Oracle SQL Developer vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SQL Developer
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Oracle SQL Developer is an integrated development environment (IDE) which provides editors for working with SQL, PL/SQL, Stored Java Procedures, and XML in Oracle databases.N/A
Visual Studio
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Visual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.
$45
per month
Pricing
Oracle SQL DeveloperMicrosoft Visual Studio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SQL DeveloperVisual Studio
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Oracle SQL DeveloperMicrosoft Visual Studio
Considered Both Products
SQL Developer
Chose Oracle SQL Developer
Having used both TOAD and PL/SQL Developer, I believe SQL Developer from Oracle is a most than acceptable alternative, maybe not as powerful and complete as them but being free has a very positive impact. Most development profiles can work perfectly using SQL Developer while …
Visual Studio
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio
No added value. If Visual Studio costs too much then I see the point. But otherwise there is just no need for any other tool. IntelliJ is a mess, buggy and counter intuitive. Or maybe it's because java is not a particularly cool language...
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Oracle SQL DeveloperMicrosoft Visual Studio
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User Ratings
Oracle SQL DeveloperMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(72 ratings)
9.3
(104 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(2 ratings)
8.8
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Oracle SQL DeveloperMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
Oracle
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.
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Microsoft
It's useful for app development, debugging, and testing. I've been using it for two years and have seen it grow into a fantastic tool. All of the features, NuGet packages, and settings that enable different types of projects are fantastic. It also has a connection to Azure DevOps and Git. It's a fantastic product that's simple to use.
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Pros
Oracle
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Since Microsoft offers a free Community Edition of the IDE many of our new developers have used it at home or school and are very familiar with the user interface, requiring little training to move up to the paid, enterprise-friendly editions we use.
  • The online community support for Visual Studio is outstanding, as solid or better than any other commercial or open-source project software.
  • Microsoft continuously keeps the product up to date and has maintained a history of doing so. They use it internally for their own development so there is little chance it will ever fall out of favor and become unsupported.
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Cons
Oracle
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Certain settings and features can sometimes be challenging to locate. The interface isn't always intuitive.
  • Sometimes there are too many ways to do the same thing. For example, users can quickly add a new workspace in Source Control Explorer when a local path shows as "Not Mapped," but it doesn't indicate that the user might want to check the dropdown list of workspaces. The shortcut of creating a new workspace by clicking on the "Not Mapped" link can lead to developers creating too many workspaces and causing workspace management to become unwieldy. If the shortcut link were removed, the user would be forced to use the Workspace dropdown. While it can add an extra step to the process, workspaces would be managed more easily, and this would enforce consistency. At the very least, there should be a high-level administrative setting to hide the shortcut link.
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Likelihood to Renew
Oracle
We had already thought of changing to TOAD, but we decided to stick with Oracle SQL Developer until the end.
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Microsoft
VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
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Usability
Oracle
At times, Oracle SQL Developer may experience freezing issues. However, despite this occasional inconvenience, the tool offers valuable features such as the ability to integrate plugins like utPLSQL, which greatly assists in debugging and testing our packages. Additionally, the usage of breakpoints and the flexibility to format text according to individual configurations enhance the debugging process.
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Microsoft
The thing I like the most is Visual Studio doesn't suffer from Microsoft's over eager marketing department who feel they need to redesign the UI (think Office and windows) which forces users to loose large amounts of productivity having to learn software that they had previously known.
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Support Rating
Oracle
Large user community support
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Microsoft
Between online forums like StackOverflow, online documentation, MSDN forums, and the customer support options, I find it very easy to get support for Visual Studio IDE when I need it. If desired, one can also download the MSDN documentation about the IDE and have it readily available for any support needs.
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Implementation Rating
Oracle
Just download and uncompress!
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Oracle
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.
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Microsoft
I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
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Return on Investment
Oracle
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • We've had hundreds of hours saved by the rapid development that Visual Studio provides.
  • We've lost some time in the Xamarin updates. However, being cross platform, we ultimately saved tons of time not having to create separate apps for iOS and Android.
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ScreenShots