Foglight for Databases Reviews & Product Details

Offering a holistic approach to database monitoring, Quest's Foglight for Databases effectively merges and standardizes database performance monitoring across platforms regardless of their location—cloud or on-premise—including relational, non-relational, open-source, and cloud-only databases. Featuring deep diagnostic capabilities, organizations can proactively manage and tune both real-time and historical performance, while troubleshooting and enhancing the overall health of their database environment.

Seller

Quest Software

Discussions

Foglight for Databases Community

Solution Type

Best-of-Breed

Overview by

Bennett Klein

Value at a Glance

Averages based on real user reviews.

Time to Implement

2 months

Return on Investment

21 months

View More Pricing Information

Top-Rated Alternatives

View All Alternatives

User Insights

Average based on 46 real user reviews.

Implementation Time

2 months

Perceived Cost

$$$$$

Foglight for Databases Reviews FAQs

Generated using AI

Last updated: Nov 01, 2026

What is Foglight for Databases, and what problem is it built to solve?

Foglight for Databases is used to monitor database health and performance, helping teams spot issues and investigate their causes. Users describe using it for real-time alerts, query analysis, and historical performance troubleshooting.

What company sizes and industries is Foglight for Databases the best fit for?

Positive experiences cluster most among enterprise organizations and users in information technology and services. Mid-market companies and financial-services teams are also represented.

Enterprise: the strongest company-size cluster.
Mid-market: another notable company-size segment.
Information technology and services: the most prominent industry cluster.
Financial services: a recurring industry segment.

How long does it take to implement Foglight for Databases across a team?

Implementation timelines vary, with one to three months the most common reported range and under a month close behind.

Time to go live	Relative frequency
1–3 months	Most common
Under 1 month	Nearly as common
Under 1 day	Less common
3–6 months	Less common
6–12 months	Less common

What customer support options does Foglight for Databases provide, and how do users find the overall support experience?

Support is available through email/help desk and chat, as well as phone support with a 24/7 live representative. The support experience is mixed: users value attentive customer-success contact, while support ratings vary.

What features or capabilities could make Foglight for Databases even more useful?

A more approachable interface could make Foglight for Databases easier to learn and navigate, and more flexible dashboards could help teams tailor what they see.

Simplify navigation and make the interface easier for new users to understand.
Improve dashboard customization so teams can surface the activities and details they need.

G2 reviews are authentic and verified.

Here's how.

Jacob L.

System Administrator

Food Production

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

4/10/2016

"Everything you want at your fingertips"

4/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

Whilst vSphere vCenter does give you alerts and performance metrics, it's up to you to make sense of it. This is where Foglight steps in. Foglight is brilliant in the way it helps you understand your environment. It can point out performance concerns quite quickly such as high CPU wait times, memory ballooning, wasted disk space from orphaned VMDK's and zombie VM's. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

We are currently using Foglight for Virtualization Standard. Unfortunately this product has been discontinued and the only option now is Foglight for Virtualization Enterprise which is more expensive. This is a negative, as even though Enterprise is much more advanced, Standard fit our needs much better. One other thing to note is that Standard requires Java for some functions, however Enterprise is complete Java-free. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

We are using Standard, which is no longer available. Enterprise is great, however, you need a fairly specific use case and environment size to use it. If not, the return on investment may not be likely. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

We use Foglight to pinpoint performance issues and bottlenecks, as well as minimize waste. The reporting functionality is quite good and we can even schedule cleanups. We have saved a fairly large chunk of time by seeing all this information in a single pane of glass and then being able to act on it easily and effectively. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Online Media

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

3/30/2016

"We were able to instantly monitor and get alerted for SQL load with Foglight for SQL Server"

4/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

Foglight for SQL Server is a great way to monitor load on multiple SQL Servers in one place, giving comparisons of load between servers and instant colour coded alerts, with drill downs for each Performance Indicator making it great for helping diagnose possible issues. It is also great for planning HDD Capacity for SQL Databases by monitoring history of Database sizes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

It took a while to get the Server and clients installed correctly, and to understand how to get things working, this was partly down to how the software needed to connect to each other over networks which had firewalls between them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

We solved many issues with Foglight, including issues we didn't know we had before it became a disaster, I would recommend at least trialling this software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

We wanted a central way to easily monitor and diagnose load issues on our SQL Servers, with the option of expanding to Oracle and MySQL Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Shaifali G.

Quality Assurance Associate

Information Technology and Services

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

5/12/2016

"Foglight- Virtualization"

4/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

It provides ease in configuring VM and helps analysing VM health with its performance analysis tool so that we can know and solve the problem with VM as soon as it comes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

Its performance with one CPU and ability for hypervision across CPU core is not too good which affects performance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

You can use Foglight for providing VM solutions and for satisfying different needs with less hardware. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

Configuring and providing VMs with different OS for testing and use on different platforms. Providing VMs with different kinds of software each ready to use as soon as required by the user according to testing needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Education Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

6/9/2016

"Foglight for Visualization - Recommended!"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

It supports a lot of different hypervisors: vmware, openstack, KVM, and others. The big difference between this one and its competitors are the capability of bringing together application, infrastructure and database performance statistics in a single view. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

Initially there were many options that now are discontinued. We really liked the Standard product, that is now not available. The Enterprise edition is somewhat more costly, with many options that are not that important, for example, the Synthetic transactions capabilities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

I recommend Foglight to the users that can make use of all the capabilities it offers, in order to get value for the price. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

We are using it to diagnose problems arising and to provide more information about the transactions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Damian Eliel A.

Ayudante de cátedra (Algoritmos y Estructura de datos II)

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

6/12/2016

"WE can watch the performance instantly"

3/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

In Foglight we like the ability to log on and review history, as well as real time emails and alerts for DBAs to resolve the issues. I found the algorithms to forecast growth and concerns to be particularly intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

Its really expensive. Its also difficult the servers setup, and the user interface could be better. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Charles C.

Logistics

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

4/4/2016

"What the Dell is going on here? A lot. "

3.5/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

Capture the experience of users interacting with key applications. Pinpoint the root cause of incidents so you can fix problems fast. Improve user satisfaction and ensure the IT environment supports the needs of the organization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

There's not much I can say I dislike per se. If I'm nitpicking, I can always say there's an easier way to really use this effectively as a beginner but nothing major has ever been an issue. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

Gain a unified view of storage performance and application utilization through the virtualization layer to the physical disk spindle. Monitor and manage the performance of your underlying physical storage as well as the capacity and topology metrics to ensure the best possible virtual infrastructure performance. This is a great product for all that I've already mentioned and I can go on if I had more time lol. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

Optimizing the configuration, performance and utilization of my hypervisors and guest virtual machines, as well as the applications utilizing them. Capitalizing on extensive real-time monitoring, capacity planning and reporting capabilities for informed decision making. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Curtis R.

Solutions Architect

Information Technology and Services

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

4/2/2016

"Foglight On-Premise"

3.5/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

What I like best about Foglight is its ability to be extended via WCF (Not Windows WCF) to add functionality that isn't available out of the box. This is actually surprisingly easy and straightforward to do and allows you to grow the solution to fit your needs. In addition to this, its ability to run multiple Foglight Management Servers and then federate the results of these to a Federation server allows you to separate your workloads logically and group permissions and resources more effectively. Finally, its ability to script synthetic transactions and then deploy these to Foglight Agent Managers dispersed around the world (Azure, AWS Regions, Etc) makes it really easy to see the performance of your site from the perspective of real users and detect slow portions of your processes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

With large amounts of infrastructure, you have to do a great deal of tuning to ensure the interface remains performant. It is not uncommon to log into an FMS or the Federation server to find a loading spinner that doesn't seem to want to go away. For best results, run these on Linux instances, if you're going to use virtual hardware, be sure to dedicate resources and properly tune your JVM settings based on recommendations from Dell regarding the size of your anticipated environment/workload. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

If installing on-premise, be sure to spend time upfront understanding the size of your infrastructure and the necessary server footprint for Foglight to function in a performant way. Use Linux systems for your FMS servers and dedicate resources if VMs. If including cloud-based applications in addition to on-premise, be sure to configure Foglight Agent Managers in the same cloud location and then allow those to communicate back to your on-premise. This will improve performance greatly. By all means, take advantage of the Synthetic transactions capabilities and set up FAMs to house these in cloud providers in the regions your users are located. This will help you understand the global performance of your application for your most common processes (logins, account updates, carts/purchases, etc). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

This solution enabled us to monitor all of our applications and their underlying infrastructure components. This was achieved by the system's ability to group applications into what are known as Foglight "Services" and then define the various components of the applications along with the rule-sets needed to determine the overall health of the service. By doing this, we were able to group and roll-up applications into categories and expose dashboards denoting the health of these categories with various degrees of detail to specific users based on their need to see more or less details. Management and colleagues could see the overall health of high-level services, while service managers could see deep details into their particular services, while admins and developers could dive much deeper into the inner workings of the applications/systems and see all events and take actions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Daniel S.

Software Developer

Internet

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

3/30/2016

"An armoured tank."

2/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

Foglight is a limitless monitoring platform, fully extensible with custom cartridges for every case and platform. It can do network, application, OS, database, even user simulations. Its dashboard elements are beautiful, and it's fully manageable from its web-based front end. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

Foglight is a beast. Nothing is simple or painless. The only good use case for Foglight is one where the target criteria is complex. If you are looking to monitor network, OS, database, or use standard monitoring protocols like SNMP, WMI, or even custom SOAP monitoring calls, then Foglight is more horsepower than you need and I would recommend against it. Also its dashboards, while beautiful, are not fully customizable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

Try a combination of less robust monitoring products before trying foglight. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

Ensuring that our main ERP was functioning, and user experience was nominal. Our ERP front end had status indicators, but we were obstructed from querying the status directly. So we used foglight to simulate a user log in, and navigation to the status screen. Foglight was able to read the visual status indicators and record the values. We got a time series performance picture that was not thought of by the ERP's designers. That was pretty great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Jaime L. R.

Partner

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

3/30/2016

"Dell Foglight is great"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

It is an awesome platform for viewing and analyzing all sorts of data for the use of apps Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

It is a little too business oriented and spartan. It could be made to appear more user friendly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

It is a quality product for the analysis you need to find and target slowdowns in performance Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

I am mostly utilizing the ability to monitor java, the architecture, and pinpoint where slowdowns are occurring so as to vastly improve the performance of apps Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Law Enforcement

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

3/30/2016

"Dell Foglight is a bright light"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Foglight for Databases?

I like best the ability to see geographically where things are slowing down so that issues can be identified quickly and be resolved Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Foglight for Databases?

I dislike most the user interface, it is a little bit clunky and not the easiest to understand when you first begin using it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Foglight for Databases:

Quality program to analyze and determine what is slowing things down Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Foglight for Databases solving and how is that benefiting you?

I am solving the business problems involving various application architecture and other issues to identify where the problems are Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.