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Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 12, 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

Oracle Application Express ...
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
3rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (2nd)
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
5th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (10th), Mobile Development Platforms (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Oracle Application Express (APEX) is 7.5%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 5.8%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Application Express (APEX)7.5%
Salesforce Platform5.8%
Other86.7%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rodrigo-Mesquita - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid application development empowers big projects in months
The ability to quickly develop applications without needing to code a lot is very valuable. It is very quick to create a page, and one can use AI to speed up software development. It is easy to learn. In my company, we could develop a very big application in a couple of months.
Sharmila-K - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration processes improve but scripting requires effort
The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform.With the Salesforce Platform, I have minimal experience of approximately one and a half years. I get minimal exposure, once every three or two months, especially during holidays. The Salesforce Platform is connected to the cloud, which is beneficial. When it is integrated with different tools such as Microsoft BI Analytics, it helps us analyze much better. Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution. That is the only issue I see, but otherwise, I appreciate it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is fast."
"One of the most valuable features is that we can develop everything locally and deploy it for different kinds of operators in different locations, so we can do our job in one piece. The benefit of that is that others can use these applications. They connect to the internet to do these kinds of applications based on the permissions for those users."
"You don't have to know a lot of PL because it's built on PL/SQL. You don't need developers. You only need to design a good application that resolves a problem, or many problems, for companies and you're ready to go."
"I like the fact that it is natively integrated into the Oracle database."
"It's stable and reliable for the most part."
"In our experience with Apex, we find that minimizing reliance on HTML and JavaScript is preferable, especially considering our background as seasoned programmers adept in PL/SQL. Incorporating HTML and JavaScript can pose challenges due to potential compatibility issues when updates are made to JavaScript. We also make use of JAPER report integration for generating reports, a practice integral to our reporting procedures."
"The most valuable applications within the organization are primarily data forms and extended reports."
"The valuable features are charts, reports, and search engines."
"The presentation is clear and easy to comprehend."
"The solution can scale."
"The reporting tools are very solid."
"The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform."
"Features they are integrating to the other services."
"The lead conversion process in Salesforce Sales Cloud is extremely valuable."
"Salesforce provides customization that aligns with our organization's lifecycle management of opportunities. It integrates with our call records, meeting notes, and the Outlook calendar, which helps in mapping roles and managing opportunities effectively."
"It works beautifully. I haven't had any errors."
 

Cons

"The solution has some stability problems that need to be resolved."
"I've experienced some difficulties when using Oracle Application Express (APEX), particularly when I'm designing forms. For example, when I design a form, I add buttons and controls, but I'm unable to visualize how it'll look unless I run it. You want to design and do things your way, but if you don't have much experience, then you'll find that designing in Oracle Application Express (APEX) is a little complicated. This won't be a problem with anyone more experienced, though. If I wanted to create my design, for example, a different table format or some background images, it becomes a problem, and this is an area for improvement in Oracle Application Express (APEX). Designing should be easier, even for less experienced users. An additional feature I'd like to see in Oracle Application Express (APEX) is more plugins, particularly a repository that contains a lot of plugins, so you can go to that repository and download whichever you like and use it or add it to your project. Right now, I create my plugins, so it would be helpful if Oracle Application Express (APEX) has a repository of plugins people can use, download from anywhere in the world, and integrate into projects."
"The product's stability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There is a bit of a learning curve involved when first using the solution."
"It should have the functionality to develop mobile applications. It would also be good if they can improve development in videos and other formats."
"It has been reported that the technology is very hard to learn, and the service is expensive."
"Reporting needs to be accessed via third party tools."
"Connecting with Oracle and the relation with Oracle at the database as a procedure needs improvement."
"I think that Salesforce can improve lead management when it comes to B2C. I would like to have more features specifically related to the B2C segment. The current process where you create a lead that's in the B2C segment and it creates an account makes no sense."
"Salesforce's mobile app could be better. Also, it could integrate more seamlessly with Gmail."
"The reporting for Salesforce could be approved. It is a manual process and it would be useful to have a guide or videos on how to generate reports or any other cool things that you could do with the platform."
"The initial setup process was a complex thing to do because four different organizations were working together."
"A company needs to carefully consider how they set up Salesforce in order to ensure it benefits them."
"Salesforce Platform could improve by having better integration with Microsoft Azure. For development, we use Microsoft Azure and there was proper integration between the two solutions. We had issues with the customer and they were logged into the Salesforce Platform. We did not have any good way of integrating those issues into the R&D. The R&D mainly uses Microsoft Azure."
"When we're documenting information such as notes, and so forth, if we were to go back to the same case all notes go missing."
"Its documentation and price should be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a full Oracle E-Business Suite license, and we use that license to develop applications. There's no license required for developing Oracle applications."
"When you have a licensed database in an Oracle environment, APEX is free."
"We have an Oracle basic product license, and then we can use Oracle APEX for free. We have many licenses for Oracle for approximately 20 processors."
"I believe APEX comes bundled with the database, including autonomous database and other related database products, so the pricing is quite reasonable."
"Apex is not priced separately; instead, it is associated with the Oracle database. A free option for Oracle database and Apex can be downloaded and installed on this complimentary database version. This aligns with our current approach."
"I would rate it around an eight in terms of price, with one being low and ten being high."
"APEX itslelf is a free product, but you will need to license peripheral components."
"When buying the data license, APEX is included."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The licensing is per user per month, which we took out a contract on a long time back. It's really an okay price for what solutions are available and for how many features and what kind of functionality you get."
"Costly, but it is the top product in SaaS/PaaS. Pricing is more for large to enterprise level companies."
"It is expensive. Licensing is on an annual basis."
"I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"In general, the price is an area where there is always room for improvement."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
I consider Oracle Application Express (APEX) to be good value for the money because it has infinite quality for money since it's included in any Oracle database license. It's free once you have the...
What needs improvement with Oracle Application Express (APEX)?
One of the things that could be done to improve Oracle Application Express (APEX) is if Oracle decided to open it up to other databases. It needs to be an enterprise database; therefore, it needs t...
How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

Oracle APEX
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hepart AG, pharmasol, SATLOG, Collège Bois-de-Boulogne
ADP
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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