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IBM Informix vs Microsoft Azure HorizonDB comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Informix
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
Microsoft Azure HorizonDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (20th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Consultant at i2c
Has offered a cost-effective option despite frequent technical issues and limited market demand
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this frequent. The good thing is they cover those bugs in the next release within weeks or days on demand. IBM Informix should become hybrid and should include AI features similar to other DBMS systems such as Snowflake, Redshift, and DataBricks. This would help its value rise with the market.
Alex Park - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP - Business Analysis - FX Options at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Data platform has transformed analytics and now provides seamless storage and insight on user behavior
Microsoft Azure HorizonDB scales perfectly. It automatically scales whenever there is a load on the application. I have configured the deployment files on my projects, and the database is able to handle automatic scaling by itself, so I do not have to put much attention on that aspect. It scales down automatically as well. I monitored the scaling and scaling out one or two times during the initial stage when I was first including this database in my project. After the first and second times, I checked only the logs for automatic scaling and scaling out. I have not encountered any issue on the scaling side, and it provides consistent performance for both scaling and scaling out.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My advice is to take it; you will never regret it."
"The scalability is very good."
"It is very easy to install IBM Informix, very easy to scale, and support is quite better."
"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."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"I appreciate the features that Microsoft Azure HorizonDB provides, particularly the seamless transformation of the database, data collection, and database access along with the analytics features."
"Since we are in the proof of concept phase, we have noticed some early improvements and potential benefits that stand out so far in terms of speed, reliability, and ease of management."
"Using Microsoft Azure HorizonDB provides better scalability and performance in terms of database administration."
"Microsoft Azure HorizonDB has positively impacted my organization by reducing latency issues, improving performance, and providing a good recovery time."
 

Cons

"The support team could include local engineers to establish efficient communication. It will help us speed up the escalation process."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often. Other solutions are much more actively pushing out upgrades and improvements."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"The product needs a lot more marketing involvement from IBM."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"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."
"Informix is very sturdy, but the problem for us is the marketing action around Informix."
"Regarding needed improvements, I feel that we need more documentation on Microsoft Azure HorizonDB."
"So far, I have not seen any return on investment from Microsoft Azure HorizonDB in terms of cost."
"One area I can identify for improvement is query performance during peak traffic situations."
"I want to say that the costing of Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is too high and should be less."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
There is a cost reason to move from IBM Informix. It is relatively cheaper than Oracle. The second reason is that moving the whole application to a new database would require significant cost. The ...
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this f...
What is your primary use case for IBM Informix?
We are using IBM Informix for OLTP systems. We are using IBM Informix although it is a technology that is not very popular compared to others. We are using it because our application was initially ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is that the pricing is good.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
Improvements for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB mean that we still have not gotten actual usage of real issues. We just started the proof of concept phase, so we might discover what the exact real issue...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB?
My main use case for Microsoft Azure HorizonDB is that we were experiencing performance issues in Azure PostgreSQL flexible server, so we wanted to eliminate those issues and started using Microsof...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Informix
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. Microsoft Azure HorizonDB and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.