The ideal tool for quickly creating web applications on an Oracle database.
July 29, 2019

The ideal tool for quickly creating web applications on an Oracle database.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle Application Express

Our business has been using Oracle Forms for around 15 years for our in-house systems covering manufacturing, stock, transport, and sales activity. Oracle Application Express provides us with a low code and free means to modernize these systems, speeding up development in the process while reusing much of the existing code. It has also been used to replace legacy ASP sites and we are using ORDS as a means to provide REST services to an iPhone app used by our consultants.
  • Easy upgrade path from Forms, allowing reuse of code and a low learning curve for Forms developers.
  • Very quick to develop in. Ideal for prototyping or iterative development which is how we usually work.
  • Comes with cross browser and mobile compatibility out of the box.
  • Easy to incorporate other web technologies.
  • Development environment runs straight from a browser. This has proved to be a life saver when issues crop up on a weekend.
  • No built in printing solution for reports.
  • While being low code for many tasks, some web development skill is helpful for anything complex. I frequently need to use Javascript/CSS/HTML.
  • It has increased our development output over Forms greatly. For instance, when starting at my current company, I was able to replace our aging ASP Intranet site within 4 months when our IT manager had budgeted over a year for the task.
  • We've been able to standardize under one technology, incorporating previously unsupportable disparate systems under one roof.
  • It's free with an Oracle Database so the only investment was our time, something we now have more of thanks to Application Express.
Oracle Application Express can essentially be used for any web application that needs to talk to an Oracle Database. Simple applications to view/edit data can be turned out in next to no time with the built-in reports allowing fine-grained control for the end user. It really shines when used for tasks such as dashboard management or basic manipulation of data, all of which can be done with next to no code.

For less standardized tasks, the architecture will allow the use of other web technologies. I have, for instance, incorporated Google Maps into Oracle Application Express in order to visually show data, such as the operating areas, for our consultants. Setting this up in the Application Express framework is relatively straightforward allowing me to concentrate on the heavy lifting in PL/SQL.

The only major area I've found that it isn't well suited in currently is outputting anything printable, typically requiring the use of some 3rd party hardware or Oracle BI (if money is no object). I have also run into issues when working with larger teams as it doesn't lend itself well to source control with all the pages being stored in the database itself.

Oracle APEX Feature Ratings

Visual Modeling
8
Drag-and-drop Interfaces
8
Platform Security
9
Platform User Management
9
Reusability
9
Platform Scalability
10