Differences between Oracle and Oracle Express

Oracle and Oracle Express are two compatible database management systems. The first is commercial and oriented to medium or large companies and the second is mainly oriented to students who need to learn to use the Oracle database without paying a license, or perhaps also to small or very small projects.

Oracle Enterprise Edition, or simply Oracle, is one of the most powerful DBMS (Database Management Systems) on the market. This version is complete, which means that it offers all the functionality available, as well as all the power of Oracle. However, it is also a very expensive database, with expensive licenses that are not available to everyone. At Oracle, I understand that they charge you for everything, even the processor cores where you are going to have the software installed, which is why it is not a recommended database, unless you are a large company and exactly need the power of this database. data.

Oracle Express Edition, also called Oracle XE, is a free DBMS with reduced functionality. Let’s say the free version of Oracle, which allows it to be installed in projects of all kinds without having a user license, although with many limitations. It is only capable of using part of the power of the server where it is installed, a single processor core and has limited storage. It is therefore a system that will only allow work with small databases, which do not intend to grow too much over time. Also, everything that can be done with Oracle (the enterprise database) cannot be done with Oracle Express, only the most basic things.

Therefore, as I said, Oracle Express is only aimed at those people who are learning to use Oracle, as students or professionals in the certification process. It is compatible with programming languages ​​such as PHP, Java or .NET, in the same way as Oracle Enterprise, but if it is used for production projects there is a serious risk that one day the limitations of Oracle Express will end up giving us problems and the system will say that it is necessary to buy a license to continue working. In this case, it is possible to upgrade comfortably and migrate an Oracle Express installation to an Oracle enterprise, but obviously going through the checkout.