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IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs Toad Data Modeler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 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

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manage...
Ranking in Database Development and Management
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (15th)
Toad Data Modeler
Ranking in Database Development and Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
19
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 IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server is 3.2%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Toad Data Modeler is 3.1%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Toad Data Modeler3.1%
IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server3.2%
Other93.7%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2317098 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers effective monitoring of resources but lacks the ability to connect to an AWS instance and write custom queries.
We use it mainly for monitoring, including CPU, memory, and disk space, and for troubleshooting purposes We've set up alerts to notify us when performance deviates from the baseline we've configured for each resource. So, whenever that happens, we get an alert and can investigate immediately. So,…
KQ
Senior engineer at a government with 201-500 employees
Creates intuitive diagrams with comprehensive control over relationships
1) When updating a model after generating a schema, if only a few tables are imported, the tool assumes you want to delete the rest. If you have a large model, you repeatedly have to clarify that you don't want to delete each one. 2) If one could view the same model on physical, logical, and conceptual levels while retaining all information specific to each level (including layout), that would be excellent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the things that it is used for is to detect anything that could possibly cause our systems not to function well, and it has helped us to determine that before anything has actually happened."
"SQL DM made troubleshooting much easier and allowed multiple people to look into an issue with confidence."
"Monitors and alerts on our mission critical instances in real-time on a 24/7 basis."
"The most valuable features are disk space projections for planning, and also the Snapshotting ability, to look back in time, to see what was going on the server at a particular time. It's basically the output of an sp_who2."
"There are several monitoring tools, but IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager is actually better than other competitors."
"SQL monitoring time has been dramatically reduced and our IT Infrastructure team has improved SQL maintenance and monitoring knowledge over time just by using SQL DM."
"The best part of SQL DM is the ability to customize alerts and counters. This allows our team to find an issue then alert on the issue at a granular level."
"Overall, it has allowed us to do more with database management and run more databases on a given server, because we're able to isolate issues quicker and take the proactive steps necessary to correct them."
"Ability to save my custom queries and Macros"
"Toad is 100% value for money product."
"It's a must-buy, and both pricing and licensing is well in the range of every organization."
"TOAD makes it easy to code and compile stored procedures, is easy to find and edit code, offers the ability to debug and test, and is a great tool that saves a lot of time because it has a lot of components all in one tool so you don’t need to open or use other apps or the command line."
"With Toad, all the users have the same database on the server rather than local individual databases which creates a lot of duplication."
"I found all features valuable and necessary in Toad Data Modeler, particularly how good the solution is for modeling, database schema generation, and database re-engineering."
"It was immensely helpful in collecting SQL database data, especially as I am not a database admin/engineer."
"I don't know the financials, but I wouldn’t be able to do my job (build applications/databases) without it."
 

Cons

"With basic SQL training in my history, I've found at times I needed to Google SQL counters, for example, to understand what was occurring or how to configure SQL DM to be useful."
"Tech support has been okay, not that great, but they made sure that we got what we were looking for."
"The initial setup gives too many user rights to the server, so you have to put a user that is part administrator's group - that's the preferred way - on each server, which is kind of a risk. You want to do least privilege and you're not doing that."
"They can improve checking the status of the CPU, memory, and IO utilization from each task."
"We don't find that it helps us with performance monitoring and diagnostics. We find that SentryOne does that better. Also, in terms of alerts, we had to customize them dramatically so that we didn't get alerted on every little thing."
"It would helpful if SQL DM could mark when changes are made within the program."
"I'm going to do an upgrade which may resolve my issues, but one area for improvement is its ability to handle the amount of data that we collect with it. We're likely one of the largest installations, with over 300 servers being collected with this product, and sometimes there are gaps. That would really be my only concern, in terms of how the data is collected and stored, for consistency."
"I would absolutely love to create customized dashboards but, unfortunately, they don't provide me the information that I need to create the report. The report I need is the detail or the transaction detail that's happening on those Snapshots. I'd like to be able to go back through time and search for things. I don't have that functionality, which is very disappointing. That's pretty bad and frustrating because I could query it and find out so much information about what's hitting my environment and when, but instead, they want control over it and to not give me that information. So it's encrypted. I can't pull it out and that is really bothersome."
"Many users don't know how to add licensing to Toad, or where it is shown, so they could make that easier."
"It is not feasible for small businesses. It is not used in a small company."
"Better documentation would be a benefit."
"When updating a model after generating a schema, if only a few tables are imported, the tool assumes you want to delete the rest, which is cumbersome."
"Although a lot of people get deceived by the name “Data Analysis”, it has capacity of any enterprise tool, but not to the point of creating multiple pipes in one integrated work-flow, batching the work-flows and running them parallel for data loads."
"When updating a model after generating a schema, if only a few tables are imported, the tool assumes you want to delete the rest, which is cumbersome."
"The product should provide better debugging features."
"Currently, with Windows 10, it sometimes would get stuck and stop responding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We were upgraded to Premium Support without their actually asking us, when we were quoted. Then I asked for Standard Support and that they had to re-quote us that. But they don't do that by default. They upcharge you by default, which I didn't think was very nice, without even asking."
"The pricing is reasonable, it's comparable with the competitors."
"Price-wise, the lesser it is, the better it is for me, especially in Egypt. I think that the licensing cost ranges from 1,000 to 9,000. Also, it includes maintenance and support for a year."
"Though I'm not involved in the licensing for Toad Data Modeler, I believe it's per user and not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Toad Data Modeler?
Considering its functionality, I would rate its pricing as a seven out of ten. It could be cheaper yet is still pretty good.
What needs improvement with Toad Data Modeler?
1) When updating a model after generating a schema, if only a few tables are imported, the tool assumes you want to delete the rest. If you have a large model, you repeatedly have to clarify that y...
What is your primary use case for Toad Data Modeler?
There are two main use cases. One is reengineering an existing model and making changes from a database. The other is making a new model from scratch. These use cases involve all kinds of systems, ...
 

Also Known As

IDERA SQL DM, IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager
Toad
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Padnos, University of Notre Dame, D4, Infeon Technologies, Chevron, LC Waikiki, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, CVE, Colorado State University, St. Charles, Chaucer PLC, 1-800-Flowers, Ancoris, Money Management, National Opinion Research Center, California Department of Health, Plexus; Aviva, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, CBS, Comcast, Google, Merck, Regions Financial, Schneider Electric, Tata Consultancy Services, Verizon Communications, Zurich Financial Services
Zions Bancorporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server vs. Toad Data Modeler and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.