and DPA suite totaling around five thousand dollars.
What needs improvement with Toad for Oracle?
It would be beneficial if Toad for Oracle could incorporate OEM features, as having monitoring capabilities in the same interface would simplify workload and management tasks.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CommitDBA
intel, ebay, uber, mars, microsoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Quest Foglight for Databases vs. Toad for Oracle and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.