No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Foglight for Databases vs SQL Sentry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

Foglight for Databases
Ranking in Database Development and Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SQL Sentry
Ranking in Database Development and Management
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of Foglight for Databases is 3.4%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Sentry is 2.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Foglight for Databases3.4%
SQL Sentry2.4%
Other94.2%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vijay Ram - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Engineer at Hitachi Systems, Ltd.
Centralized monitoring has simplified multi-database oversight and improved query analysis
Foglight for Databases is very useful; however, the negative side we face is that customer care support is not frequent. If any issues related to Foglight arise, we cannot reach customer care support as soon as possible. It takes much longer compared to other third-party tools, and that is a major issue we are facing with Foglight for Databases. Foglight for Databases is good for monitoring, and we can fetch problematic issues and queries. However, the only main drawback is the customer care support. It is available only during the general shift, so if any issue occurs after 6:00 p.m. or before 9:00 a.m., there is usually no one to handle it. I think there are only two or three people handling customer care for Foglight for Databases.
SM
Sql Db Administrator at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Lets you know when your jobs are taking longer than average and allows you to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times
To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product. Another thing that's good about the product is that it will let you know when your jobs are taking longer than average so that you can foretell that there's going to be an issue coming up. Your SQL agent job is taking longer.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its reporting capabilities are immense."
"The real-time activity screens are also helpful... if there is something that is running slowly, we can eliminate the database as being an issue and perhaps look at the server, network activity, or something outside of the realm of the database as being the issue."
"What I really like is the SQL PI feature, which allows us to drill down into queries and identify what is causing contention in the database. Using the SQL PI feature, I am able to drill down into the queries, see what is blocking, and try to improve it."
"We were able to see its benefits immediately, quickly identifying issues by drilling down into real-time activity to find the query causing slowdowns and address it."
"Foglight for Databases is the best tool for monitoring all aspects such as database, backup information, storage information, and operating system side."
"The most valuable feature is the in-depth capability SQL Performance Investigator provides. It allows you to drill down to the smallest detail that occurs on our platform. It does a highly detailed and atomic follow-up of what one wants to look for in relation to time and our different instances."
"I do not find anything I dislike about Foglight for Databases."
"My impressions of Foglight for Databases' ability to help me monitor a variety of aspects such as the OS, hybrid clouds, hardware, and databases across different platforms have been great so far."
"This solution has identified blocking, deadlock, memory pressure, and high CPU consumption issues."
"To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product."
"The blocking and deadlock report feature is very convenient to use in pinpointing which query is causing something and what other queries are waiting for it."
"To be able to go back in history and find out what was happening at certain times is the most valuable feature of the product."
 

Cons

"The system is not that stable; we started having a lot of stability issues once the environment crossed 150 or 160 Db2 servers, with the Agent Manager restarting every five minutes and generating a lot of alerts."
"The data model needs improvement when it comes to creating custom reports."
"Foglight for Databases is very useful; however, the negative side we face is that customer care support is not frequent."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"With the latest version, we have had many crashes, sometimes it stops working entirely, and it can take days to restart the service."
"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."
"If we can get details on wait types from system views, it will help identify a more detailed root cause."
"There could be some more metrics on the high availability to let us know when there are issues synchronizing between the hosts."
"If we can get details on wait types from system views, it will help identify a more detailed root cause."
"There could be some more metrics on the high availability to let us know when there are issues synchronizing between the hosts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The price is worth it, if you have the time to go through the information."
"It's fairly expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database Development and Management solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Foglight for Databases?
I am not aware of the pricing and licensing details for Foglight for Databases. I have set up Foglight monitoring for servers, but I am uncertain about the licensing aspect.
What needs improvement with Quest Foglight for Databases?
The room for improvement for Foglight for Databases is primarily related to its cost. We pay a hefty amount and only use it for our production servers, not for non-production environments. Currentl...
What is your primary use case for Quest Foglight for Databases?
My use case for Foglight for Databases is basically to track performance.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CommitDBA
Coeo, Stack Overflow, GreatAmerica Financial Services Corporation, Hawaiian Airlines, Hennepin County Medical Center, Racing Victoria, Citrix, Insight, Shi, Woodforest National Bank, Telular
Find out what your peers are saying about Foglight for Databases vs. SQL Sentry and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.