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IBM Informix vs MySQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
150
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 7.6%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MySQL7.6%
IBM Informix1.9%
Other90.5%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nazzareno Maria Rezzini - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities
Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.

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 is pretty easy."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"For IoT business cases, having Informix Enterprise Edition work on edge computers, like Raspberry Pi and using Informix replication, makes complex situations simple to build and maintain."
"The most valuable feature is concurrency and locking because my customers usually use databases in OLTP mode. So, for a large number of competitive users. Other features that are well valued are quick large-scale data types. It is better than Oracle."
"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."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"The way that MySQL has improved my organization is that it comes free and also works fine on the technical side."
"It is a stable solution."
"This specific version of this MySQL has been battle tested for a long time. Any issues are known issues and we pretty much don't have any problems when they're in production. So it's very stable."
"Support for enterprise-grade features like clustering, master-slave replication, even Sharding (to some extent) which is an advanced feature."
"The most valuable feature of MySQL is its reliability and performance."
"It is pretty simple to use and I don't have anything really bad to say about it."
"The solution is very simple. It's easy to use. That's the most important feature."
"My main reason for using MySQL for this small customer database company and for some kinds of scientific projects was that I had to do the installation myself. I didn't have a database administration team behind me. Therefore, I was looking for something very easy to handle. MySQL is easy to install, connect, and do all such things."
 

Cons

"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often."
"The workbench could be improved. In particular, error messages can be improved, which are horrific and completely unhelpful. I'd like to see improved parsing of errors. When you write SQL and it crashes, it usually is something completely irrelevant and not helpful. I've started to use GPT 3.5 for finding out how to do things. I got to do something a bit different, and that I found to be very useful. If there was some way to tie it into one of the new AI tools, that would probably be a good idea."
"There should be more tools to manage the on-premises version and more automation features."
"The replication needs improvement. It's becoming a native cloud product like Oracle DB or Cockroach DB."
"We want high availability and replication features, which are currently missing in this solution. It would be great if they can provide an in-built replication feature, similar to Oracle RAC, in MySQL."
"The GUI interface probably can be improved. Let us say I want to see the relationships in the database. In the query analyzer, I would like to go and drop the tables and create relationships between the tables. I haven't found a feature like that in MySQL. It was a shortcoming even in SQL Server. MySQL can have more performance monitoring tools. I know Google has these tools, but within MySQL, there are not that many tools to monitor things like performance and database locking. They might be in there, and I might not be familiar enough to know where they are. I am a pretty new user of MySQL."
"The auto-tuning and NDB cluster has some limitations regarding foreign keys."
"The solution could improve the monitoring. At the present time, you need to use third-party monitoring solutions."
"The performance, stability, and security are areas with shortcomings in MySQL, where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"There is not a license required for this solution."
"It's free."
"When you know the setup will continue to grow, make sure you have the paid support."
"It has a community version."
"We do have a couple of clients who choose to use the paid, enterprise version of the solution and who take full advantage of it."
"I think that MySQL is a premium product."
"The tool is open source."
"It is an open source platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Informix?
It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license.
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...
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

 

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
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,391 professionals have used our research since 2012.