IDERA SQL Admin Toolset vs Quest Foglight for Databases comparison

IDERA and Quest Software are both solutions in the Database Development and Management category. IDERA is ranked #40, while Quest Software is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. IDERA holds a 0.5% mindshare in DDM, compared to Quest Software’s 7.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IDERA users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

IDERA SQL Admin Toolset

Read 1 IDERA SQL Admin Toolset review

102 Views
102 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Quest Foglight for Databases

Read 14 Quest Foglight for Databases reviews

1,842 Views
1,824 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IDERA SQL Admin Toolset

Quest Foglight for Databases

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IDERA SQL Admin Toolset and Quest Foglight for Databases based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Quest Software, Nutanix and others in Database Development and Management.

To learn more, read our detailed Database Development and Management Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

July 2025

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Helped 865,164 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

IDERA SQL Admin Toolset

Ranking in Database Development and Management

40th

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Quest 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 August 2025, in the Database Development and Management category, the mindshare of IDERA SQL Admin Toolset is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Foglight for Databases is 7.6%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

it_user857298

Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft

Allows for much easier cross server monitoring and administration

I use this software bundle for managing multiple SQL Server instances. The environment has a large number of SQL Servers serving disparate applications, both internal and external. This product allows for much easier cross server monitoring and administration. When relatively few administrators…

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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

"SQL Server Configuration: This allows admins to compare and edit server configurations for one or more SQL servers saving a lot of time when managing large numbers of instances."

"This product allows for much easier cross server monitoring and administration."

"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."

"The ability to monitor multiple database platforms streamlines our database operations. The single pane of glass is what we were really after when we picked Foglight. We knew we wanted something that could monitor cross-platform because it does save a lot of time to use the same tool. The one thing that I like with Foglight is that we don't have to install anything locally, like agents, directly on the database servers. That was also a big seller because it simplifies things."

"The platform is very stable."

"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."

"The PI module allows [my colleague] to identify which new indexes or modified indexes are going to make the biggest impact."

"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."

"One of the hardest things to do in database management is to evaluate performance deviation across time. The adaptive baseline that Quest is using is by far the most helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean I use it on a daily basis, but it is something that I have not been able to find in any other tool, at the same level."

"Its reporting capabilities are immense."

More Quest Foglight for Databases pros

Cons

"A set of T-SQL admin snippets might be useful, e.g., code to create users, databases, indexes, etc. It would definitely be welcomed in the bundle."

"The data model needs improvement when it comes to creating custom reports. That is an area where it needs a bit of improvement. Foglight gathers a lot of information around our databases as part of its monitoring. While I know all this information is in there, trying to pull the metric we want out for custom reports is sometimes hard to find. One nice thing about Foglight is that you can create custom dashboards, which you can easily convert to reports. We would be doing a lot more of that if it weren't for the challenging data model."

"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."

"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."

"Quest must release a Spanish version. That's critical because not everyone speaks English in Latin America. It's an excellent product, so it's super important that they offer the application and customer service in Spanish."

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

"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."

"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."

"When we decided to go with Foglight, a lot of people stopped using the diagnostics part because it was very intimidating... They still won't use it because they feel it's too intimidating. They will open something up and not know what to do. It's not very user-friendly. You have to click on a lot of stuff to find the information."

More Quest Foglight for Databases cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"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."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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

Comparisons

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Compared 100% of the time

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Compared 36% of the time

SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer vs Quest Foglight for Databases

Compared 26% of the time

Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials vs Quest Foglight for Databases

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Manager vs Quest Foglight for Databases

Compared 8% of the time

SQL Sentry vs Quest Foglight for Databases

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

July 2025

Download IDERA SQL Admin Toolset product report

Buyer's Guide

Quest Foglight for Databases

August 2025

Download Quest Foglight for Databases product report

Overview

Database administrators need simple and quick ways to manage their SQL Server environment. SQL Admin Toolset provides 24 essential desktop tools for SQL Server to save time by simplifying routine administrative and troubleshooting tasks. Reduce time spent on daily SQL Server administration. Easily run daily admin tasks across multiple SQL Server instances. Simplify migrating, consolidating, and creating SQL Server instances. Eliminate manual, time-consuming, and error-prone admin tasks.

IDERA

Foglight identifies and resolves performance issues across your applications, databases and virtual environments. The Foglight family of products easily integrates with your existing tools, so you can monitor and analyze data from almost any source across your infrastructure and view it through a single interface with our customizable, unified monitoring platform

Quest Software

Sample Customers

South Wales Police Department; Deloitte & Touche LLP; Guardian Water and Power; Associated Regional and University Pathologists, Inc.; Olmsted Medical Center; Desert Development Company; Tri Tech Group; Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP; Crews Banking Corp.; WaukeshaCounty.Gov; Local Government Federal Credit Union; City of Goodyear; American Imaging Management Inc.; International Business Machines Corporation; Vancouver Island Health Authority; Magentar Capital; Questar Assessment, Inc.; Fiserv, Inc.; Brigham Young University; National Institutes of Health; City of Nashua; Baron Software; African Bank Ltd; Crystal Run Healthcare

CommitDBA

Buyer's Guide

Database Development and Management

July 2025

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