# SQL Developer Reviews **Vendor:** Oracle **Category:** [Database Management Systems (DBMS)](https://www.g2.com/categories/database-management-systems-dbms) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 258 ## About SQL Developer Oracle SQL Developer is a free, integrated development environment (IDE) designed to simplify the development and management of Oracle Databases across both traditional and cloud deployments. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools for PL/SQL application development, database administration, data modeling, and migration from third-party databases to Oracle. With over 5 million users, SQL Developer enhances productivity by offering a user-friendly interface for tasks ranging from running queries and scripts to debugging and testing PL/SQL code. Key Features and Functionality: - PL/SQL IDE: A full-featured environment for writing, compiling, debugging, and testing PL/SQL applications. - Database Administration: Tools for managing database performance, security, storage, and configurations. - Data Modeling: Capabilities to create Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs), generate reports, and perform SQL and DDL scripting. - Migration Platform: Facilitates the migration of databases from platforms like Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase Adaptive Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, Microsoft Access, and Teradata to Oracle. - Multiple Interfaces: Offers desktop, browser-based (Database Actions), and command-line (SQLcl) interfaces to cater to diverse user preferences. Primary Value and User Solutions: Oracle SQL Developer addresses the complexities associated with database development and management by providing an all-encompassing toolset that streamlines workflows. It eliminates the need for multiple disparate tools by integrating essential functionalities into a single platform, thereby reducing development time and operational costs. Its support for various interfaces ensures flexibility, allowing users to choose the environment that best fits their needs. Additionally, the migration capabilities simplify the transition from other database systems to Oracle, facilitating a smoother integration process. ## SQL Developer Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **efficiency in handling database tasks** with SQL Developer, enhancing their productivity and reducing errors. (3 reviews) - Users find SQL Developer **intuitive and easy to navigate** , making complex tasks feel simple and manageable. (2 reviews) - Users find SQL Developer invaluable for **analytics** , effectively analyzing large datasets and detecting fraud patterns with ease. (1 reviews) - Users benefit from the **big data handling capabilities** of SQL Developer, enabling effective analysis and insight generation. (1 reviews) - Users value the **well-documented error codes** and tutorials, making it easy to resolve issues and clarify doubts. (1 reviews) - Users appreciate the **easy integrations** in SQL Developer, finding it simplifies complex database management tasks. (1 reviews) - Learning (1 reviews) - Navigation Ease (1 reviews) - Speed (1 reviews) - Time Saving (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users often experience **slow performance** , particularly when handling large queries or using extensive databases. (2 reviews) - Users often face **connection issues** causing delays in server access despite quick query execution times. (1 reviews) - Users find **difficult learning** with SQL Developer, especially when handling complex queries and advanced features. (1 reviews) - Users find **function limitations** in SQL Developer, particularly in debugging complex queries and advanced analytical capabilities. (1 reviews) - Users find SQL Developer to be **slow with large databases** , which can hinder performance and responsiveness. (1 reviews) - Users find the **poor interface design** of SQL Developer to be laggy and less polished than modern tools. (1 reviews) - Small Business Limitations (1 reviews) ## SQL Developer Reviews ### 1. Powerful Free Oracle IDE, but Laggy Java UI and Temperamental Connections **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Simone B. | Data Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 02, 2026 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** The fact that it is a free, full-featured IDE that offers deep, native integration with Oracle Database is its biggest strength. The built-in reporting tools, integrated debugger, and the ability to easily browse through complex schemas without writing code are essential for my daily workflow. **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** The Java-based interface can be resource-intensive and prone to lagging or freezing, especially when handling large result sets. The UI also feels somewhat dated compared to modern code editors, and the connection management can occasionally be temperamental when dealing with multiple VPNs or cloud environments. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It eliminates the need for expensive third-party database management software while providing a specialized environment for Oracle-specific tasks. It benefits me by streamlining the entire development lifecycle—from initial data exploration to final deployment—within a single, stable environment. ### 2. Intuitive and All-in-One, But UI Feels Outdated and Sometimes Slow **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2025 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** It iIt can feel slow or laggy at times, especially with large queries or connections. Some features are a bit outdated compared to modern database tools, making the UI feel less polished.s intuitive and easy to navigate, so even complex tasks feel simple. I also love how it integrates everything queries, tuning, and DB management in one place. **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** It can feel slow or laggy at times, especially with large queries or connections. Some features are a bit outdated compared to modern database tools, making the UI feel less polished. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It lets me run queries, manage schemas, and debug issues all from a single tool, which saves time. By centralizing everything connections, scripts, tuning tools, it makes database work faster and more organized. ### 3. Audit-Ready Fraud Insights from Large-Scale Transaction Analysis **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2026 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** It helped me analyse large-scale transaction data for finance clients, detect risk and fraud patterns using joins and window functions, and produce clear explanations and audit-ready insights. **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** Debugging complete, long SQL queries is awkward, especially when you get into complex branching logic and custom algorithms. Portability also feels limited, and it’s harder to unit test compared to application code. On top of that, graph-based fraud rings, real-time scoring, model experimentation, and advanced feature engineering all feel lacking in SQL. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me find missing and corrupted data, detect anomalies, and validate upstream feeds. ### 4. Understanding SQL Developer: Easy Data Management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Neeraj D. | Application Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 10, 2025 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** The best thing about SQL Developer is its ability to efficiently handle database tasks. I can write, test, and debug SQL queries quickly, which helps me save time and avoid errors **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** It can be slow with big databases and may feel a little heavy on the system at times. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** SQL Developer helps me manage and organize data in a database easily. It solves the problem of manually tracking and updating information, saving me a lot of time and reducing errors. ### 5. It's great for teaching **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 10, 2025 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** It's easy to explain to the people and clarify their doubts and also each error code is well documented when it triggers on the basis of which you can rectify your issue and also you have your tutorials which has great explanation **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** I think it takes too long to connect to their server due to which tho the query execution time is low **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's free to use and it's not complicated to explain and also all the logs and changes are maintained ### 6. An amazing data analysis and management tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Arpit K. | Associate Data Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 16, 2024 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** As an SQL developer I really like to play with data. It is good and easier to use SQL . The best part in SQL is it's syntax and UI which we can use and can build good projects. **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** As such I like nothing about sql it's easier to use some time there is connection issue which occurs and it's not an big deal I think. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** To aggregate, fetch and clean data I had used SQL the most . It's easier to use SQL as it's syntax is easier , which helps us a lot. ### 7. Best tool for using SQL and database management **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jahnavi Y. | Associate consultant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2024 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** User friendly interface, shortcuts and options to handle the sql code **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** Sometimes take time to open and run the queries. Everything is fine other than that. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps me to write SQL queries, view packages to debug the code, and run scripts to fix the issues. ### 8. SQL developer by Oracle is amazing tool for any project **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Subhadip K. | Senior Consultant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2023 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** SQL developer is most powerful and popular tool built by Oracle .There are many editions free to licenced version so that a large number of users can use the same . It manly used for Database integration , and it supports many vendors. We can export data , execute certain plan and fetching table data in our own required formats . We can see the time taken also . For big queries SQL developer is very helpful because it gives hierarchy lines to understand in different colors . **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** There is nothing to dislike and no cons found as such about SQL developer. This amazing tool is good for everyone who want to access database and see table format , space of the cluster. The easy implementation makes easier for any vendor to integrate with it.Oracle itself having very good customer support system for its own products which is good for any company to choose and implement in the project. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** SQL DEVELOPER solves many a problems in our project. By using this it makes easier to design and development of database system from scratch . It helps to integrate and implement with other applications end point easily.It supports multiple databases , multiple schemas. Import and export of connection is possible here .It supports LDAP,Kerberos , external authentication.One important feature is debugging of PL/SQL code , generates editable PL/SQL blocks . ### 9. SQL Developer: Best way to work with data **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raghav G. | Software Developer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 14, 2023 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** SQL developer is so easy to use and at the same time have all the functionalities you need to work with databases like setting up database connection, user security and especially the workbook so easy and efficient lets you write your query and also suggest auto completion. You can select what you want to run and see result at the same time. All I can say is if you want to work with SQL this is the tool you should use. **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** Sometime setting up the connection can be a bit of a task and the complex big queries takes some to run and show result. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** SQL developer integrates with different databases and tools seamlessly like ERP. I can directly work with database of the Erp and write my queries which saves a lot of time and I can mock run or test run queries and see results. ### 10. Drastic improvements over newer iterations, has become a better tool than TOAD **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David C. | Business Intelligence Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 21, 2016 **What do you like best about SQL Developer?** It has many options, easy to us UI. The tab system is done well and there are many DBA functions that can be used through the tool like checking tablespaces, currently running jobs and running execution plans for queries. There is a DBA window that you can attach a connection to and if you have full DBA rights, then you can perform your functions via a UI instead of having to type them in a command prompt **What do you dislike about SQL Developer?** It uses a lot of resources and it can sometimes just crash. When I try to remote into my work computer from home, sometimes the SQL Developer just closes itself. It gives no warning. Never had that issue using Toad. I also havent been able to locate the table locks and which sessions are causing those locks at the moment. I hope to be able to find that functionality soon. **Recommendations to others considering SQL Developer:** Make sure your computer has a good amount of ram since this is a memory hog. I had issues running it with 4 gb ram, its been very smooth with 16gb ram. **What problems is SQL Developer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I run analytical queries and test how fast queries are running when users complain about a report running slow. Also check for hanging sessions and can use the tool to request the DBAs to kill the job since I dont have any DBA privileges myself. ## SQL Developer Discussions - [Do you plan to develop multi-filter features (ie creating multiple filters, and using them when it is needed)?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/47152-do-you-plan-to-develop-multi-filter-features-ie-creating-multiple-filters-and-using-them-when-it-is-needed) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is SQL Developer used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-sql-developer-used-for) - 1 comment - [What is the use of SQL Developer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-use-of-sql-developer) - 1 comment ## SQL Developer Integrations - [Visual Studio Code](https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio-code/reviews) ## SQL Developer Features **Management** - Data dictionary - Data Replication - Query Language - Data Modeling - Performance Analysis **Maintenance** - Data Migration - Backup and Recovery - Multi-User Environment **Security** - Data Encryption - User Access Control ## Top SQL Developer Alternatives - [Toad For Oracle](https://www.g2.com/products/quest-software-toad-for-oracle/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (281 reviews) - [DbVisualizer](https://www.g2.com/products/dbvisualizer/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (257 reviews) - [phpMyAdmin](https://www.g2.com/products/phpmyadmin/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (165 reviews)