Oracle SQL Developer Reviews

I noticed that many of the small features are the biggest time-savers like:

• ‘Copy Selected Column Header(s)’ in the data grid
• Persistent highlighting of rows or cells in the data grid
• Search-and-replace with its smart options
• History (of statements and files)
• Splitting windows and document groups, pinning

Personally, being a nosey person, I love the Statements-Log Window, which shows every command SQL Developer sends to the database.

I have used it for three years.

Deployment was the easiest I ever encountered:

1. Unzip
2. Optional: find ide.conf, set the language to ‘en’
3. Optional: change NLS settings
4. Ready

Version 4.1.3 64-bit is very stable.

I had some problems with an older version freezing several times a week, but that was about two years ago and has hardly ever happened since.

Technical support is excellent. There’s the fast track via Twitter, but most of the time, I found the answer on Jeff Smith’s blog or Oracle Tech Net (OTN) before making a fool of myself by asking. Jeff has solved many of my problems “by unsent messages”. ;-)

You get very fast support on OTN or Twitter.

In different projects, I used to use TOAD and PL/SQL Developer.
One of my customers decided he didn’t want to spend any money on tools, so SQL Developer was my choice... I guess I have to be grateful :)

Initial setup was very easy, see above.

I tried Raptor ages ago (and didn’t like it at all), but now I am a converted SQL Developer enthusiast.

Read Jeff Smith’s blog. If you think a feature should be there, investigate. Quite likely, it’s already there; maybe you just overlooked it. If it’s not, open a feature request at sqldeveloper.oracle.com. Learn a handful of shortcuts (or two), it will improve your efficiency enormously.

The speed with which you can build SQL statements and PL/SQL code has been very valuable. In addition, it simplifies how we manage database objects and connections to different data sources.

It has reduced the time it takes to manage data. We use the product for data analysis, building SQL statements to construct reports, and analysis and optimization of SQL statements.

The interface could be friendlier for the DBA by having the dashboard show real-time statistics from the database engine. It could also give details from active sessions, details about PGA, information about background processes like DBWR, LGWR and RVWR, alerts when you pass thresholds, logical reads, physical reads, and direct physical leads.

We have used the product for about 2 years.

It has been stable.

There have been no issues with scalability.

Customer service is very good.

It has been excellent for us.

Initial setup is simple. Once you have a connection to the data source, you can begin working. We implemented in-house and there were no issues.

It is a very good investment for the benefits that it offers.

Download it, install it and never stop using it. I would give it a ten out of ten.

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.

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.

Off the top of my head (I don't use it that often):

• Included Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler. No PL/SQL IDE has such modelling capabilities, as far as I know. This is a killer feature for me.
• Database Export
• Database Diff
• Debugging capabilities

Off the top of my head (I don't use it that often):

• Just copy IntelliJ's IDEA for PL/SQL
• Projects - there are none and are much needed
• More code formatting options
• To be able to handle db object scripts that end with /
• File browser
• Filtering
• Favourite locations
• Versioning is there, check. But it sucks a lot, double check. Maybe except SVN.

It's getting better with every release. I would have rated it much lower a couple of years ago. With Oracle's resources, it could be much much better.

I have used this solution for eight years.

It is not very stable on MacOS, but it's much better on Windows I think.

I haven't used customer service.

I haven't used technical support.

IDE help is there, but it could be much better.

I did and still haven't fully switched to Oracle SQL Developer.

Setup is piece of cake. Various options are well hidden in settings, but the search helps a lot.

An in-house team implemented it.

It's free. The required time investment and change of thinking while using it is too much for me, anytime I seriously think about switching to Oracle SQL Developer as my main tool for PL/SQL development.

Invest enough time beforehand so you would fully understand how Oracle SQL Developer works and behaves in some situations. It is a very powerful tool, but sometimes it "works in mysterious ways", just like any Oracle's desktop product. (JDeveloper is the best example.)

For the last few years: Ctl + F7. That shortcut will format my queries the way I desire. This is especially helpful since I work with a query generator (OBIEE) and sometimes have to look at hundreds of lines of SQL. Formatting it helps me read the SQL. If I didn’t have this capability, I would format it by hand which would add time to my day.

At a prior organization, we had no reporting capabilities. Business Users would ask me to run reports for them. Since there were restrictions in other delivery mechanisms (think: web front end), I ended up creating SQL Developer Reports and then distributing those to the Business Users. This isn’t an ideal way to distribute reports, but it worked, and freed up my time to do other more important things.

Feature-wise, it has everything that I need. My only complaint over the years has been memory usage, which seems to improve with each release. I also understand that this may be out of the developer’s control (i.e. Java).

I have used this solution for 10+ years. I downloaded and used Project Raptor when it was first released.

Customer service has been most excellent. The Product Manager is on Twitter (and happens to be a friend), Jeff Smith. I’ve bothered Jeff myself and have watched him help others routinely via Twitter and his blog. I honestly can’t think of a better PM out there. Additionally, Kris Rice (also a friend) was one of two of the initial developers (if I remember correctly).

Technical support has been excellent. If Jeff (or Kris) can’t answer in 140 characters, he’s probably written it up as a solution for whatever ails you on his blog. I frequently go there to find answers before asking.

I would use Toad to monitor database sessions. It had a pre-built reporting solution for that. But Toad cost quite a bit of money. When SQL Developer (Project Raptor) came out, I installed it and built the same session monitoring reports there. No more worrying about cost.

Initial setup was very straightforward: Unzip, find the executable and go. I have it installed on Windows, Mac and Linux (Ubuntu, Oracle Enterprise Linux).

I did not really evaluate other options before choosing this product. I mainly used SQL*Plus and occasionally Toad.