Oracle Application Express (APEX) Reviews

We use Apex for the development of publications, specifically in the context of a payroll system. Presently, we are using Apex version 20, but there is an update available to version 31.2. The migration was not a one-to-one transfer, as leveraging Apex effectively requires a shift in programming approach to create an optimal user interface. Adapting to Apex involves relinquishing old programming habits, but the platform offers extensive capabilities that, once mastered, facilitate a user-friendly experience.

In our experience with Apex, we find that minimizing reliance on HTML and JavaScript is preferable, especially considering our background as seasoned programmers adept in PL/SQL. Incorporating HTML and JavaScript can pose challenges due to potential compatibility issues when updates are made to JavaScript. We also make use of JASPER report integration for generating reports, a practice integral to our reporting procedures.    

Apex has effectively incorporated new market trends into its features. The platform's user-friendly nature is notable, guiding developers through the development process. While advanced customization of the user interface with HTML and CSS is possible, the out-of-the-box options often suffice, providing 80-90% of the required functionality. The IDE is commendable, yet an enhancement in the Page Designer to allow a real-time preview of layout changes would be beneficial. Currently, running the page is necessary to visualize layout adjustments, but an immediate preview during the design phase would be a valuable improvement.

We have been using Oracle Application Express (APEX) since 2011.

It is easy to install and I would rate the installment process 8 out of 10, a piece of cake.

The installment process for our system can be intricate, especially considering ODBC connections to the Oracle database. This involves optimizing for sharing and accommodating multiple users, ensuring efficient session management. Unlike a user-friendly click-and-install approach, our Linux-based installation demands a command-line understanding, necessitating familiarity with Linux commands. We opt for Linux over Windows Server, prioritizing cost-effectiveness with platforms like Oracle Lenovo or CentOS.Initially, we provided hosting on our cloud but encountered challenges with clients reluctant to pay for hosting services. Factors such as unreliable internet and frequent electricity outages in Venezuela further contributed to this preference for on-premise deployment.

Apex is not priced separately; instead, it is associated with the Oracle database. A free option for Oracle database and Apex can be downloaded and installed on this complimentary database version. This aligns with our current approach.

I would rate it 9 out of 10. 

My organization's primary use case for Oracle Application Express (APEX) is application development, as it's an Oracle builder software so that you can develop applications on it for the Oracle database.

The application developed on Oracle Application Express (APEX) is used for patient registrations, clinical documentation, and electronic medical records. It's also used for insurance purposes, billing claims, and coding. The finance team also uses the application that's on Oracle Application Express (APEX) for reporting, and the marketing team uses it for the CRM that's been developed by my organization. The nursing and doctor teams also have modules on Oracle Application Express (APEX), so in terms of use cases, it's used by different departments of my organization.

What I like best about Oracle Application Express (APEX) is that it doesn't require hard coding for reporting and building applications. It's a GUI-based application builder that even end-users with little development and language knowledge can develop applications on Oracle Application Express (APEX). The software is also very user-friendly, which I find valuable.

An area for improvement in Oracle Application Express (APEX) is the slow reporting because pulling the report for two months, one year, three years, etc., is very slow. It takes more than thirty minutes to download the report.

There's also room for improvement in integrating Oracle Application Express (APEX) with other vendors, such as open-source solutions through API integration. I believe Oracle is working on this feature, or the issue could be because my organization is using an older version of Oracle Application Express (APEX).

The Oracle database also has to be improved because it's still lacking in some packages, triggers, and indexes.

Process or workflow automation is a feature I'd like to see in the next version of Oracle Application Express (APEX). My organization has a lot of processes because the patient has to click a button to trigger a consultation with the doctor, so if the process is automated, that will make Oracle Application Express (APEX) better for my organization.

I've been using Oracle Application Express (APEX) for eight years, but I'm not a developer. I'm just a front-end support person.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) isn't a reliable solution, at least the current version used in my organization. You must monitor it every day or every two days because it can be down anytime. My organization has a daily backup for it and even sets up emergency servers because the server has downtime for thirty minutes to one hour, or randomly, once or twice a month.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) can't seem to handle the user requests sent to the server, so the server was upgraded, but this could be because it's an old version, and if my organization upgrades to the new version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), maybe it'll sort out the stability issue.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) isn't a scalable solution because my team had to check a workaround to be able to scale it. For example, if the database reaches 80% or if it has a lot of users in one day, there's no scalability option for those instances.

I haven't tried contacting the technical support for Oracle Application Express (APEX) because a different team contacts Oracle support.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) is very easy to deploy. I deployed it on my new branch, and it only took me five to six hours to complete the deployment.

I implemented Oracle Application Express (APEX) for a new branch, so the implementation was in-house.

To my understanding, my organization is using the free version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), but I'm unsure because I haven't checked the pricing or licensing cost for it.

My organization was new to the business when it decided to use Oracle Application Express (APEX). Management realized there was a better solution that was also Oracle-based, without the issues encountered by Oracle Application Express (APEX). Hence, there's a plan to switch to the other Oracle solution next year in the first quarter.

I work in the healthcare sector, and the EMR system I'm using is developed on Oracle Application Express (APEX). My organization also uses Microsoft 365, but just the basic version for exchange purposes.

I'm a user of Oracle Application Express (APEX). I'm using a very old version of Oracle Application Express (APEX), version 4.2.

I'd advise anyone looking into using Oracle Application Express (APEX) to try the new version of the solution rather than the old version because the new version is good. Oracle has updated the forms and reports in the latest version and integrated many APIs for open-source solutions. The new version of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is more advanced than the older version because it now has SQL server compatibility, so I recommend it.

My rating for Oracle Application Express (APEX) is six out of ten, particularly for the current version used in my organization, as it has a lot of issues, but as I've said, it's an old version that needs to be updated to the latest one.

My organization is an Oracle customer.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) can be used for anything which requires quick creation of a user interface with user interaction with a database. Sometimes it's used more for reporting, but in many cases, it's for interactive reporting or interactions with the tool to record dates in the database. For example, it can be used for internal use within the company for the testing team to conveniently add test cases. Additionally, it can be used for comprehensive reporting for the financial teams, they can perform some work related to revenue recognition. 

I didn't work with big projects exposed to the public, the use cases were mostly internal platform projects.

The most valuable features of Oracle Application Express (APEX) are the ease and speed of development. Instead of engaging a large team of middleware, front-end, and database engineers, we can have professional look at the front end and have the user interface up and running in a matter of days. However, if you want to go far and implement very custom features, it doesn't require a lot of knowledge of front-end development, such as HTML, JavaScript, or other aspects.

I have been using Oracle Application Express (APEX) for approximately 10 years.

The stability of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 100 percent. It is highly stable.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) is highly scalable and can serve up to a required number of users. However, I do not have experience with serving more than approximately100 users. I'm always advertising this tool as being scalable. Bring in the shop.oracle.com as an example, because that site is running on Oracle Application Express (APEX), and you can imagine it can serve up to an unlimited number of users. With good hardware behind the solution, it's scalable, but since I don't have direct experience, I'm pretty sure it's scalable to any possible level. My confidence level in that is 90 percent scalable.

I have not had the need to contact technical support because of the number of resources and amount of information available with only a couple of mouse clicks, such as documentation, Q&A, and FAQ, they have a lot of material available. I know that browsing those websites people sometimes face some issues with not having their issue resolved, but this has not been my experience.

Oracle Application Express (APEX) comes with Oracle. The Oracle price itself. I do not know the exact cost. Oracle is flexible on its price. If you overspend on your hardware, then I don't think you will overpay. I heard that Oracle is more expensive than other databases, but when you consider Oracle is the best traditional relational database out there. You get what you pay for.

I rate Oracle Application Express (APEX) a nine out of ten.

I have it installed in my computer, and I'm trying to build some GL applications for independent consulting just to track expenses. 

APEX is putting a lot of money into the new versions and giving new features to people like coding and building applications. I believe they're on version 21 now. I worked on their product a lot, and I did a mini project to implement Oracle applications. I have done many projects in three continents, like Africa, Europe, and now in North America.

You don't have to know a lot of PL because it's built on PL/SQL. You don't need developers. You only need to design a good application that resolves a problem, or many problems, for companies and you're ready to go. When you design it, you just need to understand how the tools work, and it's almost drag and drop. APEX does all of the coding in the backend. You don't have to know how to code PL/SQL or CSS or HTML.

A lot of times I ask my clients why they don't use APEX. They have the Oracle database and it's free, so why don't they use it to build this application? They go to Grails or inside development with many developers. I never understood why they couldn't just use APEX to build their own applications. The solution is free, and you're building something inside the house and you have the people that can design your application. They use other technologies on top of Oracle.

Maybe some people go with other technologies because they are more familiar with them. Oracle probably needs more communication about APEX and to show people that they have something free on their hands and that they need to give it a chance.

Maybe there are other technologies that offer what APEX cannot. Oracle is working hard on APEX to put it more on the cloud, so it is more useful for people that know how to code.

APEX is a stable solution.

I don't see it as complex, but not many people have that kind of skill.

The solution is free.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. 

The only advice I can give is to just try it and give it a chance.

We are using one application developed in APEX for COVID information control, and all our employees are reporting the symptoms.

Oracle Application Express is easy to use, people don't have to be developers to use it.

Some of the application interfaces of Oracle Application Express are not very attractive and could be improved.

I have been using Oracle Application Express for approximately two years.

Oracle Application Express is highly scalable. We are running it on Oracle RAC with a 60-terabyte database and we dedicate one schema for the user databases. In the database, we are running Oracle Business Suite and APEX, it is running very well.

We have approximately 1,000 people using this solution in my organization. Many of them are analysts and business users.

We plan to increase the usage of the solution.

The technical support has been good.

We previously were using Java deployments, but it was difficult to maintain standards for the applications. We are using, access development desktop databases. Every department used different people for the applications and different standards.

The installation is simple and the time it took was approximately two weeks.

I did the implementation of the solution myself.

We have approximately three technicians and two engineers that do the maintenance of the solution.

We have an Oracle basic product license, and then we can use Oracle APEX for free. We have many licenses for Oracle for approximately 20 processors.

We have evaluated other options before choosing Oracle Application Express.

Oracle Application Express it's a very good solution for many use cases. It can be deployed rapidly and I highly recommend it for the replacement of users' databases, such as Access.

I rate Oracle Application Express a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for human resources. We use it as an application for human resources for the Ministry of Electricity. We also use it for the complaint management system, for collecting the complaints from customers about electricity, and tracking these kinds of requests.

One of the most valuable features is that we can develop everything locally and deploy it for different kinds of operators in different locations, so we can do our job in one piece. The benefit of that is that others can use these applications. They connect to the internet to do these kinds of applications based on the permissions for those users.

Developing based on a web-based application with APEX or another language is more simple and costly.

Connecting with Oracle and the relation with Oracle at the database as a procedure needs improvement. 

The front-end development that's looking for HTML, Java, C++, etc also needs improvement. In order to get more out of APEX, there should be more training courses to help beginners start from A to Z. When I started with APEX, I focused on the first part, the relation between database procedure, and later I found I needed more learning courses for the HTML. There should be more training or books looking at the relationship between APEX and Oracle, not between APEX and HTML, CSL, or JavaScript. In order to go more and more with APEX, it needs to start with HTML, CSL, JavaScript, and web development.

The main drawback is that APEX doesn't talk with other databases. It would be great for the tool if you could combine it with different open-source databases. 

I have been working with Oracle for around ten years. 

It's stable but I experience instability with it when I shifted from version 3.2 to 4.2. There were some errors in the database. I couldn't understand why but after searching I found a solution. But it works now. 

Stability has been for seven or eight years. 

We have three to five developers using this solution.

I worked with Java and before Java, Visual Basic from Microsoft. The other person in the Ministry of Electricity is still using Access for Microsoft, Visual Basic, .NET or C#, SQL Server as the database, and PHP. Different people in my company work with different solutions.

The initial setup wasn't easy or complex, it was somewhere in the middle. We deployed it ourselves.

I purchased the database when we started the project with Oracle. I supported the analysis for one year, but after one year we couldn't pay more for the support. We haven't had an issue with maintenance. 

APEX is an open-source platform. I'm busy with the application. It is easy to maintain the application in order to go further with more versions of APEX. It has a different kind of database. Data Point 2.1, is the version that I got from Oracle.

Oracle one of the most expensive databases in the world.

In order to go with APEX, you need to know everything about Oracle as a database, starting from a secure fundamental as the beginning, PL/SQL, and administration of the database. You have to know about HTML5, JavaScript query, and jQuery.

I would rate APEX a seven out of ten. The drawback of APEX is the relation between APEX and Oracle, there is no relation between APEX and other databases. It's very good for learning APEX and it is stable. 

Your company has to understand how to invest in it. It is a wonderful database. If it's Oracle, it is the best one in the world. So when we invest in people, invest in Oracle, we will get our results. Everything is available and everything can be developed with any applications. 

I use the solution for creating a lot of applications and functions. In my company, we need a lot of forms, a lot of queries and a lot of reports, and I must develop these things very fast. Oracle APEX makes it very easy to do fast development. For example, I can quickly build a financial report, a product report and I can use it for quickly creating approval workflows. Oracle APEX helps a great deal with these tasks.

I started to develop all of the reports my company needs in Oracle APEX. Because the APEX product has a lot of features like automating chart and graph creation, depending on what you want to do, you can easily assemble reports. Another thing that is very helpful is the easy creation of forms for approval and approval workflows. For example, when you must get approval from a manager something, you can easily create the form and the manager can receive it a mobile device and you can get approval for anything quickly. It is helpful for speeding along the process of development.

The first feature that I think is very important is that the product is able to safely deploy on the web. You can develop any application and you can share it on the web without any installation by the end client. The second-best option in Oracle APEX is that it is very easy and very fast. You can quickly create forms and reports and in the reports feature there are a lot of options to help complete tasks. In some ways, it is the same as in Microsoft Excel. You can create charts or create almost anything that has the same features as Excel and it will be immediately available for the end client to use it.

In APEX, they changed the layout which is good because in earlier versions it was a little difficult. In Oracle APEX 18 and 19 it is very much improved and I think it is much better for the improvements. Things are easier to use. For example, when I want to change a form field, form button and anything else on a form, the layout of the product now makes it easier. They could continue to make improvements like this.

I think I only have one problem that I can think of with Oracle APEX in the layout. I can create a cool and beautiful layout. But there are times I want to change something, but I only can use CSS and HTML. Sometimes this makes it so I am not able to accomplish what I want exactly. I think it is better to keep changes to the layout in Oracle APEX only, not use any additional things because something might go wrong. It would be nice if APEX supported Java and everything sold with Java capability.

We don't need to use the Oracle technical support because there is a lot of good information in the Oracle APEX forum. We can use the area to resolve the problems that we run into and there is no need to connect to the technical support and wait for a response.

To learn more about APEX, I use websites, a lot of forums and books. I have a lot of books on the internet and I read and use them. On YouTube, there are a lot of videos for learning about Oracle APEX and other Oracle products. It is a good resource.

I remember the first installation and that time the installation was a little difficult and maybe even very complex. But after maybe 10 or 15 installations now, it is very easy because I know the product better. After gaining some experience, it is very easy.

What was a little difficult the first time is that you must create the network on the database. You must create a different tablespace. After installation, you must use the WebLogic server to launch Oracle APEX form. Then you set the web service and then create WebLogic services. There are a lot of steps there and it is a little different and a bit difficult when you have not had the experience.

When creating projects it might take five or six months for a big production. But I have also completed some products in only two weeks of development.

It is very different for different projects. The project that took only two weeks for developing was because of the size of the project. It was small and I only had five or six forms to build. On the big project that took six months for development, it was because there were a lot of forms, a lot of objects and the project was a lot more complicated.

We are doing all the deployment and deployment on our own. I have a team in my company of four people who are experts in Oracle APEX and we help each other. We don't need to seek outside the company.

Even with four in the team, a small project it could be that one person is enough to complete it. Two different projects will not be the same. In my company, I am involved with different departments. I have a database department and development department. I'm in the development department and the use of resources for big projects will depend what has to be done and what expertise is needed. In one big project, I used a five-person team and also needed two DBAs to help them.

In my country I don't pay any license fees for Oracle APEX. Oracle APEX is a free license, but only Oracle APEX. The database and other products you need to go with it have a licensing fee.

As far as additional costs, there are a lot of patches that we needed on the database and I think a lot of additional costs for peripheral things.

I think it's a very good solution for developing web applications. It's very easy to expand the web application and have strong security in the functionality and availability on the Oracle APEX. I think if some company chooses Oracle APEX as a solution, it's a better base for any web development.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate APEX as absolutely a 10. When I started to work in my company they solved a lot of problems for creating a small application, a small form for reporting for anything by using Oracle APEX. Now that I use Oracle APEX I think it is the best solution for my development.

We use the product for customizing applications for our organization. We use it for legal affairs, customized reporting, and KPIs.

The product is easy to use. It accelerates development, and it is powerful. The report gives all the insights we need within a few steps.

The product must improve the transaction features. It is difficult to integrate the solution into other databases. It is a data-driven tool. It can only be deployed on Oracle Database.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The tool is very stable. We have been using some applications for five years without any serious issues. The tool is stable even as the data grows.

The tool is scalable. We have around 40 users in the organization. Sometimes, the number of users might reach 60, depending on the modules.

The community is very helpful. We do not raise many tickets to Oracle because the community solves most issues.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

The deployment took us one to two hours. If you already have Oracle installed, it will save you time. We have to run some files related to the product and store them in Oracle Database. Then, we can deploy and configure it with the application setup. We can use open-source platforms like Apache Tomcat or GlassFish. We need a solution architect and two developers for deployment and maintenance.

The product is completely free of cost. We have to pay for Oracle Database. Some people use Oracle Database Express Edition, which is free. They run the transactions through APIs.

The solution is directly connected with Oracle Database. Without Oracle Database, we can't develop it. I fully recommend the solution to users who have Oracle Database. We can use the solution for free if we have access to Oracle Database. It also covers some enterprise features. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.