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Oracle SQL Developer vs Windsurf comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle SQL Developer
Ranking in IDE
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in IDE
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (1st), AI Software Development (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 7.2%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 5.4%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf5.4%
Oracle SQL Developer7.2%
Other87.4%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Developer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has consistently supported long-term projects with reliable performance and team collaboration
With Oracle products, I have extensive experience, particularly with the database. I am familiar with DB2, which is IBM, and also I'm familiar with Postgres and other database products. I am using Exadata, which is a hardware and software platform. That's the back-end hardware platform. I'm basically using PL/SQL, which is the main product that I'm using all the time. I am using Oracle SQL Developer very extensively. With version control, you're basically working on multiple products, and the integration is good for sharing code, and it provides good facilities for team collaboration. I am not using the automated SQL tuning features, but I have extensively used the explain plan tool which is available in Oracle SQL Developer for performance enhancement. Oracle SQL Developer is a wonderful tool for ad hoc reports. You can quickly develop underlying code, run it, and create a report that you can format as well, outputting in Excel or any other format, in text or CSV format, which you can push to other tools for further processing or transmit it. We are end users, not partners or resellers with the product. I rate Oracle SQL Developer a 9 out of 10.
DHARMA-TEJA - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Enginner at Sera AI
Feature workflows have become faster and context-aware development is now system-focused
Windsurf has become less of a tool and more of a core part of how I build. I do not think in terms of writing code line by line anymore; I think in terms of features, flows, and systems, and Windsurf helped me translate that into actual implementation across the codebase. It fits especially well when I am doing rapid prototyping, exploring new ideas or architectures, or iterating on existing features quickly. At the same time, one thing I have noticed in my workflow is around model switching. When I switch between models, the GPT generating agent models sometimes the deeper context regarding decision reasoning or intermediate steps does not fully carry over, so I end up re-establishing context manually every time. It is so much painfully manual; that is not a blocker, but since I work on fairly complex multi-step systems, having strong cross-model memory consistency would make it even more powerful. One thing I would really appreciate is stronger cross-model memory and context continuity. Right now, when I switch between models, the surface-level context is there, but the deeper reasoning regarding why certain decisions were made or how a flow evolved does not always carry over fully. Since I work on complex and multi-step agents, I end up re-establishing the context manually. If Windsurf could maintain a kind of shared memory layer across models where intent, decisions, and intermediate steps persist, it would make the whole experience much more seamless. Improving the memory continuity and control would take it from powerful to extremely reliable at scale. Overall, Windsurf is already a strong tool, but there are a few areas where improvements would make a big difference, especially for advanced workflows. The first is cross-model memory and context continuity. The second is better control over agent execution. Right now, when switching between models—for instance, if I am using a tier of models and then I reach a limit, and then I need to switch to a lesser limit model—the high-level context is there, but deeper reasoning is lost. A shared memory layer across models would make the experience much more seamless. Furthermore, while Cascade is powerful, for larger changes, it would help to have more visibility or control, such as previewing the execution plan and guiding steps before it runs. The UI and documentation provided are pretty good, though I think there is room for true visibility and feedback during agent execution. While the amount of time put into the design and documentation is great, figuring out things with the documentation can often be done without any third-party help. Some advanced use cases are not fully explored in the documentation, but the best practices for using agents effectively are very clear, such as how to structure prompts for multi-file changes and how to guide Cascade for better outputs. Real-world advanced examples are already implemented in there; that could be very helpful for us. The main advice I would give to others looking into using Windsurf is to not use it as a traditional code assistant. Windsurf really shines when you treat it as a feature-level or system-level tool, not just something for autocomplete or small snippets. So instead of thinking "write this function," think more toward "build this flow." Learn how to guide it properly. That is the main thing I would advise: learn how to guide it properly, how to prompt it properly, and start with real use cases, not toy examples.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The newer version has a lot of new features. It generates output and scripts for your Ultrix. It can generate JSON, XML, etc."
"It's easy to deploy, I can copy it onto the system and run it without having to install it and this makes it a very good solution for quick use."
"IT staff supporting the SIS could not do our jobs without SQL Developer."
"The solution I've created is revenue forecasting and our organization goes to Wall Street with the earnings call, with the forecast."
"I like it because it's very similar in output to SQL *Plus, and it has many convenience features that make it easier to read the data and use the basic reporting features it provides."
"Oracle is tremendous, and I have always said to everybody, without knowing other databases, that Oracle is the best database that can exist in this world."
"Since Oracle SQL Developer is free, we no longer incurred the cost of the previous tool."
"It’s a great tool for accessing and exploring Oracle Databases."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing the productivity of my project and software development by 100 percent, allowing us to deploy and push new features into production much faster than before, so what used to take months to accomplish is now done in just days, and we deploy more features in a week than we used to do in two weeks or sometimes a month."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization in that writing code is very fast and easy."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my work and has allowed me to work much faster and create higher-quality tests, cover more backend areas with automated tests, meet deadlines, and be more efficient compared to other IDEs."
"Windsurf's agentic AI is much more capable compared to other solutions; it understands much more context of the code better than other AI agents or solutions."
"Windsurf has absolutely impacted my day-to-day work by making things faster, mainly through autocomplete."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by helping us achieve at least ten to twenty percent improvement for each individual working in the data warehouse to use Windsurf instead of looking for help from any other team."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing the speed of development, which allowed us to prototype much faster and lowered the barrier of entry for developers."
 

Cons

"But after many years, when I tried to use it again, against the more advanced Oracle Database, it did not work."
"If you're trying to return exceedingly large data sets into the tool for some reason to download, that could be a challenge, depending on the memory on your machine and the disk space you have to output it to."
"It's not so stable. Sometimes it crashes, and the connection to the databases is bad."
"My only complaint over the years has been memory usage, which seems to improve with each release."
"They were not supportive. I didn't get a solution."
"I want to address performance issues with large amounts of data. When I run queries that return lakhs or millions of rows, Oracle SQL Developer sometimes freezes, takes time to load, or even crashes compared to other tools such as DBeaver or Microsoft SQL Server."
"Queries."
"Toad is much faster to use. It's not Java which takes a lot of time to query and create things."
"My main point is perhaps having more models available for free or inexpensive, and perhaps reducing the price of Opus 4.6, which I use a lot, but otherwise, I feel good with the features of the product as of now."
"One thing is that if there is a very large codebase, such as a legacy codebase, sometimes the context window is a hindrance."
"I would appreciate having context usage visibility, such as a bar or indicator showing how much context is used by the chat in a single conversation."
"I noticed that on two occasions, the AI with Windsurf was not performing well."
"I would like to add that Windsurf is very good and fits well into my workflow, but I would prefer if the cascade agent of Windsurf could be a little better."
"The main improvements I would suggest for Windsurf are stronger context handling for bigger projects and a bit more control over the code it generates."
"Sometimes, Windsurf is not able to develop the feature that we want and hallucinates a lot."
"Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is basically free."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
"It's a free tool."
"It has the advantage that it's free. The next best competitor would cost several thousand dollars."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle SQL Developer?
The pricing of Oracle SQL Developer depends on the size of the company and the project. I cannot use Oracle or other solutions if I am just starting. If I start with MySQL, it depends on the size o...
What needs improvement with Oracle SQL Developer?
I want to address performance issues with large amounts of data. When I run queries that return lakhs or millions of rows, Oracle SQL Developer sometimes freezes, takes time to load, or even crashe...
What is your primary use case for Oracle SQL Developer?
In my current project at Cognizant, Oracle SQL Developer is one of the targets to load the data after extracting and transforming it, so this is our use case for my project. For example, I was at a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we primarily used a testing license for the whole enterprise. I did not participate in working with pricing and setup costs; it was han...
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
Regarding improvements for Windsurf, I think it would be good if we had an integration with the cloud, a sort of cloud that way we can have autonomous agents that can handle tasks without human int...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
On a day-to-day basis, I use Windsurf's agentic mode, the cascade, to develop features in different projects that I work on. Most of my feature development starts with working with Windsurf's casca...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Prinova
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle SQL Developer vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.