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Actian Ingres vs Oracle Database

Actian Ingres: One of the original relational databases, still sold by Actian for long-lived enterprise systems. Oracle Database: The enterprise heavyweight: RAC, Data Guard and a converged engine for SQL, JSON, graph and vectors.

key differences

  • Oracle Database is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than Actian Ingres (≤ 10 TB).
  • Horizontal scaling is none in Actian Ingres and addon in Oracle Database.
  • Only Oracle Database has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, json, materialized views.

choose ingres for

  • +Maintaining legacy Ingres/OpenROAD business applications
  • +Government and public-sector systems built on Ingres
  • +Lift-and-shift of on-prem Ingres to containers or cloud VMs

best at · OLTP, OLAP, HTAP

choose oracle-database for

  • +Core banking and payment systems
  • +Packaged ERP back ends (Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft)
  • +Telecom billing and subscriber management
  • +Mixed OLTP plus in-database analytics and vector search

best at · OLTP, HTAP, Warehouse

Actian IngresOne of the original relational databases, still sold by Actian for long-lived enterprise systems.
Oracle DatabaseThe enterprise heavyweight: RAC, Data Guard and a converged engine for SQL, JSON, graph and vectors.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Columnar / OLAP
Document, Graph, Vector, Spatial, XML
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Actian (HCLSoftware)
Oracle Corporation
First release
1974
1979
Latest version
12.1.0 (patch 34124) (Oct 23, 2026)
23.26.4 (26ai RU) (Oct 2026)
License
ProprietaryActian commercial license
ProprietaryOracle commercial license
Free tier
—
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
16.8
56.9
Rank
#197
#17
GitHub stars
–
–
Stack Overflow questions
154
152.3K
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Horizontal scaling
None
Addon
Multi-region
Read replicas
Active active
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Client server, Single node, Primary replica
Client server, Primary replica, Shared storage, Distributed
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
Oracle Cloud, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
✓
✓
Secondary indexes
✓
✓
Full-text search
—
✓
Vector search
—
✓
Geospatial
—
✓
JSON
—
✓
Change data capture
✓
✓
Triggers
✓
✓
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
—
✓
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
—
✓
Columnar storage
✓
✓
In-memory
—
✓
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
✓
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
—
✓
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
—
✓
Streaming ingest
—
✓
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
SQL, QUEL
SQL, PL/SQL, SQL/PGQ
Client languages
C, Java, C#, Python, PHP
Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, Go, C, C++, PHP
Best for
OLTP, OLAP, HTAP
OLTP, HTAP, Warehouse, Vector search
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Actian Ingres vs Oracle Database: FAQ

What is the difference between Actian Ingres and Oracle Database?

Actian Ingres: One of the original relational databases, still sold by Actian for long-lived enterprise systems. Oracle Database: The enterprise heavyweight: RAC, Data Guard and a converged engine for SQL, JSON, graph and vectors. Oracle Database is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than Actian Ingres (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is none in Actian Ingres and addon in Oracle Database. Only Oracle Database has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, json, materialized views.

When should I choose Actian Ingres over Oracle Database?

Choose Actian Ingres for maintaining legacy Ingres/OpenROAD business applications; government and public-sector systems built on Ingres; and lift-and-shift of on-prem Ingres to containers or cloud VMs. Choose Oracle Database for core banking and payment systems; packaged ERP back ends (Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft); and telecom billing and subscriber management.

Is Actian Ingres or Oracle Database more popular?

Oracle Database ranks #17 on the WhichDB Score (56.9/100) and Actian Ingres ranks #197 (16.8/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Actian Ingres and Oracle Database open source?

No. Actian Ingres is proprietary, closed-source software. License: Actian commercial license. No. Oracle Database is proprietary, closed-source software. License: Oracle commercial license.