
Sadly, but understandably, SQL*Plus and SQLcl were low on this list. There were also mentions of DataGrip and a number of people using VS code with assorted extensions, including Oracle Developer Tools for VS Code. If I could have added an extra line in the poll, I would have put that as an option, because I know it is still popular. There were a few comments about Allround Aautomations PL/SQL Developer, which I used in one company many years ago. I guess the consistent improvements to SQL Developer and a price tag of “free” have broken the TOAD strangle hold. I’ve worked at a few companies over the years where TOAD was a staple. I was expecting SQL Developer to do well here, but I was surprised by how low TOAD was in the list. What tool do you do most of your PL/SQL development with? Of course total cost of ownership is not just about the price tag…

It would be nice to remove all those agents and clean up! This figure of less than 8% is all the more surprising when you consider it is free (no cost option). I like the performance pages and we use it as a centralized scheduler for backups, but I’m not sure our usage justifies the crazy bloat that is Cloud Control. Having said that, I’m considering ditching it myself. I guess the real surprise was less than 8% using EM Cloud Control. Of course there are cross platform tools that may do well with other engines, even though they don’t register so well with the Oracle crowd.

I know there are a lot of companies out there trying to make money with DBA tools, but maybe this is a tough market for them. I’m glad people are finding value in the DBA side of SQL Developer.


SQL Developer had a pretty good showing at nearly 28%. It may be tough for a beginner to use these command line tools, but over time you build up a list of scripts that mean it is much quicker than using GUI tools for most jobs. A lot of DBAs are still “old school” where administration is concerned. I expected SQL*Plus and SQLcl to be the winner here, and I was right. What tool do you do *most* of your Oracle DBA work with? I’ve been thinking about my DBA and PL/SQL tool choices recently, so I thought I would go out to Twitter and ask the masses what they are using.Īs always, the sample size is small and my followers have an Oracle bias, so you can decide how representative you think these number are…
