Oracle SQL Developer Reviews

To me, the most valuable feature is the ability to quickly reverse engineer a database structure into a data model.

There's also a drag-and-drop feature that helps you build queries in SQL Developer, which has a visual query builder with it. I like that feature a lot as it has a number of options in the wizard to pick what type of query you're trying to build. It can build inserts and updates as well. I've used that quite a bit as well. That was very helpful for, I'll say, short-cutting the process of building queries. It helps me be agile.

Where clients of mine have adopted using the data modeler in particular, the teams are able to become more efficient because they have the data model to use as a reference diagram and documentation to the structure of the database. That made planning changes to the database, reports and things like that much easier to do, and less error prone. Whereas before, when they didn't have a model and they were having to guess at what the data structures were and do a lot of individual investigations. It took a lot longer to get things done.

It also allowed us to produce a data dictionary for the organization, which helped business users. I deal primarily in data warehousing and so from a business intelligence perspective, being able to publish a data dictionary to the business users was very helpful because it helped them understand the database that they're trying to pull the data from.

I have been using both SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler for six years.

Especially in the more recent versions, I've not had any stability issues at all.

I don't have it randomly crashing on me, so that is good. Seems to work equally well on Windows and Mac OS.

It seems to scale fine. If you're trying to return exceedingly large data sets into the tool for some reason to download, that could be a challenge, depending on the memory on your machine and the disk space you have to output it to. Oracle will perform the query just, depending on how well your database is tuned, but oyu do need space for the output.

On the Data Modeler side, people do run into issues with very large models with hundreds and thousands of objects, but there is actually a memory parameter and a config file which you can tweak to increase the amount of memory that the tool uses. That, of course, is then limited only by how much memory you have on the workstation you're using.

I've been quite happy with both SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler. They have incrementally added features over time. A number of things it was lacking in earlier versions they have added as a result of feedback from myself and other folks in the community. They're adding features all the time.

That's one of the things that I think is most impressive about it: the team that supports this tool. Product management and development are very responsive - via not only formal channels, but informal social media channels - at providing information on best practices and even taking input on changes where someone does find something that they think they would like to see changed. They take input in many ways.

On the OTN Data Modeler Forum, the lead architect and developers are incredibly responsive. In all honesty, they are more responsive than what I had seen in the past when I was working with customers that had big Oracle support contracts where you had to call Oracle support. The development team monitors the questions on the OTN forum and replies usually within 24 hours at the latest to questions people have the about the tool. I've used that forum for that entire time. Often asking how to do something and getting a very quick response on how to do it and in some cases it was, "Well, the tool doesn't do that, but here's a way you could do it instead," and actually getting workarounds.

There have been a number of cases where I've said, "Hey, it would be nice to see this kind of feature or that kind of feature." They actually came out in the next release. Very, very impressed with the development and product management team for this particular tool.

One of the product managers blogs multiple times a week on SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler, and he is on social media, on Twitter in particular, all the time and is very responsive to comments and requests and questions from customers.

I've only gone to the OTN discussion forum, and gotten all the support I needed there. I've never opened a ticket of any kind formally through support.

I had originally been an Oracle Designer user, which was the predecessor to Data Modeler and in the interim had used ERwin at one point as well and looked at Embarcadero. While all those tools were, I'll say, very functional, full featured, they were very expensive.

The bottom line is, when I first started using these tools, it was because I was in an organization that basically had no budget for doing this type of work, data modeling, so, they weren't doing it. Data Modeler is, for no other reason, the only choice because it was a no-cost add-on. It didn't cost you anything to use Data Modeler if you have an Oracle license so I began using it.

I actually used it against not only Oracle, but against SQL Server databases as well and found I was able to, in particular, do data warehousing. I needed to reverse engineer source systems that weren't in Oracle and often were in SQL Server, and then go forward designing a new data warehouse from there. I was able to pretty easily, again with some help with the development team, figure out how to connect both SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler to Microsoft SQL Server databases. They did, indeed, design it to do that, so it was not completely database agnostic, but it did allow you to look at some of the other major databases like SQL Server and DB2. I found that very useful to be able to conect with both of those tools, especially helpful in doing data warehousing.

It is by the far the easiest tool from Oracle to install that I've ever seen. When it first came out, I did a presentation six weeks after getting my hands on it and the presentation started off with, "Well, let's first install it," and it was one slide. Download the ZIP file. Unzip it. You're done.

On SQL Developer, the only additional thing you have to do is set up the connection to the database. Assuming you already have a database in place, it's a wizard. You go and put in your credentials and it connects and you're off to the races, able to query data in the database and make changes to the database.

With the Data Modeler, it doesn't require a database connection. If you were going to design something from the ground up, you literally unzip it, start it, and create a new model. The longest part of that is downloading the ZIP file, so depending on your connection, that's how long it takes to install it. 30 seconds to unzip it and open.

It's easy enough to install and try, that you ought to just do it. Then the next thing would just be look at a couple of books available on the product, on the Data Modeler product in particular, if you decide to go down that route. Otherwise, there are several people like myself and the product manager who blog about the products. Follow the experts on social media to get your answers, but the first thing is to just download it and try it and start asking questions.

I have not considered switching to anything else. I see no reason. I'm an Oracle ACE Director, and using Data Modeler is the thing that I am known for.

I am a blogger, The Data Warrior, and I have multiple blog posts on it about these tools. My most popular blog post was when I wrote, probably almost three years ago now, about how to connect Data Modeler to SQL Server. The second most popular blog post is the very first one I wrote about the Data Modeler. Every so often, I go back and have to update it because there's new releases.

Every client I have had and every organization I have worked for since Data Modeler came out and SQL Developer came out, I get them using it. I have had several organizations that were using Toad and when time came for the support renewal on those, I usually got them to convert over to SQL Developer.

We use it daily to merge our databases. In my function, I use it as my client database.

I am also using a newer version. It is small client, which is new product. We use the GUI product daily. This is my daily tool for whatever I am doing. 

• It is very easy to use. 
• I have a lot of flexibility with it. 
• For DBA tasks, it is also very good.

It is easy to use. 

The newer version has a lot of new features. It generates output and scripts for your Ultrix. It can generate JSON, XML, etc. 

The competing products have more features. 

It is stable. There are no problems. It is a client.

It is just client. It does not really matter. It is scalable, especially the newer version is non-GUI version. You do not have to install it, just dump it on the OS, then use it.

There is no setup. It is just set it up and you connect the database.

It is basically free. 

Try this if you do not need a lot of storage, especially since it is free and if it is the newer version with no GUI version. Everybody should try it because you do not have to code things to create output from JSON or DDL. It allows you to get everything you want together: tables, indexes, etc.

Among the most valuable features is the automated unit test capability for PL/SQL development. It allows us to implement a form of test driven development (TDD) for database-resident code.

We can switch between heterogeneous databases.

After installing a MySQL driver, for example, we can work with these row stores. It also supports Oracle Cloud legacy schema-as-a-service connections and the newer DBaaS connections.

I am not aware of any areas for improvement at the moment.

We have been using the solution for eight years.

We did not encounter any issues with deployment.

There are occasional runtime issues that are easily worked around, especially on a Windows deployment. However, these have never been impediments and the installation is regularly updated with patches and fixes.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

This is a self-service offering so customer service is not relevant.

I cannot comment with regard to the technical support.

We did not use a previous solution.

The setup was very simple, using only point-and-click as long as your workstation meets the runtime JDK prerequisite.

Not applicable.

I cannot comment on the ROI.

It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis.

For data architects, it offers the advantage of being part of the same tool set as the cost-free license for Oracle Data Modeler. Together, they form a nice tool kit for data architects as well as database developers and other specializations.

I've actually been using a similar tool for probably 17 years, but we switched over about four years ago to SQL Developer. A lot of these features I had used previously but there are advantages to SQL Developer. I guess just cleaning the database, looking at the information about your objects and the database, doing data manipulation. That's what I use it most for. DBAs would use it a little differently, maybe, but for me, as more of a developer or business analyst, it's pretty simple, just kind of your gateway to the database.

The biggest thing is really the cost savings as opposed to using a competitor project or competitor application to SQL Developer. The competitors cost significantly more.

Since Oracle SQL Developer is free, we no longer incurred the cost of the previous tool. There was also benefit to our organization in that the SQL Developer community is very active and growing, so there is a lot of resources available to us.

There are a lot of options and I think, as with any tool, making finding those options the easiest would be something that that this tool could work on. Sometimes it kind of takes a while to go through and remember where different options are. I've seen as we've gone through different versions of the tool, they're continuing to get better at that.

There's always going to be streamlining, and one thing they could improve is the installation. Even though it installs easy, there is a lot of Java behind the tool. It seems like some of the Java is more memory-intensive. Sometimes I feel like the Java side of the tool kind of gets in the way.

I think I’ve been using it since 2012.

A consultant that started working with us knew part of the product team personally. I first got introduced to Jeff Smith, Chris Rice and others on the product team via Twitter. If you follow them and interact with them on Twitter, there's a lot of resources. Jeff Smith has a blog, where he has a lot of SQL Developer tutorials. Sometimes, I ask questions on those channels, and there's a Facebook page. I've searched a lot on the forums and they also have something called SQL Developer Exchange for requesting enhancements.

There's a variety of ways that I've reached out. I feel like it's a very active community, so a lot of SQL Developer users are willing to help each other. A lot of times, I start with the social media side.

There's really nothing that I think is lacking. I've been very active and very vocal. That's probably one reason why they reached out to me to get a better view. Sometimes I have worked through, "Hey, why does it work like this? Can this be changed?" There have been things that the product team has changed because of some of the feedback that I or my team has given, so we've had a really good experience working with them.

The decision to switch to SQL Developer was basically about the cost. We were using Toad, those products. I had been using it for 13 years or something. I had gotten so used to it, pretty much everybody liked it and we were productive with that tool.

When we started investigating SQL Developer, it was given to us kind of as a challenge: Is there anything that Toad did that is imperative to your job that SQL Developer does not do? We couldn't find anything. There were some differences to get used to, different shortcut keys and so on. Just like switching from a PC to a Mac, you get used to it and there's really nothing that it can't do. It's a great way to save a lot of money.

I was involved in the deployment. The harder part for us has been putting these on a shared terminal server which is not always what Oracle recommends. Sometimes, when working on those shared servers, there are certain versions of the Oracle client that are needed for different versions of SQL Developer. Sometimes we've had to take that extra step to upgrade the Oracle client, but overall it's a simple install. Most of our problems have been from, again, a shared environment perspective.

We looked at a few other products and there have been different consultants that have come into the company that might use SQL Workbench or PL SQL Developer, but I think in general most of us are just sticking with SQL Developer. I haven't done a full analysis, because there just hasn't been a need. There's not really been anything that, to me, has felt lacking.

Right now I am using SQL Developer to install a database, and I use it as a client tool.

Oracle is tremendous. I have always said to everybody, without knowing other databases, that Oracle is the best database that can exist in this world. That's for sure. Everybody is considering cost, mainly, so I've heard many stories recently of migrating to PostgreSQL, for example, because it's open-source and many small customers don't need all the super advanced features of Oracle, which costs a lot of money.

But on the other side, a great feature of Oracle, I think, is that it allows me to download the database and use it at home. Not a demo database or something restricted but the full version. That's fantastic.

I tried using SQL Developer once, when I was still working as an employee, using one of the older versions. It worked nicely, and I liked that I didn't need an installation, it was very convenient. But after many years, when I tried to use it again, against the more advanced Oracle Database, it did not work. Something in the Java was not compatible. I would have had to install it again, and I didn't do so. 

But now I am properly studying the issue of installing a database of my own, versus installing a virtual box with an Oracle appliance inside. I will have to see which one works best for me because each one has pros and cons. I am not a DBA. So if I get involved in an installation problem, I don't know how to get out of it.

Personally, I always prefer to use a product from Oracle. First of all, this one is free. And second, it is not so complicated. In another company, for example, the strategic development tool was Toad. And they have even joined Toad with a version manager, the specific version manager, and everybody had to work with Toad. I did not like Toad. So I occasionally worked with SQL Developer, but mostly I worked without any development tool, just writing in an editor, in Notepad. So I developed my entire career, practically, in Notepad.

I think it's a good product in the sense that it does not overwhelm you with many features. So I would give it a 10 out of 10.

I would recommend it.

It's a free tool which allows you to see an Oracle Database structure and run queries against Oracle Databases.

• It's a free tool
• Ability to analyze performance, using Explain Plan statement
• Ability to export and import data without using any Oracle utilities

It would be nice to have the ability to access DBs than Oracle.

No stability issues.

No scalability issues.

Very good.

I have used tools such as Toad, PL/SQL Developer, SQL Navigator. I switched because this one is free.

Initial set-up was straightforward. Just download the solution from Oracle OTN and after that run the installer.

It’s a free tool.

Toad, SAP ADS, SQL Navigator.

It’s a great tool for accessing and exploring Oracle Databases.

This open-source GUI is feature-rich software. If I have to choose one most valuable feature, then I will definitely go with the Data Modeler feature. Modeling the structure of all the data and database objects along with their attributes has always been a challenging and time consuming task. Data modeling always helped me with several projects by being able to draw objects in the plane in no time.

Another interesting feature of SQL Developer is Data Pump. It makes exporting and importing data easier. The wizard form for Data Pump relieves the developer from writing a whole chunk of code, which is a huge relief.

As a database trainer, I would like to say that although SQL developer is an open-source software, yet it provides a lot of features that you can find only in paid versions of its counterparts. It is lightweight; hence, it takes up less memory space, which makes it more efficient and faster. Furthermore, it has an easy installation process that leads to the company spending less time and money on lengthy trainings for its employees; just a refresher course is enough! This single software can connect with other databases provided by different vendors such as Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL, etc.

While working with Data Pump, I have faced a few problems. For example, sometimes it won’t let me change the set file type. Although this was not that big of an issue, yet I think that the Data Pump feature could be further improved.

I have been using SQL Developer for the last three years on a daily basis.

Till now, I haven’t faced any stability issues while working with SQL Developer.

To be frank, I haven’t had the chance to evaluate this software with respect to its scalability.

I didn’t get a chance to talk with technical support because whenever I faced any problem, I just tweeted about it and got the solution from the community. So, a great many thanks to them for helping me out!

I often switch between SQL Developer and TOAD for Oracle depending on their suitability regarding the project that I am working on.

The initial setup was very simple. I just had to download and extract the files. That’s all!

It is an open-source software available for free from Oracle Corporation so no issues with pricing and licensing.

I evaluated TOAD for Oracle, but after using SQL Developer, I kind of grew a liking towards the latter.

It is a great open-source software, power packed with features. The initial setup is simple, which means less mess in terms of training the employees. Moreover, it is fairly stable which makes it a wonderful choice.

It is the easiest and quickest way to see the data in the system.

It's quick and rapid.

You get to the point and you can choose what you want to do. It gives you a complete picture of the database.

It should be more Mac friendly.

It is simple.

It is scalable. Although, we don't use it to get large data, still it is scalable.

The technical support provided was always good.

Since it is a Java based, it is more compatible with Mac.

I think it was an easy process.

Cisco is an Oracle shop. So, we have more product support than anyone else, which gives a lot of comfort to move it over.

It's an independent platform. You can use it anywhere.

It's good, scalable and a lot of times, it works as-is. We have very few calls to support. It is Mac compatible team, and it is Java based.