HN Explorer

Ask HN: Who is still using Oracle?

8 points by aerovistae ↗ HN
I am always astonished to see that Oracle is the third largest software maker by revenue after Microsoft and Google. The thing is, I don't recall ever seeing Oracle databases mentioned in a job post. I only ever see MySQL, Postgres, couple others, or a NoSQL database like Mongo. Never, ever Oracle.

But evidently they're still here in force. Who is still using Oracle?

14 comments

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PaulHoule
Real businesses that are making money.

You don't see them hiring much because they are nursing old systems that are imperfect but not entirely out of control, have low employee turnover, etc.

franzwong
Not only database, Oracle's ERP is also popular.
jstewartmobile
Governments, universities, school systems, etc.

When it's other people's money, or if you're swimming in so much cash flow that the occasional six-figure-surprise licensing visit is a rounding error, Oracle is a fantastic choice!

Jackypot
I interviewed for a company which made auditing software for government departments. I asked why they chose Oracle and they explained that governments get a hefty discount, so it was actually more cost-effective than the alternatives (e.g. enterprise SQL Server). So the motivation can actually be the opposite!
jstewartmobile
Even at half-price, the cost is still out-of-this-world.
aprdm
For a lot of businesses the Oracle license cost is a rounding error.
ineedasername
Larger enterprise level organizations. It's especialy used in ERP software. In the Higher Education sector two of the most popular ERP solutions are Banner Student and a Peoplesoft application customized for higher ed. Banner runs on Oracle, and Peoplesoft is an Oracle-owned solution.
jackblack8989
Because no big companies post here. HN is a niche.
samstave
Almost every Bank in the world?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
aprdm
As mentioned big companies use it. Imagine a company with many many years of software development and libraries built on top of Oracle. Not easy to switch.

(Same for perforce)

richardknop
Governments, universities, hospitals, banks, insurance companies, any big company where tech is just a utility, not a product (car manufacturers, factories etc).
thorin
Have used Oracle for almost 20 years ( also sql server, postgres, mongo, redid, sqlite). The database itself is a great product and has a free and cheapish option. I've worked on major UK utilities, oil and gas and investment banking projects.

Many enterprise companies have multi-million lines of plsql and thousands of db tables. I've migrated some systems away from Oracle to "save money" but it costs a lot to move an entire business to a new platform while they are running in production.

eb0la
If you support packaged applications, you'll be having an Oracle backend.

Oracle was very clever offering free development licenses to software developers years ago.

This made them the db of choice for people buying a premade solution.

Nowadays it is different because we have a lot of open source DBs available to test for free; but long running monolythical apps won't change easily.