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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Informix

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AInformix is an embedded relational database offering from IBM.N/A

    Microsoft Access

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

    $139.99

    per PC

    Pricing
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft Access
    $139.99
    per PC
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    21 Answers
    Features
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of IBM Informix and Microsoft Access
    Feature
    IBM Informix
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Access
    7.7
    3 Ratings
    5% below category average
    ACID compliance00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Database monitoring00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Database locking00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Encryption00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Disaster recovery00 Ratings7.73 Ratings
    Flexible deployment00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Amazon RDS
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    SAP IQ
    Score5.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (7 ratings)
    7.5
    (102 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.6
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM InformixMicrosoft Access
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Informix creates an effective and secure channel for easy and quick data management and transfer across other major Cloud platforms and other data storage systems. The analytical ability is also the best and most effective visual functionalities and the encryption and the data archiving functionalities are great and easy on reporting.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    IBM
    • Industry leading OLTP performance.
    • Excellent Data Warehouse performance from the basic engine. Outstanding Data Warehouse performance from the Informix Warehouse Accelerator module.
    • Best embedability among major RDBMS systems.
    • Scalable from the smallest Raspberry PI up to the largest monolithic systems and out to dozens of distributed nodes.
    • Hybrid data capabilities to merge relational data with time seriesv, geospacial data, JSON data and other non-traditional data types with performance comparable or better than systems dedicated to those data types.
    • The latest release, v15.0, removes nearly all internal limits. Informix now supports database sizes up to 0.5 Yottabytes!
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
    • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
    • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
    • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    IBM
    • It is very difficult to find a missing functionality in Informix, technically is great. I will again criticize the business side and how it has been managed over the past, I hope this could be improved with HCL's help. I know they are working hard, but we need to start letting the world know and revert their concept about its existence and that it is one of the best competitors within the data treatment, in the market. We need to start telling the world about success cases and stories showing this and backing up its strong technology.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
    • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
    • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
    • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    Informix is the best RDBMS on the market. Period.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    Server management is easy enough to be able to embed the engine in a device and let it run for years without maintenance.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    The Informix product support team has won awards and is appreciated by the entire Informix user community.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
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    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    IBM Informix creates effective solutions for big data extraction and data transportation functionalities across the entire Cloud services and the Automation ability is the best. The security that IBM Informix provides for all our business data and other project information and contacts is effective and the reports are very clean and easy to understand.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Although I do not own nor have visibility on my company's figures:
    • Informix generates consistent savings on DBA staffing, no need for many DBAs as other DBMS require.
    • The replication architecture allowed consistent savings in the infrastructure as well as developments and maintenance, the job is already done, no need to develop complex and costly solutions, it's just a matter of configuring it.
    • The advantages of hybrid development (i.e mixing SQL and NoSQL in the same database) is not just a marketing hype: it allowed us to solve with a brilliant solution, in one afternoon of coding, a functional problem we have been having for more than 10 years!
    • The biggest drawback is that IBM pricing may be constraining, it has too important gaps between the mid range and highrange in terms of pricing
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
    • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
    • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots