Db2 vs. Oracle Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Db2
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
DB2 is a family of relational database software solutions offered by IBM. It includes standard Db2 and Db2 Warehouse editions, either deployable on-cloud, or on-premise.
$0
Oracle Database
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Oracle Database, currently in edition 23c, offers native support for property graph data structures and graph queries. If you're looking for flexibility to build graphs in conjunction with transactional data, JSON, Spatial, and other data types, we got you covered. Developers can now easily build graph applications with SQL using existing SQL development tools and frameworks.N/A
Pricing
Db2Oracle Database
Editions & Modules
Db2 on Cloud Lite
$0
Db2 on Cloud Standard
$99
per month
Db2 Warehouse on Cloud Flex One
$898
per month
Db2 on Cloud Enterprise
$946
per month
Db2 Warehouse on Cloud Flex for AWS
2,957
per month
Db2 Warehouse on Cloud Flex
$3,451
per month
Db2 Warehouse on Cloud Flex Performance
13,651
per month
Db2 Warehouse on Cloud Flex Performance for AWS
13,651
per month
Db2 Standard Edition
Contact us
Db2 Advanced Edition
Contact us
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Db2Oracle Database
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Db2Oracle Database
Considered Both Products
Db2
Chose Db2
Considering Price, features configurations timelines of the IBM Db2 we found that is very Robust in Scalability, Reliability, Highly Available. also, we are already a IBM products user and we are much satisfied with the overall product as well as customer support from IBM team. …
Chose Db2
Db2 is more scalable, reliable, and easily configurable than all the products that we evaluated. We were already using some of the services provided by IBM and were satisfied with the support and pricing. This led us to select Db2 as our database management system.
Chose Db2
Compared to similar products, Db2 shared common Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS) features such as SQL support, data integrity, Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability (ACID) Compliance and concurrency control. However, the Db2 is designed for scalability, …
Chose Db2
Db2 is one of the oldest and mature rdbms available in the market. IBM products were already been used in the organization. Cost effective in terms of licensing.
Chose Db2
DB2 works as good as any of these databases. It is cheaper to run than any of them. It is more solid and stable that SQL server or Netezza. It is very comparable to Oracle for reliabilty.

But for administration, Netezza is a little simpler because it has no indexes. Netezza is …
Chose Db2
Well, it was business decision before I joined the company but its mostly based on usability, cost, performance and availability.
Chose Db2
DB2 was more scalable and easily configurable than other products we evaluated and short listed in terms of functionality and pricing. IBM also had a good demo on premise and provided us a sandbox experience to test out and play with the product and DB2 at that time came out …
Chose Db2
Db2 is one of the best relational databases I’ve used. It has the ability to maintain large amount of data and execution of million transactions in fraction of a second. If you use it properly, an organization can build a database with thousands of tables, and it can provide …
Chose Db2
It's almost not comparable because they all do the same job in varying degrees. There are some things I like about Db2 that I don't enjoy about Oracle, but it mostly comes down to how it works and where it stores everything like SYS tables in Db2. MySQL is probably the fastest …
Chose Db2
Db2 is really reliable and fast. It can handle really large OLTP throughput and really large data warehouses.
Chose Db2
I did not choose DB2 over any other database engine, the corporation we are currently working for uses all of them for different companies/systems/departments and we need to consolidate data from all of them into a single data warehouse. DB2 is one of the many different data …
Chose Db2
The most straightforward and easiest to use. Probably the biggest bang for the buck of any of the vendors. Handles our business needs perfectly.
Oracle Database
Chose Oracle Database
I have heard from other similar institutions that they have problems unique to their DB2 database when using the ERP that we have in common. I found the DB2 database system difficult to interact with when I had to use it for a project many years ago. I personally developed some …
Chose Oracle Database
The reason why my team and organization chose to go with Oracle Database 12c with it stacked up against IBM's DB2, or Microsoft's SQL server, as when using other Oracle products, it has been much easier in the past to work along side with other Oracle products, which by the way …
Chose Oracle Database
MySQL: I used MySQL as part of an old CRM. I think that's also light. But, Oracle seems to have better speed and reliability.
DB2: I used DB2 mainly on mainframe and z/OS. I always felt that it's cumbersome to access and write queries on DB2.
Chose Oracle Database
Oracle 12c is superior to SQL Server for large mission critical databases and applications. We also used DB2 in the past. We migrated many of our SAP applications from DB2 to Oracle 11.2 several years ago. These applications are now on Oracle 12c.
Chose Oracle Database
We use IBM DB2 in AS400 to handle part of our accounting system and our legacy ERP. We are migrating all functionalities to Oracle Database 12c because it is more secure and stable. We have some applications using SQL Server but we want to handle those systems in it because at …
Chose Oracle Database
IBM DB2 is extremely heavy as compared to Oracle and is expensive for the price we pay for the product. MySQL doesn’t have most of the features that Oracle has.
Chose Oracle Database
I have selected Oracle database from other databases as this database is relational database which stored the data in structural and tabular format which is better than any other databases which I have used in my carrier. Also MongoDB is no SQL database where we can use SQL …
Chose Oracle Database
Oracle Database is best in business, consistent, and robust. Even the standard version is sufficient for the best performance. The main thing is I have never seen corruption and in my opinion, it is best when used with Linux.
Chose Oracle Database
While I was not available for the original selection, the reason I have fought to keep it in place and not change is mainly due to performance and security. The company has sought other options, however, I continue to maintain that this is the best course of action in our …
Chose Oracle Database
Oracle is, I believe, the most expensive, but also the most feature-rich of the group. For in-house development, it stands apart from the pack.
Chose Oracle Database
Oracle Database 12c is far superior to Microsoft SQL Server (or any other database in fact). For starters, Oracle 12c offers much better performance and higher reliability. That itself should make the difference. Oracle 12c is also superior in terms of features.
On a high level, …
Chose Oracle Database
Microsoft SQL Server is our most commonly used DBMS because most vendors support it. The user interface for SQL Server Management studio is also very easy to use. For this reason, we usually prefer SQL Server over Oracle. However, we also support Oracle because it is a …
Chose Oracle Database
While there are several very good relational databases, some are offered by companies where the database is not the key focus. Even though Oracle's software portfolio has expanded greatly over the years, they remain keenly focused on database technology.
Chose Oracle Database
We generally choose Oracle 12c whenever the requirements include reliability, scalability, and interconnectivity with existing applications. Most application upgrades are re-hosted in Oracle, if on Oracle. If the application supplier prefers, or has exclusive experience with a …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Db2Oracle Database
Small Businesses
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
SingleStore
SingleStore
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Db2Oracle Database
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(75 ratings)
9.1
(178 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(12 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(7 ratings)
7.4
(5 ratings)
Availability
8.8
(52 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(6 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.6
(3 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.7
(52 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Db2Oracle Database
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
I could think of a couple but the obvious is in Fintech and Retail, because of the amount of transactional and event level data for global operations. It is imperative to have a solution that can handle such large scale date, in real-time and batch delivery for inbound and outbound delivery, and ultimately ensuring that workload management is supported in some cases for around the clock SLAs.
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Oracle
I believe Oracle Database is still the best RDBMS database which is the database to consider for OLTP applications and for Adhoc requests. They are good in Datawarehousing in certain aspects but not the best. Oracle is also a great database for scaling up with their Clusterware solution which also makes the database highly available with services moving to the live instance without much trouble.
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Pros
IBM
  • DB2 maintains itself very well. The Task Scheduler component of DB2 allows for statistics gathering and reorganization of indexes and tables without user interaction or without specific knowledge of cron or Windows Task Scheduler / Scheduled jobs.
  • Its use of ASYNC, NEARSYNC, and SYNC HADR (High Availability Disaster Recovery ) models gives you a range of options for maintaining a very high uptime ratio. Failover from PRIMARY to SECONDARY becomes very easy with just a single command or windowed mouse click.
  • Task Scheduler ( DB2 9.7 and earlier ) allows for jobs to be run within other jobs, and exit and error codes can define what other jobs are run. This allows for ease of maintenance without third party softwares.
  • Tablespace usage and automatic storage help keep your data segmented while at rest, making partitioning easier.
  • Ability to run commands via CLI (Command Line Interface) or via Control Center / Data Studio ( DB2 10.x+) makes administration a breeze.
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Oracle
  • Best thing about it is that it supports PL/SQL which is helpful in writing complex quarries easily.
  • Its storage capacity , backup and recovery features make it the best database storage tool available.
  • Other thing I like about this software is its interface is so good.
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Cons
IBM
  • The relational model requires a rigid schema that does not necessarily fit with some types of modern development.
  • Proprietary database, requires a lot of Hardware for its good performance and its costs are high.
  • As data grows in production environment, it becomes slow.
Read full review
Oracle
  • The memory demand and management makes it impossible to run it in a container.
  • It is hard to perform local unit testing with Oracle even using the personal edition (aggressive all the available memory grab for itself).
  • Lack of built in database migrations (e.g. as Flyway).
  • The need to install the Oracle client in addition to its drivers.
  • The cost of running it, especially in the Cloud.
  • Comes with very spartan community grade client/management tools whereas the commercial offerings tend to demand a premium price.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
The DB2 database is a solid option for our school. We have been on this journey now for 3-4 years so we are still adapting to what it can do. We will renew our use of DB2 because we don’t see. Major need to change. Also, changing a main database in a school environment is a major project, so we’ll avoid that if possible.
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Oracle
There is a lot of sunk cost in a product like Oracle 12c. It is doing a great job, it would not provide us much benefit to switch to another product even if it did the same thing due to the work involved in making such a switch. It would not be cost effective.
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Usability
IBM
You have to be well versed in using the technology, not only from a GUI interface but from a command line interface to successfully use this software to its fullest.
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Oracle
Many of the powerful options can be auto-configured but there are still many things to take into account at the moment of installing and configuring an Oracle Database, compared with SQL Server or other databases. At the same time, that extra complexity allows for detailed configuration and guarantees performance, scalability, availability and security.
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
I have never had DB2 go down unexpectedly. It just works solidly every day. When I look at the logs, sometimes DB2 has figured out there was a need to build an index. Instead of waiting for me to do it, the database automatically created the index for me. At my current company, we have had zero issues for the past 8 years. We have upgrade the server 3 times and upgraded the OS each time and the only thing we saw was that DB2 got better and faster. It is simply amazing.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Performance
IBM
The performances are exceptional if you take care to maintain the database. It is a very powerful tool and at the same time very easy to use. In our installation, we expect a DB machine on the mainframe with access to the database through ODBC connectors directly from branch servers, with fabulous end users experience.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
IBM
Easily the best product support team. :) Whenever we have questions, they have answered those in a timely manner and we like how they go above and beyond to help.
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Oracle
1. I have very good experience with Oracle Database support team. Oracle support team has pool of talented Oracle Analyst resources in different regions. To name a few regions - EMEA, Asia, USA(EST, MST, PST), Australia. Their support staffs are very supportive, well trained, and customer focused. Whenever I open Oracle Sev1 SR(service request), I always get prompt update on my case timely. 2. Oracle has zoom call and chat session option linked to Oracle SR. Whenever you are in Oracle portal - you can chat with the Oracle Analyst who is working on your case. You can request for Oracle zoom call thru which you can share the your problem server screen in no time. This is very nice as it saves lot of time and energy in case you have to follow up with oracle support for your case. 3.Oracle has excellent knowledge base in which all the customer databases critical problems and their solutions are well documented. It is very easy to follow without consulting to support team at first.
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In-Person Training
IBM
the material was very clear and all subjects have been handled
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM
db2 work well with the application, also the replication tool can keep it up
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Oracle
Overall the implementation went very well and after that everything came out as expected - in terms of performance and scalability. People should always install and upgrade a stable version for production with the latest patch set updates, test properly as much as possible, and should have a backup plan if anything unexpected happens
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
DB2 was more scalable and easily configurable than other products we evaluated and short listed in terms of functionality and pricing. IBM also had a good demo on premise and provided us a sandbox experience to test out and play with the product and DB2 at that time came out better than other similar products.
Read full review
Oracle
Oracle is more of an enterprise-level database than Access and SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise isn't getting developed much (some people wonder how close it is to end of life) but SQL Server is miles ahead of Oracle IMO in terms of user experience and comparable in terms of performance AFAIK. As stated, a vendor forced our hand to use Oracle so we did not have a choice. If you are looking for help with an issue you are having, there are lots of SQL Server articles, etc. on the web and the community of SQL Server developers and DBA's is very strong and supportive. Oracle's help on the web is much more limited and often has an attitude that goes with it of superiority and lacking in compassion, IMO. For instance, check out the Ask Tom Oracle blog - a world of difference. If you choose Oracle, go into it with eyes wide open.
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Scalability
IBM
By
using DB2 only to support my IzPCA activities, my knowledge here
is somewhat limited.

Anyway,
from what I was able to understand, DB2 is extremely scallable.

Maybe the information below could serve as an example of scalability.
Customer have an huge mainframe environment, 13x z15 CECs, around
80 LPARs, and maybe more than 50 Sysplexes (I am not totally sure about this
last figure...)

Today
we have 7 IzPCA
databases, each one in a distinct Syplex.

Plans
are underway to have, at the end, an small LPAR, with only one DB2 sub-system,
and with only one database, then transmit the data from a lot of other LPARs,
and then process all the data in this only one database.



The
IzPCA collect process (read the data received, manipulate it, and insert rows
in the tables) today is a huge process, demanding many elapsed
hours, and lots of CPU.

Almost
100% of the tables are PBR type, insert jobs run in parallel, but in 4 of the 7
database, it is a really a huge and long process.



Combining
the INSERTs loads from the 7 databases in only one will be impossible.......,,,,



But,
IzPCA recently introduced a new feature, called "Continuous
Collector"
.
By
using that feature, small amounts of data will be transmited to the central
LPAR at every 5 minutes (or even less), processed immediately,in
a short period of time, and with small use of CPU,
instead of one or two transmissions by day, of very large amounts of data and
the corresponding collect jobs occurring only once or twice a day, with long
elapsed times, and huge comsumption of CPU



I
suspect the total CPU seconds consumed will be more or less the same in
both cases, but in the new method it will occur in small bursts
many times a day!!
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM
  • Fast response time by processing optimization and cost reduction by reduced CPU utilization. Nowadays, good performance is a necessary condition for the survival of a company and its sustained growth
  • SQL enhancements are targeted to improve performance, simplify current and new applications, and reduce the development cycle time to market.
  • A CPU reduction at peak times can immediately reduce our TCO by reducing software costs related to CPU utilization.
  • Impressive reductions in memory requirements, which used to limit the concurrent database activity
  • Out-of-the-box savings without changing the database or application
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Oracle
  • Oracle Database 12c has had a very positive impact on our ability to build strong and robust custom applications in house without the need to come up with our own methods of data storage and management.
  • Oracle Database 12c has the strongest user interface of any database I have worked with and continuously is improving its strength with the addition of support for JSON and XML type objects in the database.
  • Oracle Database 12c is sometimes very heavy and DBA intensive, but the benefits far outweigh the costs, which we need to spend on DBA support for enabling security and access features.
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