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IBM Informix vs SQL Server 2014 Express comparison

 

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
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
SQL Server 2014 Express
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server 2014 Express is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server 2014 Express0.4%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other97.8%
Relational Databases Tools
 

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.
Shubham-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Projects at Cognizant
Migration to structured data has improved security and performance and enables faster insights
SQL Server 2014 Express could be improved by addressing its data limitations, especially for users with larger datasets that may not be suitable for production environments. Compared to the Enterprise or Standard versions, SQL Server 2014 Express does not provide the same functionalities or performance, so organizations with rapidly growing data should seek those options instead. Regarding needed improvements, I can say that integration with various ETL tools is essential, as we often need to use SSIS or other ETL tools to pull and transform data. It would be greatly beneficial if SQL Server 2014 Express could include functionality to integrate directly with APIs or other databases rather than relying on external ETL tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"It is very easy to install IBM Informix, very easy to scale, and support is quite better."
"The solution is quite stable and reliable; we use it mainly due to its general stable nature."
"Replication, all levels of replication, query charting, and the MongoDB embedded are the most valuable features of this solution."
"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."
"The scalability is very good."
"Not looking at Informix would really mean a shot in your own leg before walking a long distance."
"SQL Server 2014 Express has positively impacted my organization by improving my knowledge in SQL coding and making my work faster."
"The best features of SQL Server 2014 Express are that it can be downloaded, it is open source, can be downloaded on any desktop, and it is a free version with no charge for downloads, making it highly useful for students and developers building applications for standalone or enterprise applications."
"SQL Server 2014 Express helped me gain a real-world application and practical database skills."
"My advice for anyone looking to use SQL Server 2014 Express is that if someone is using or planning to build an enterprise application, especially for .NET or Java, they should definitely consider SQL Server 2014 Express as it is the most reliable SQL server available, plus the support from Microsoft is consistently good."
"Using SQL Server 2014 Express is very simple, and the queries run very fast."
"SQL Server 2014 Express has positively impacted my organization because it is good for small clients, allowing us to save on licensing costs, and clients could later migrate to Standard or Enterprise solutions if needed as they scale."
"SQL Server 2014 Express has impacted my organization positively because it is time-saving."
"SQL Server 2014 Express has impacted my organization positively because earlier I was using SharePoint, and in Power Apps, whenever we fetched the data, it took quite an ample amount of time to show the details from the back end, but when I started using SQL Server 2014 Express, it was much faster and helped me fetch more records at a time compared to the other data sources because of the indexing and primary keys."
 

Cons

"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"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."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often. Other solutions are much more actively pushing out upgrades and improvements."
"The solution should offer replication. It would be helpful if the solution would allow us to access third-party tools."
"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"For me, it's always too expensive. The problem is that Informix sometimes competes with free products, so yes, it's very expensive, but when we're talking about licensed products like SQL Server or anything, the midsize pricing could be significantly improved."
"SQL Server 2014 Express could be improved by offering multiple authentication methods."
"However, I also realized its limitation when I tried working on a large database. It is not perfect because it provides 10 GB per database."
"Additionally, SQL Server Management Studio takes a lot of time to start compared to the latest version."
"SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved by increasing the maximum 10 gigabytes for a database, as it would be better if this limit were increased."
"The Express edition has limitations in database size and system resource usage, so performance may be reduced with large data volumes or heavy workloads."
"The biggest operational limitations of SQL Server 2014 Express are the 10 GB database limit, memory restrictions, and the absence of SQL Server Agent."
"Regarding improvements for SQL Server 2014 Express, I believe it is quite helpful, but I suggest enhancing security since it involves customer data and we do not want to lose data or have it misused."
"SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved as there are some resource limits. There are limitations on database size, memory, and CPU usage which restrict scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"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."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
7%
Construction Company
31%
Healthcare Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

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 needs improvement with SQL Server 2014 Express?
Regarding improvements for SQL Server 2014 Express, I believe it is quite helpful, but I suggest enhancing security since it involves customer data and we do not want to lose data or have it misuse...
What is your primary use case for SQL Server 2014 Express?
As a campaign analyst, my role involves getting targeted list members to send offers to them via mail, so I obtain data of people from the database where I use SQL Server 2014 Express. A specific e...
What advice do you have for others considering SQL Server 2014 Express?
My advice for others looking into using SQL Server 2014 Express is that it has excellent performance, it is free, offers better reliability, and scalability, so I recommend using it to save time fo...
 

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. SQL Server 2014 Express and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.