5 reasons why Toad® beats Oracle SQL Developer

Your technology challenges never stop changing. Whether it’s the explosion of data, cloud expansion, security threats or something else—application health and agility are important to your business. The selection of database management systems ultimately must be shaped to your company’s needs, but some things are critical: total cost, productivity, support, vendor relationships, and unbiased reviews.

Most Fortune 500 companies choose Toad

Tool for Oracle Application Developers, more widely known as Toad®, was designed by an Oracle developer, to make his job easier. It was so helpful that he decided to share it. Fast forward to more than 20 years later, Toad is a trusted tool used in most Fortune 500 companies and across the globe. There are reasons why people buy Toad rather than staying with the “free” SQL Developer tool Oracle offers.

My name is Cheyanne Atchley, and I work at Quest Software, the parent company of Toad products. I talk with our support teams most days. We hear from our loyal customers why they like Toad and why they continually chose Toad for Oracle over Oracle SQL Developer. Keep reading to find out just a few reasons why Toad for Oracle is better than Oracle SQL Developer and why our customers choose to renew their Toad for Oracle licenses. My viewpoint is from a customer experience perspective, and barely touches on the depth and breadth of Toad capabilities. If you want the nitty, gritty details, including a side-by-side comparison of the two, access this Quest^® technical brief, Top Five Reasons to Choose Toad Over SQL Developer. Additionally, if you want an independent review from an Oracle ACE Director, check out this review: Toad vs. SQL Developer.

5 reasons why you should buy Toad for Oracle rather than use the “free” SQL Developer that Oracle offers

• Free is not necessarily free: add-ons and total cost of ownership

• Productivity savings: faster and better-quality output

• Worldwide global support with 95% overall customer satisfaction

• Opportunities to build a solid relationship with your vendor

• Third party validation (unbiased, independent reviews from G2 and an Oracle ACE Director)

Free is not necessarily free: add-ons and total cost of ownership

If you are ever in the position to have to compare database management tools, make sure that you conduct an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, if comparing Toad SQL tuning capabilities with Oracle SQL Developer tuning capabilities, the Oracle product requires OEM Diagnostics and Tuning Packs (available in Oracle Enterprise Manager) and these must be licensed—which means additional spend. This scenario is repeated time and again in Oracle SQL Developer and it drives up your cost. So, is Oracle SQL Developer really free?

On the other hand, Toad for Oracle is up front with our features and pricing. We offer several editions that clearly define and meet specific needs, with no hidden extra cost. So, when you purchase our software, you know exactly what you’re getting and spending.

It's important to note that product cost is not simply the price paid for the software. Enterprises view software through a total cost of ownership (TCO) lens. As mentioned earlier, Toad for Oracle has been around 20+ years, since 1995. Oracle SQL Developer was released in December 2005—and is still trying to catch up. Some customers are lured by the notion that there is a free tool out there (believing they will save money) only to realize it simply increased their operational costs with extra licensing and lacked the same features that Toad for Oracle has. That’s why year after year Toad for Oracle Developer Edition is consistently voted #1 in the Best Database Development Solution category for the DBTA Readers’ Choice awards (2019).

 

Productivity savings: faster and better-quality output

Toad can save your company money, not just with faster productivity, but with quality productivity. Toad helps to reduce business costs by enabling IT to build higher quality, better performing applications with less likelihood of rework due to issues in production. It does this with features like Code Analysis (available in Professional Edition and higher) and Code Tester (available in the Toad Developer Edition).

Toad for Oracle Code Analysishas best practices built right into it. Not only does it offer detailed recommendations on how to optimize the code for correctness, but also offers solutions for better readability and maintainability. The development team is able to choose, customize, change and store rules and also share with team members.

Code Testeris helpful to developers because it makes it easier to create unit tests for PL/SQL code based on the developer’s knowledge of behavior and outcomes—and you can easily click through test scenarios or use out-of-the-box tests.

Toad can improve application performance—60% of data management pros cite SQL tuning as a manual process. Toad automates this process with its Auto Optimize SQL feature (available in Xpert Edition and higher). The adoption of common standards and constructs helps improve consistency and reduce errors—another performance plus. Toad is unique from Oracle SQL Developer because its SQL optimization process generates SQL rewrites automatically, based on user-defined criteria, and presents alternative that will run faster and have a unique execution plan. The user simply chooses which alternative they would like to use.

As mentioned earlier, Oracle SQL Developer offers the capability to identify and tune SQL statements, but this is based on offering recommendations (it does not actually fix the problem) and that capability requires licensing.

Toad minimizes risk. Defects and poor-quality code in production can cause major application issues. Toad product features like Code Analysis (Professional Edition and higher), Unit Testing (Developer Edition) and Code Refactoring (Base Edition and higher) can minimize issues and reduce the disruption and cost associated with rework.

Other Toad features that help with productivityare the Editor, where all the tasks a developer would need to do are easily accessible with integrated workflows and Team Coding, which makes using source control about as easy as it gets by automatically reconciling object changes in the database with their corresponding files in their version control system. Both of these features are offered in all editions of Toad.

Wouldn’t you like to automate your work in today’s over-busy environment in order to improve consistency and reduce errors? The following are a few of the tasks you can automate with Toad:

• Executing one or more SQL statements
• Reviewing code using Code Analysis
• Saving the results of queries or contents of tables to Excel
• Importing data from a file to the database
• Comparing and syncing databases and schema-level objects
• Performing database health checks
• Generating various reports
• Integrating email and FTP delivery of results and reports
• Generating DDL scripts for a single object or an entire schema
• And more

Worldwide global support with 95% overall satisfaction

Support and training can be true differentiators between Toad for Oracle and Oracle SQL Developer. All customers deserve exceptional support and Quest has an unwavering commitment to ensure customers realize the full value of your products and services.

Oracle SQL Developer support is offered through Oracle support. Toad for Oracle has award-winning support available through many channels, and its support portal is available 24/7. Take a look at the Toad for Oracle 13.1 product support portal. There you can access Toad video tutorials, knowledge articles, the Toad World^®user forum, latest software releases, technical documentation, notifications and alerts, and even more helpful information.

Excellence in customer support goes beyond just providing technical answers. Our goal is to give you the most positive user experience by providing you with the most robust support portal and knowledge base resources that enable you to resolve issues quickly and independently 24/7. I receive a customer survey report from Support on a regular basis and really enjoy reading the comments. Here’s an example of one of the many comments that praise our support efforts (these are the “rule” rather than the “exception”):

“In my opinion, Quest as a company has the best support, I've ever had the pleasure of using. (Employee) was another great example of what makes it stand head and shoulders above all others; (employee) was technically excellent, interested in the problem, and patient when updates were a bit slow from my side. I would pick a Quest product over a competitor because the support is so good. It really makes a difference.”

Quest offers a wide range of global support offerings to accommodate the varying needs of your organization. We provide expert technical assistance worldwide through highly experienced professionals who are product and domain experts and who interact at your skill level. Don’t hesitate to reach out to support via technical and customer service requestsor by telephone. As a Quest customer you can also tailor your support and training needs based on how you do business today.

Besides our award-winning self-service support, Quest maintains a robust community, Toad World, where you can access free advice (blogs), free trial downloads and interact with the problem-solving forum community.

 

Opportunities to build a solid relationship with your vendor

Relationships with strategic vendors improve a company’s business performance. Having a great relationship with your database management vendor can obviously pay dividends. Many Toad customers have been with us for years. Same for our support staff. With a robust tool like Toad, having solid relationships provides much needed business continuity, because we grow to understand the needs of your business. And these relationships are mutually beneficial. We not only listen to our customers and help solve their problems, we take the next step and provide feedback to our product team which impacts our future product updates and solutions.

Quest’s beta programs give our customers the opportunity to participate in the development, direction, and quality assurance testing of our products. By becoming a beta tester, you have direct access to the development team and product management. We welcome you to become a beta tester! Also, product ideas and many Toad knowledge base articles evolve from working with our customers in solving issues.

We’ve even created Toad World Design Labs where you can chat with our researchers, participate in studies and talk with our designers learning about cutting edge technology solutions before they are officially released.

 

Third party validation (unbiased, independent reviews from G2 and an Oracle ACE Director)

Probably one of the things I like most about Toad for Oracle is its loyal customer base and being able to easily strike up a conversation with people who use Toad for Oracle. There’s actually way over 5 reasons to choose Toad for Oracle over Oracle SQL Developer. And, each person you talk to will have a different reason for why they love Toad most!

Don’t take my word for it!

Access these non-biased, independent reviewsfrom people (234 of them) who use Toad for Oracle on a daily basis. You can also read this Toad World blog, written by Dan Hotka, an independent Oracle ACE Director: Toad vs. SQL Developer.

Toad for Oracle product download links

Whether you're new to Toad and would like a free 30-day trial, or already in a trial and are ready to buy, or a loyal fan of Toad for Oracle, ready to renew your Toad license, click on the links below to activate Toad for Oracle so you can realize the benefits of more time, greater accuracy and an easier work day.

Toad for Oracle Free 30-day trial.

Are you already in a trial? Talk to sales or buy now online.

Already a Toad for Oracle customer? Renew now.

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