DbVisualizer vs Foglight for Databases comparison

DbVis Software and Quest Software are both solutions in the Database Development and Management category. DbVis Software is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0, while Quest Software is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. DbVis Software holds a 1.5% mindshare in DDM, compared to Quest Software’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of DbVis Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

DbVisualizer

Read 3 DbVisualizer reviews

408 Views
392 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Foglight for Databases

Read 14 Foglight for Databases reviews

2,014 Views
1,994 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

DbVisualizer

Foglight for Databases

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

Foglight for Databases and DbVisualizer compete in the database management sphere. DbVisualizer has the upper hand due to its feature-rich interface and high resource management capabilities.

Features: DbVisualizer provides advanced query tools, data visualization, and supports diverse database types. Foglight focuses on performance monitoring, diagnostics, and offers predictive analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DbVisualizer is known for straightforward setup and extensive documentation. Its customer service is efficient. Foglight's deployment requires a learning curve but is supported by a responsive team.

Pricing and ROI: DbVisualizer has a competitive pricing model with excellent ROI due to its feature set. Foglight may involve higher initial costs but promises significant ROI through performance monitoring.

To learn more, read our detailed DbVisualizer vs. Foglight for Databases Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DbVisualizer vs. Foglight for Databases

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

DbVisualizer

Ranking in Database Development and Management

15th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Management Systems (DBMS) (11th)

Foglight for Databases

Ranking in Database Development and Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of DbVisualizer is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Foglight for Databases is 3.8%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Foglight for Databases	3.8%
DbVisualizer	1.5%
Other	94.7%

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

JoeJoe6

CTO/Managing Member at Pantheon Tech

Consolidates tools and streamlines cross-platform database work

There is not a lot that I have to complain about with DbVisualizer. Over the years, as I have mentioned, they have continued to enhance the interface and the databases that are supported, but I do not think there is a lot of room for improvement. Most improvements will come from changes in the marketplace, such as new database features that need to be interacted with or perhaps more support for new data types and databases that are going to be supporting AI. Some of that, as we have seen thus far, is not necessarily the game changer that we would have thought. Integrating a co-pilot for SQL queries would be an interesting feature in the future.

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Stuart Dairiki

Senior IT Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Empowers efficient database monitoring and performance troubleshooting with powerful workload analysis

I find it extremely helpful to use Foglight to triage any database issues, specifically performance issues using what Foglight calls PI investigator. It is a very powerful workload analysis tool that helps me understand where bottlenecks are. It allows me to see performance issues as end users report them. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It enables me to obtain information quicker and easier compared to manually compiling it. Foglight provides us with a near-real-time activity database. It's not 100% real-time. It has less than a minute latency. It allows us to see performance issues as end-users report them. We started seeing benefits pretty much immediately. We use Foglight to display intensive databases. However, it's not something we monitor regularly. It's only something we kind of dig into as we troubleshoot and triage issues. It does help us determine potential IT help issues. When we use Foglight, we find it helps drill down holistically into potential bottlenecks. It helps us to see what is going on in the database. Foglight allows us to monitor multiple database platforms. We use, for example, Oracle, SQL Server, Postgres, Amazon Redshift, and SAP HANA. It gives us insight into our entire landscape of production workloads in near real-time. The solution saves costs when performing root cause analysis. It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It allows us to obtain information quicker and easier than by manually compiling information.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Timed queries that add their result to the result grid for every execution are helpful."

"Actions like exporting grids to Excel or other tools is a very easy task."

"DbVisualizer is invaluable to me because it allows me to work from enterprise database systems like Oracle to more emerging database providers like CockroachDB, and can scale to anything up or down from SQLite or standard PostgreSQL."

"The alarms alert proactively if there are any potential or ongoing issues with the databases that we support. That means we can take preventive or corrective action before the issue becomes a big issue. And the SQL PI features enable us to drill down into performance issues in our databases so that we can improve performance, which is important."

"The profiler allows us to look at the profiles of the database queries that are being run over time. It allows us to go back to our customers and say that these are some of the queries causing them some headaches. It gives us the opportunity to provide suggestions on how to improve their experience."

"Foglight is also able to help the DBAs proactively fix problems before they become an issue. It provides them with real-time activity screens that help in this regard. The DBAs are able to go to these screens and look at what's happening in real time, and that buys them time. It helps them see problems ahead of time and find solutions to them."

"It can save time and effort when doing root cause analysis. It enables me to obtain information quicker and easier compared to manually compiling it."

"We went from basically 30% coverage of our production environment to 100% coverage."

"Its reporting capabilities are immense."

"We can visualize all the different types of DB servers that we are monitoring in a single pane of glass. It uses a 360-degree overview of the database, for each of those databases that we are monitoring. That includes what kind of resource utilization is happening and what kind of DB parameters are getting monitored, as well as the different types of DB parameters that are being offered for each database type."

"Foglight's Change Tracking capabilities are another huge feature. It is wonderful to be able to do that. People don't realize the amount of information that Foglight gathers from a given server or instance. It gets down to the version of SQL, the disk array, everything that's there. Any change that's made, any upgrade to SQL, shows up on the dashboard almost immediately. You don't know how much time you save just having a tool in your back pocket that does that for you."

More Foglight for Databases pros

Cons

"One thing I would like to see changed is having the JDBC drivers in a fixed location outside of the application package."

"Sometimes, I feel that the startup time takes a bit more time than needed."

"Better communication and alerts regarding the transaction logs getting full would also be beneficial. What I have noticed is that if the log files on the SQL server are full, we cannot log in and have to do some cleanup on the Foglight DB. It would be good if they could monitor that and alert us when it is getting too full."

"One thing that I would like, and it's probably something that I could set up internally, is something other than a dashboard which I have to look at to know that a server is down. I'd like bells and whistles to go off... If I look at the dashboard I know there's a server down. But if I'm not looking at it, if I'm looking at some other problem, I want to know about it. You can do that, you can use SMSs and alerts to your phone, and I could set it up to handle that, but it would be nice if, out-of-the-box, Foglight did that."

"Foglight does have a component that allows you to look at things in real time, but it's not as friendly or as efficient in terms of responsiveness as Quest Spotlight is. Foglight might be lacking in this department."

"The system is not that stable. We have been facing a lot of issues. We built a new store environment of Foglight, an environment for monitoring the Lowe's store servers, which are all Db2 servers. The objective is to monitor 800 Db2 servers in each Foglight instance. Up to 150 Db2 servers, the environment was working fine. The moment it crossed 150 or 160, we started having a lot of stability issues."

"The version that I'm using is not the latest version, so there might have been some improvement, but the OS monitoring is a bit lacking, and the high-availability option is a bit complicated to set up and it doesn't work all the time."

"I would like the rule development code to be made available so we don't always have to be referred to professional services for custom solutions. For example, if we want to exclude certain databases from a particular rule, we shouldn't have to go to support and to professional services for that solution. If the code and syntax were available, we have resources that could quickly turn something like that around."

"It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms."

"It would be amazing if they could enable the 'Performance Investigator' functionality across all database platforms."

More Foglight for Databases cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for DbVisualizer is fair."

"A license with a few years of support is a good and valuable option."

"The price of Foglight could be a little more competitive in Chile, and it should be lowered for long-time customers— at least by 20 percent. Sometimes the price is a limitation. We have seven instances and nearly 5 million users. If Quest Foglight could reduce its prices for the clients that have been with it for a long time, we would be able to have more instances."

"Compared to the other tools on the market, Foglight is okay in terms of pricing and licensing."

"The price is worth it, if you have the time to go through the information."

"It is cost-effective. With our EA, it is really based on the scale of our database environment. We found the Quest team to be reasonable and flexible when it comes to pricing and scaling of licenses."

"This is like the "Cadillac" of performance monitoring software. It's not cheap... I am currently with a company that I was able to convince that the product is worth the cost."

"Pricing is very reasonable. We were able to construct a pretty easy contract with Quest, who were very easy to work with and very amenable to what we are trying to do. It worked out well for us."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DbVisualizer?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is straightforward. It is a subscription model with lower costs in the out years from initial purchase.

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What needs improvement with DbVisualizer?

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What is your primary use case for DbVisualizer?

My main use case for DbVisualizer is data analysis, but also increasingly performance monitoring and tuning of databases due to the broad support for multi vendors in the tool. A specific example o...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Foglight for Databases?

The pricing is palatable. We've already done one renewal and we are in our second contract. We're happy thus far.

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What needs improvement with Quest Foglight for Databases?

It would be amazing if they could enable the "Performance Investigator" functionality across all database platforms. I've been talking to their product development team about enhancements that I wo...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Quest Foglight for Databases?

I primarily use the solution for database monitoring, specifically for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, SAP HANA, and AWS Redshift.

See all answers

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Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs Foglight for Databases

Compared 10% of the time

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs Foglight for Databases

Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DbVisualizer

January 2026

Download DbVisualizer product report

Buyer's Guide

Foglight for Databases

January 2026

Download Foglight for Databases product report

Overview

One tool for all databases and OSes
DbVisualizer is the ultimate database tool for developers, analysts and DBAs. It runs on all major OSes and connects to all major databases.

DbVis Software

Foglight for Databases offers comprehensive monitoring with real-time activity screens and adaptive baselines. It provides a 360-degree overview and efficient UI, requiring no custom scripts, aiding in proactive issue identification and resolution before impacting end users.

Foglight for Databases is a robust tool for monitoring across multiple platforms, including SQL and Oracle. It provides features like the "Morning Coffee" dashboard and SQL Performance Investigator, enabling effective workload analysis and historical investigation. Despite some challenges with sluggish performance on large data volumes and excessive non-critical alerts, it remains a preferred choice for its ability to support proactive management and resource planning. Users appreciate its centralized view of extensive database systems, enabling swift detection and resolution of issues in real-time.

What are the key features?

Comprehensive Monitoring: Provides cross-platform real-time monitoring, ensuring effective database management.
Adaptive Baselines: Adjusts to various workloads, enhancing monitoring accuracy.
SQL Performance Investigator: Offers detailed workload analysis without server impact.
Proactive Alerts: Delivers timely notifications, aiding in immediate issue resolution.
Efficient UI: Streamlines user interaction, minimizing the need for custom scripts.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Time Saving: Reduces time in root cause analysis, enhancing productivity.
Proactive Management: Detects issues before they affect end users, minimizing downtime.
Resource Planning: Aids in effective allocation planning for enterprise and cloud platforms.

Foglight is extensively implemented in industries managing extensive database systems, handling numerous servers to ensure availability and performance. It assists businesses in resolving blocking and locking deadlocks, crucial for maintaining smooth operations in production and development environments.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Tesla, Google, Facebook, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, Apple, BMO, Deutsche Bank, Netflix, Disney

CommitDBA

Buyer's Guide

DbVisualizer vs. Foglight for Databases

December 2025

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