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Oracle Database vs PlanetScale comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 Database
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)
PlanetScale
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle Database is 10.4%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PlanetScale is 1.1%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Database10.4%
PlanetScale1.1%
Other88.5%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Philemon Olusegun - PeerSpot reviewer
Qhse Manager at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable backups and high-capacity data management have transformed large-scale census projects
When it comes to how Oracle Database can be improved, for me it is all about training and development in terms of gamification, creating awareness, and spreading the word to aspiring database administrators and database developers. As I have used it in the past and in recent times, many people are trying to get into IT, so the opportunity exists. Oracle has the market opportunity to take this time to spread its offerings and ensure that many aspiring professionals are aware of its services and products. From my perspective, there is not much to add regarding the needed improvements for the interface and the documentation. I give it a nine because I think Oracle sometimes can make things complicated. You have many services, many products, and many tools for different use cases. So it is difficult for someone who is only used to a particular product, such as Oracle Database, to understand all the other products and services that it provides. Probably streamlining it and making it available with categorized use cases for specific job roles would help. If you are a database developer, these are the tools that you need to be familiar with in Oracle's suite of products, and if you are a database administrator, these are the tools. Categorizing them based on the job role or function of people who are accessing these products and providing training capabilities on how to use them and how these products interchange and talk to each other would be very important because that is one of the things I struggled with when I started my journey as an Oracle Database administrator. Having that visibility of all the software products and providing free training and documentation on how you can improve and which products are best suited for integration to your product from Oracle would go a long way to help organizations and professionals. Regarding Oracle Database's AI capabilities, I am very keen on its governance and security. I think more work needs to be done on the security and ensuring that the database for a large number of people is watertight. AI is here to stay; however, governance and more stress testing of the AI capabilities needs to be done to ensure there is no breach of data. I would rate it currently at 6 over 10 and there is room for improvement. As long as there are government policies and Oracle policies that can mitigate any breaches of data and serious security issues, releasing people's records over the internet, there is always room for improvement in that regard.
Shrikant S - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at RanceLab
Query insights have cut infrastructure costs and let full‑stack teams manage databases independently
In my opinion, the best features PlanetScale offers are recommendations and statistics on queries. Insights on queries have helped me and my teams significantly. For example, once while I was a CTO at Commutech, I received insights from a query that showed one specific query which checked permissions was selecting all permissions for a user instead of selecting a specific row. This increased the load on the database. Receiving that one insight helped me rewrite that query to only select the permission that needed to be checked, which made scaling possible. Such insights that pinpoint exact problems help in resolving scaling issues. PlanetScale positively impacts my organization by greatly improving productivity and saving significant costs. Typically, if I were to manage my own database, I would need someone to manage that infrastructure, keep updating things, and maintain backups. PlanetScale handles all of that, including backups. We can restore to a point in time using PlanetScale. All these things would normally require a specially skilled person to manage a database. Instead of that, we can have the full-stack developer developing the product manage the database themselves instead of hiring a specialized person just for management. Rather than spending on a DevOps person, we can spend that budget on a developer and build more features instead of spending money on just maintaining infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As databases go, Oracle Database is quite a good database with decent performance, and I think that's all there needs to be said."
"The autonomous database simplifies everything."
"The database is perfect; it's powerful and fast, and the backup system is wonderful."
"You can scale the solution without any issues."
"The scalability is very good, and it is stable."
"Oracle is the premier relational database platform for enterprise environments."
"It's fast compared to other databases."
"Scalability, reliability, and performance are what we are getting with this solution. It is highly scalable and has very good performance. It also has in-built monitoring and optimized optimizer. It is quite stable and secure. When it comes to integration, you can integrate it with other tools as well. However, we have been using Oracle Database within our own premises. So, it is kind of difficult for us to basically do a kind of integration with the outside software. We prefer to do things within our own premises."
"In my opinion, one of the best features PlanetScale offers is the ability to lock all changes to the database, so no particular developer can do changes that could break things for others."
"I did not face any downtime when using the product."
"The database is accessible 24/7, ensuring my project runs smoothly without interruptions."
"PlanetScale positively impacts my organization by greatly improving productivity and saving significant costs."
"The branching feature is also good for developer experience."
"The solution is beginner-friendly. Like any new platform, it can be a bit confusing at first. But after spending about an hour with it, you can get a clear idea of what everything is for. It's not very confusing; I think they've improved it recently."
"One feature I appreciate about PlanetScale is its ability to handle migrations and commands without the need to run them manually in the database."
"I recommend using PlanetScale as it provides ease of access and control over database changes using commands from the local terminal."
 

Cons

"With Oracle, the complexity of Database makes it a little bit more cumbersome."
"The cost of Oracle is far too high. They should work to make it less expensive."
"As a developer, I use the reporting side. We need a better reporting tool with some kind of data warehouse capability."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"When you try to tell customers that you can critically patch their system, they always complain about the cost."
"Support is not available when one encounters problems."
"I think it's very expensive when compared to the others."
"The solution’s integration could be improved."
"When I tried to integrate the solution with Firebase for authentication, I faced some interruptions. Also, when using it with Next.js and NextAuth.js for Google and social logins, I had some troubles."
"We encountered some initial issues during the product deployment, which required me to search for solutions on forums."
"I used PlanetScale for hobby projects, so my perspective differs from someone using it commercially. Unfortunately, they've removed the free tier in recent months and pivoted to a business-to-business model. This is sad for hobby developers like me because it's a great product, but I understand they have costs to cover."
"The main thing I didn't like about PlanetScale was that we couldn't run analytical queries on it."
"Recently we started noticing that because of the distance between the database and the server and our particular field, there may be some lagging and that may not be acceptable."
"I am not sure, but I think recently, the tool removed the free version."
"Regarding needed improvements, I wish PlanetScale would have a free tier so that startups could try it and then opt in for a paid feature."
"I would like PlanetScale to have a feature where the database can be accessed in the cloud with a link, allowing for a more user-friendly interface compared to the terminal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The price of Oracle Database is quite high compared to other solutions. It has a lot of options, such as security for partitioning and real application clusters. These options are not for free. Once you want to use it, you have to pay extra."
"We are on an annual license for the use of this solution."
"The licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"Our licensing costs are between $40,000 and $50,000 per year. Those are the costs that cover maintenance and licensing."
"The product is costly."
"Its cost is astronomical. They charge by the size of the server rather than what you're actually using. It is just a terrible business model. It has got a ton of features that are great, but you have to pay for them, and we don't want to spend a lot of money. If you use any of their additional products, you have to pay for those. Almost everything extra is at an additional charge. We also use RAC, and there is an additional charge for that."
"The price of Oracle Database is high and could be reduced."
"I am currently using the product's free version, which has been sufficient for my portfolio project."
"Last time, when I wanted to use the tool in a project, I could see it was only paid, so I didn't use the service."
"The solution is expensive for beginners. That's why I wasn't motivated to use it more. But they were already providing many features for free for beginners, which was great."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
33%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business87
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise180
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

How do you run Oracle Database at your organization and why?
My company has been using Oracle Exadata Database Service for some years now, and we are happy with it. I will allow myself to answer your questions about why and what benefits it provides us with ...
Do you know of any disadvantages of Oracle Database?
Undoubtedly, Oracle Database is a top product in its category. But it does have its disadvantages, and for me and my organization, that has been the limitations of the product. When it comes to Ora...
What is the best use for Oracle Database?
Oracle Database is flexible and can be used for many things. My company's main use case for this product is for storing data. We benefit from its high level of security as well as from the fact tha...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PlanetScale?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that pricing is good enough to be used at enterprise level. It is not cheap, but it is appropriately priced. I do not find it costly at all.
What needs improvement with PlanetScale?
Regarding how PlanetScale could be improved, especially considering my experience so far, if it were possible to handle the lagging problem, I suppose it is something that cannot really be changed ...
What is your primary use case for PlanetScale?
My main use case for PlanetScale is that currently, in the company, we are considering changing our current local database to PlanetScale for stability and other benefits, but it has not been deplo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Oracle 12c, RDBMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agncia Nacional de guas, Anbima, Aria Systems, Asiana Airlines, Astelit LLC, Australian Finance Group, Banco Occidental de Descuento, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, BT, Caja de Seguros S.A., Casas GEO S.A.B. de C.V., Comic Relief UK, Corsair Components Inc., CSAM Health AS, CSOB Group, Datacraft Solutions, DenizBank A.S., Department of Treasury and Finance WA, Office of State Revenue, Deutsche B_rse AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Deutsche Messe AG, Digicel Haiti, DPR COSEA, Essar Group, Essatto Software Pty Ltd, Farmšcia e Drogaria Nissei Ltda., Fomento Econ‹mico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V. (FEMSA), FundaÊo Petrobras de Seguridade Social, Future Group, GFKL Financial Services AG, Grupo Posadas S.A.B. de C.V., Grupo Sinosserra, Guerra S.A. Implementos Rodovišrios, Hanatour International Service, Hays plc, Henan Mobile Co. Ltd, Hochschule Hof, Hong Kong and China Technology (Wuhan) Co. Ltd (Towngas Technology), Industries Corpa_al C.A., Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatstica, Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial, Kcell, LinkShare Corporation, MercadoLibre Inc., MetLife Inc., Nextgen Distribution, €BB-IKT GmbH, Octagon Research Solutions, Pacific Lutheran University, Paragon Data GmbH, Ping ltd., PJSC Trustbank, Prodaub _ Processamento de Dados de Uberl_ndia, Purdue University, Redknee Inc., Robi Axiata Limited, Shanghai Infoservice Technology Co. Ltd, Shanghai Sihua Technologies Co. Ltd, Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de M_xico, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Suddenlink Communications, Suprajit Engineering Limited, Tallink Grupp, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., Therap Services LLC, Think Passenger Inc., Trafigura, Transmed S.A.L Lebanon, ValeShop, VelQuest Corporation, Vodafone Group plc, West Virginia Network, WIND Hellas Telecommunications S.A
Block, Intercom, Convex, MyFitnessPal
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Database vs. PlanetScale and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.