Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Oracle SQL Developer vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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 SQL Developer
Ranking in IDE
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in IDE
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (4th), AI Software Development (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 5.3%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 8.6%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle SQL Developer5.3%
Windsurf8.6%
Other86.1%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

Vikram_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at Ontario Power Generation
Has improved development efficiency through reusable components and intuitive programming features
When errors occur while programming, they are very generic. Even when searching the internet, the errors remain generic and it takes considerable time to understand the fix. This was predominantly felt because we were mostly working on writing code and developing features. Error handling needs to be improved. The patches and upgrade process is very long. In the last year and a half, I haven't upgraded, so we don't know if latest features have arrived. Another issue is with sessions. If we were working on code and then switch off our laptop for two to three days, the session would keep running. This consumes many resources and flags to the team that a user has been continuously using Oracle SQL Developer. There should be a timeout period for inactive sessions.
reviewer2748786 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founding BackEnd Engineer
Enhancing productivity with advanced code generation and low-cost accessibility
What they can do further and venture into next is to provide a CLI environment, similar to the command-line interface environment that Cursor offers. It allows for running a cursor agent from the command line to make changes, review pull requests, or access certain other capabilities. These capabilities are currently not in Windsurf. Windsurf focuses on the productivity and the ID/editor part. I would rather look for the inclusion of pull request reviews or a kind of a TRD or technical requirement general documentation generation, or system diagram generation directly from the codebase in Windsurf itself. These should be the next obvious features they launch for developers. In our team, there are certain people who use Windsurf regularly and appreciate using it. However, it is not a collaborative tool where someone is going to use the same tool and interact in the same IDE. Everyone does their local development, pushes it to different Git branches, someone reviews the PR, and then merges the branch. It is very localized in that sense.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can install it on every platform. It just works. The other thing is that it's free. And Oracle is committed to the development of the tool, so it has been improving."
"I have a lot of flexibility with it."
"The newer version has a lot of new features. It generates output and scripts for your Ultrix. It can generate JSON, XML, etc."
"The most valuable features of Oracle SQL Developer that I use. However, I do not use all of them"
"You do not have to install it, just dump it on the OS, then use it."
"It allows us to implement a form of test driven development (TDD) for database-resident code."
"I like it because it's very similar in output to SQL *Plus, and it has many convenience features that make it easier to read the data and use the basic reporting features it provides."
"It's easy to deploy, I can copy it onto the system and run it without having to install it and this makes it a very good solution for quick use."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"I have seen a return on investment with Windsurf because I have saved time and money and needed fewer resources since using it."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing productivity, because during a one-week hackathon we were able to build a product from scratch that would have taken at least two to three weeks, making the time savings substantial."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
 

Cons

"I would like it to support background processes better."
"Oracle SQL Developer could improve the speed, it is a bit slow."
"It would be nice to have the ability to access DBs than Oracle."
"If they had something on the Web then you wouldn't need to install it, just query, like Enterprise Manager."
"I think it would be great to have an overview over the sessions it opens so that we could easily see and control which connections to the database we want to keep open, which ones are hanging; and it would be great to make them independent from each other."
"The initial setup is always a problem, it cannot find the Java SDK."
"There is room for improvement in the Real Time SQL Monitoring."
"The stability depends on what version you're using. There are more successful versions and are less successful versions. For example, 17.3 is less successful. There were many bugs. Now, we are trying to pull all the developers to upgrade to 17.4."
"Since using Windsurf, I notice more errors, but we deliver approximately twice as fast."
"I chose 7 out of 10 because I've used Cursor as well, and sometimes I feel Cursor hallucinates less compared to Windsurf."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has the advantage that it's free. The next best competitor would cost several thousand dollars."
"It is basically free."
"It's a free tool."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IDE solutions are best for your needs.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle SQL Developer?
The pricing of Oracle SQL Developer depends on the size of the company and the project. I cannot use Oracle or other solutions if I am just starting. If I start with MySQL, it depends on the size o...
What needs improvement with Oracle SQL Developer?
The downsides of Oracle SQL Developer include hard typing. It is not similar to another relational database such as MySQL. I need to define the object that I will receive even when I create a store...
What is your primary use case for Oracle SQL Developer?
I have been using it for about five years, but it has not been continuous. Sometimes I have projects that are developed in SQL Server, MySQL, and even more relational databases such as MongoDB. It ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with Windsurf's pricing, setup cost, and licensing was positive. I received a discount because I joined early, so the license cost or monthly rental of Windsurf has been reasonably pr...
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
I have no suggestions at the moment for how Windsurf can be improved. I would not add more about the needed improvements, even small things that could make my experience better.
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
I have been using Windsurf off and on for the last year. My main use case for Windsurf is for software development. Currently, we're working on an API, and Windsurf will help us develop a particula...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Prinova
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle SQL Developer vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.