CockroachDB vs IBM Informix comparison

Cockroach and IBM are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Cockroach is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.4, while IBM is ranked #21 with an average rating of 7.0. Cockroach holds a 4.1% mindshare in SQL, compared to IBM’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of Cockroach users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of IBM users who would recommend it.

CockroachDB

Read 13 CockroachDB reviews

2,165 Views
2,013 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

IBM Informix

Read 16 IBM Informix reviews

1,237 Views
1,200 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

CockroachDB

IBM Informix

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

IBM Informix and CockroachDB compete in the database management sector. CockroachDB tends to have an advantage due to its modern features and scalability, which suit large-scale deployments, while Informix is favored for pricing and support.

Features: IBM Informix excels in strong data processing capabilities, robust security, and exceptional performance in managing complex transactions. It supports diverse programming languages and environments. CockroachDB is distinguished by its distributed SQL capabilities, seamless horizontal scaling, and automatic failover, efficiently handling global data distribution. The main differentiation is CockroachDB's adaptability to distributed systems versus Informix's focus on traditional transactional performance.

Room for Improvement: IBM Informix could enhance its cloud-native capabilities and improve ease of scalability. Additionally, its learning curve could be reduced for new users. CockroachDB could expand its customer support offerings and improve integration with legacy systems. Also, optimization for handling smaller, less distributed datasets could be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Informix offers a flexible deployment model compatible with on-premises and cloud setups, with comprehensive support praised for proactive assistance. CockroachDB's deployment is inherently cloud-native, optimizing scaling across regions with minimal manual intervention. Its customer service benefits from excellent documentation and community support, despite being less comprehensive than Informix.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Informix usually requires a higher upfront investment, reflecting its enterprise-grade features, yet delivers solid ROI in complex infrastructures. CockroachDB presents more competitive pricing for cloud deployments, promoting better ROI through scalable pay-as-you-go models. While CockroachDB excels in cost efficiency in dynamic environments, Informix offers value in extensive, tailored implementations.

To learn more, read our detailed CockroachDB vs. IBM Informix Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CockroachDB vs. IBM Informix

September 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

CockroachDB

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Informix

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

21st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Embedded Database (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of CockroachDB is 4.1%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
CockroachDB	4.1%
IBM Informix	1.9%
Other	94.0%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Antonio Tringali

Software Engineer at a consultancy with self employed

Open source with extensive documentation and a University for training

I am a freelancer. A client of mine wanted a solution that would allow them to scale yet not abandon the familiar PostgreSQL front-end (and rewrite a part of their source code). Scalability aside, CockroachDB is a fine way forward from PostgreSQL and is not changing the client source code part of the system. If you are lucky and you do not use newer features from recent versions of PostgreSQL or PostgreSQL extensions, it's fine. There are nice-to-have features for big organizations like regional tables. At the moment, my client simply does not use these. However, the serverless offer from CockroachDB is reacting well as data grows.

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Nazzareno Maria Rezzini

Senior Oracle Database and Systems Administrator at Dedagroup

Supports multiple business intelligence tools, but the technical support services need improvement

IBM Informix is a central database solution across various environments, supporting multiple applications and business intelligence tools The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The initial setup and deployment are simple."

"The most valuable features of the solution are its resiliency features and the geo-partitioning capabilities."

"The product has valuable security features."

"What I like best is its ability to solve data residency issues. The main advantage is auto geo partitioning, built into the product. This means we don't have to spin up separate servers in each region, which would be much more costly."

"I use CockroachDB to test big data samples and to create the best structure for databases. We have four users and required 10 people for deployment and maintenance."

"CockroachDB is excellent for managing relationships in RDBMS with multiple benefits such as the ability to create views and dynamic queries that save data and reduce the use of complex algorithms in code."

"The availability and the easy to use feature is the most valuable. The documentation is also good."

"The subset of SQL that my client is using is completely supported."

More CockroachDB pros

"Every version is faster than the previous."

"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."

"The scalability is very good."

"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."

"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."

"It supports in-house-built applications in .NET and VB6"

"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."

"This solution has made financial reporting possible by allowing financial people the opportunity to set Informix to "Auto Pilot" so that they can attend other duties."

More IBM Informix pros

Cons

"The initial setup and pricing could be improved."

"For multi-region deployment, CockroachDB requires at least three plus replicas across data centers to achieve strong consistency across regions, which increases infrastructure costs including compute, storage, and networking."

"CockroachDB needs to improve store processes."

"Cockroach does not support all types of protocols. I need to improve it myself to support a CouchDB on my network."

"I think the engine itself could be improved. If you miss a partition key, it should be able to be modeled. This is where AI could be really helpful. For example, if a user is from Australia, the system should know to look for their data there first instead of searching in the US or another continent."

"I find the serverless offer a bit confusing."

"The product must improve its disaster recovery features."

"I would like CockroachDB to have more compatibility with PostgreSQL, especially with the connection string and technical integrations."

More CockroachDB cons

"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."

"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."

"This solution is in need of more current tools."

"The solution really doesn't add new features very often."

"The solution lacks some functionality."

"The pricing is a bit expensive."

"The support team could include local engineers to establish efficient communication. It will help us speed up the escalation process."

"In my opinion, the packages could be improved. The version I use doesn't allow for packages. I can do some general procedures, but no packages like in Oracle. So, develop separate modules in SQL language. This would be most beneficial for me."

More IBM Informix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is not cheap. However, the good thing is that customers are willing to pay for it if they want it."

"I've used CockroachDB at a small scale on the free accounts because we are only testing."

"The pricing is good but can be made cheaper. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."

"The platform is affordable even for the enterprise version. It provides value for investment in terms of performance."

"The product's price depends on the user's company and the contract model they enter into with CockroachDB. Depending on the contract model one enters into with CockroachDB, the product may or may not be expensive."

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."

"The free edition can be enough to handle moderate-size implementations, but you may want a pay for edition to benefit from more functionality, such as replication."

"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."

"For me, it's always too expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

32%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CockroachDB?

The subset of SQL that my client is using is completely supported.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CockroachDB?

The platform should provide a UI feature where users have the ability to manage it. The CockroachDB platform should have a chatbot where users can inquire about pricing or seek solutions for querie...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CockroachDB?

We have been using CockroachDB for the last two years. From 2023, we started working on a product similar to Google Capture. We decided to work with CockroachDB with Hasura. Hasura is a UI for the ...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Informix?

It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?

The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Informix?

The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The product's performance could be better com...

See all answers

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Compared 35% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Informix

Compared 28% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs IBM Informix

Compared 13% of the time

Actian Ingres vs IBM Informix

Compared 8% of the time

MySQL vs IBM Informix

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CockroachDB

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM Informix

September 2025

Download IBM Informix product report

Also Known As

No data available

Informix

Overview

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database built on a transactional and strongly-consistent key-value store. It scales horizontally; survives disk, machine, rack, and even datacenter failures with minimal latency disruption and no manual intervention; supports strongly-consistent ACID transactions; and provides a familiar SQL API for structuring, manipulating, and querying data.

CockroachDB is inspired by Google’s Spanner and F1 technologies, and it’s completely open source.

Cockroach

IBM Informix is a widely used and scalable relational database management system designed to handle large amounts of data and high transaction volumes. It is known to provide exceptional performance, thanks to its Parallel Data Query Engine (PDQ) that enables parallel processing of queries and operations, significantly reducing response times for complex queries and large data sets. Additionally, Informix supports online operations like backup, restore, index maintenance, and table reorganization, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous availability.

Informix provides robust high availability and replication features, including shared-disk clustering, remote data replication, and high-availability data replication (HDR). These features ensure data redundancy, failover protection, and disaster recovery capabilities, making it a reliable choice for mission-critical applications. Furthermore, Informix offers specialized features for data warehousing and analytics, such as in-database analytics, data compression, and parallel load capabilities, making it suitable for business intelligence (BI) and data analysis applications.

Informix can be deployed as an embedded database, allowing it to be tightly integrated with applications and systems, reducing overhead and simplifying deployment. It includes workload management capabilities, enabling organizations to prioritize and manage different types of workloads, such as online transaction processing (OLTP) and analytical queries, ensuring efficient resource utilization and meeting service-level agreements (SLAs). Informix also provides robust security features, including role-based access control, data encryption, auditing, and compliance with industry standards like FIPS 140-2 and Common Criteria.

IBM

Sample Customers

Baidu, Kindred, Tierion, Heroic Labs, Gorgias

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory

Buyer's Guide

CockroachDB vs. IBM Informix

September 2025

Free Report: CockroachDB vs. IBM Informix

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