EDB Postgres Advanced Server vs. Oracle SQL Developer vs. Microsoft SQL Server

It's great if you are using or wish to use PostgreSQL and need the added performance optimization, security features and developer and DBA tools. If you need compatibility with Oracle it's a must-have. There are many developer features that greatly assist dev teams in integrating and implementing complex middleware. It's great for optimizing complex database queries as well as for scaling. I would recommend Postgres Plus Advanced Server for any software development team that is hitting the limit of what PostgreSQL is capable of and wants to improve performance, security, and gain extra developer tools.

Incentivized

Almost all development activities (the tool is called "SQL Developer", not "DBA Toolset") can be done easily and quick with [Oracle] SQL Developer. From data model creation (tables, views) to development (creation of procedures, functions, packages) and then testing (SQL Developer includes an easy to use debugger), all tasks can be performed in a single tool.

It may not be as complete as other solutions for DBA tasks like instance monitoring, but it is usually OK for development and testing environments if you want to do some basic troubleshooting.

Incentivized

Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.

Incentivized

• PPAS Oracle compatibility, especially the PL/SQL syntax, has made migrating database-tier code very simple. Most Oracle packages do not need to be changed at all and those that do are generally for simple reasons like a reserved word in PPAS that is allowed in Oracle.
• PPAS xDB, the multi-master replication tool, is simple and - most important - does not break with network or other interruptions. We have been able to configure and forget, which our customers could never do with other multi-master tools.
• Most people had no idea that PPAS and PostgreSQL have full CRUD support for JSON. They think you need a specialized product and/or that JSON is read-only. Every organization that I have worked with is evaluating adding JSON to their relational model.

Incentivized

• Object Browser in SQL Developer allows you to explore the contents of your database using the connection tree.
• The SQL Worksheet is an editor that allows for execution of SQL statements, scripts, and PL/SQL anonymous blocks. SELECT statements can be executed to return results in a spreadsheet-like 'grid' or can be executed as a script such to emulate SQL*Plus behavior and output
• DBA Console allows users with administrative privileges to access DBA features such as database init file configuration, RMAN backup, storage, etc.

Incentivized

• Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
• Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
• Data Security
• Easy to understand and use
• Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script

Incentivized

• Documentation is excellent but spread out across many resources and can take a while to wade through—would benefit from having more intro level, getting started guides for various languages.
• Ruby support is excellent but more Ruby examples and beginner-level documentation would be nice.
• It is sometimes hard to find a community of users on StackOverflow so a larger community, and a dedicated forum with active members to answer questions and work through issues would be nice.

Incentivized

• Inability to run multiple queries on the same database. You can only run one query on a given database.
• Analytical models created from complex tables isn't accurate, and needs work.
• Inability to view multiple tables of a database side-by-side. When trying to find correlations between tables, it would help to be able to see them at once on the same page.

Incentivized

• Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
• Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
• It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.

Incentivized

We had already thought of changing to TOAD, but we decided to stick with Oracle SQL Developer until the end.

Incentivized

We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.

Incentivized

Oracle SQL Developer is very easy to use and there are a wide range of courses available which can help you get started just within a day. Data can be exported in multiple formats based on user requirements. Organizational data can be stored and management effectively using Oracle SQL Developer. All the data, tables, sequences, indexes can be easily created and updated in Oracle SQL Developer.

Incentivized

SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.

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Its does not have outages.

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SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.

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Large user community support

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We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.

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It was good

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very hands on and detailed training

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Just download and uncompress!

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Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.

Incentivized

PPAS proved better for our customer's data-centric apps than Oracle in all but a few edge cases (encryption at rest and multi-TB database-tier backups) because it is simpler to install/maintain, runs nearly all Oracle-syntax SQL as well as ANSI SQL. PPAS has much more JSON capabilities (full CRUD vs. read-only in Oracle), simpler geospatial, simpler / more stable replication and datatypes that match developer expectations, such as BOOLEAN and ENUMs.

Incentivized

I have started to use Toad for Oracle recently because it is easier to sort and filter results, due to their memory sort feature that puts the results from your query in memory so that you don't have to rerun your query. I have used SQL Developer to easily update records in tables that I need to fix. I haven't found an easy way to do this in Toad other than writing SQL insert statements.

Incentivized

[Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.

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SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.

Incentivized

• Postgres Plus Advanced Server is quite complex and may take longer to implement certain things than simply using PostgreSQL depending on developer familiarity with the platform.
• Getting up to speed can be daunting so again, there is an upfront cost in time spent learning the platform, besides the potential for extra time spent on a feature-by-feature basis.
• The cost of Postgres Plus Advanced Server should be weighed against simply using PostgreSQL to decide which is the best solution for your business needs.

Incentivized

• It gives 100% return on investment as it is free of cost.
• No need to have multiple tools for each database
• Considering the employee training, so one can save money on training, as it is not very hard to use so still savings.

Incentivized

• Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
• Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
• Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.

Incentivized