Do you operate a small business? Or are you interested in building one? Whatever the answer, you’ve probably wondered whether or not there are the best database packages out there for small businesses. I’ll give you my experience with database software and what I found to be the best ones for small businesses. If database software is taking up too much of your time, why not just hire an independent contractor to build it for you?
Database software is a large business tool that should not be confined to just big companies. You probably heard many times that you should use MySQL, but what’s the difference between allthese different database types? I’m going to clarify what these and find out exactly why and how MySQL is so easy and fast for everyone to use.
Best Overall: Oracle Database
With an overwhelming response, Oracle Database came in first in our ranking of the best database software in our ranking. Oracle comes recommended to Business Pundit by Lianne Sanders of Total Shape. She calls it a one-stop database solution fulfilling all her needs. Offering in-memory, NoSql, and MySql, “it is fully equipped,” Sanders tells Business Pundit in an email, “with online applications, including customer relationship management and supply chain management,” she adds. Oracle is not only powerful, she continues, it’s simple and easy to use.
Dan Bailey, president of Wiki Lawn Care, also recommends Oracle. “In my experience, it’s really good out of the box,” he says. Minimal configuration is required to make the most of the software right away, Bailey says, and the software scales well, “which has been a problem for us in the past,” Bailey explains. Some database solutions just don’t hold up to the scaling test. But Oracle “is a good, sturdy database software that does everything we need it to do,” Bailey says.
Technical Specifications
Choosing Oracle database products will give a small business access to cost-optimized and high-performance versions of the Oracle Database.
Oracle Database is a converged, multimode database management system. As previously mentioned, Oracle offers in-memory, NoSQL, and MySQL database options. There’s also Oracle Autonomous Database, which is available on premises through the OracleCloud@Customer. Another option for customers choosing the Autonomous Database is the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or public cloud, if that’s what the customer prefers.
Otherwise, Oracle allows for highly scalable applications with no data-type restrictions, including relational, graph, structured, and unstructured. Users can also run analytics on all data types using Oracle’s single converged database engine. The database engine accommodates flexible JSON documents and even blockchain for fraud prevention. Oracle also allows for machine learning algorithms inside the database.
What Makes it the Best?
Pluggable databases available through Oracle really help with consolidation, according to user reviews. Business Pundit was also encouraged by reports that both table and table partitions can be easily restored using RMAN. Easy online migration of a table partition or subpartition is also possible using Oracle.
For non-technical readers, what’s important to know is that table partitions help divide large datasets into smaller, manageable parts, and these partitions can sometimes be lost during data migration. Unique to Oracle, RMAN is a data recovery manager helpful shouldt data, table partitions, or subpartitions be lost during data migration.
Other positive reports from experienced database experts indicate that compliance and security are additional strong points with Oracle and without much configuration required. Additionally, both on-prem (database administrator speak for on-premises) and cloud deployments work well. Multiple reports also confirm that Oracle is a great choice for large data sets and performance numbers, while SQL queries are quick and convenient.
Generally speaking, Oracle is the right choice for a business faced with a large database and intense workloads or for an application when reliability, security and scalability are particularly important. Oracle is particularly useful in e-commerce applications, according to experts. There’s also ACID compliance, which, users say, helps to guarantee performance and data consistency.
Oracle Active Data Guard is also worth mentioning. This feature helps keep open the standby database for read operations. In addition, certain versions like Oracle 19c keeps DML redirection on standby as a database. This, we learned, helps with reports that need temporary tables. We were also encouraged that the PL/SQL is an efficient way to develop data-intensive processes.
That creates the ability to interact with data without having to transfer it to an app server, experts say.
What Could Be Better?
Business Pundit also heard from users what they don’t like about Oracle.
Chris Love from Love2Dev says, “SQL Server and Oracle are the relational leaders and have decades of use behind them, but they are very expensive.”
Dan Bailey echoes these concerns about price. “I don’t love the pricing structure,” he says. “You can definitely get cheaper plans from competitors.” Tech support is also not that responsive. “We usually have to figure things out for ourselves,” Bailey says.
Additional comments say the Data Guard setup needs to be simplified, and troubleshooting is too complex for many users. Best-practice documents and deployment scenarios for running Oracle Database on non-Oracle cloud platforms are also lacking related to running Oracle Database on Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, just as one example.
The process of integrating and automating SQL tuning could also be improved, according to one user review, and unstructured data, like XML, is hard to use. And while real application clusters do exist, they’re difficult to set up and maintain. Many features also require licensing, available both in options and packs, at an additional cost.
Freshsales: Best Overall Customer Database Software
What We Like
- Easy import and export of data
- Multichannel communication via phone, email, and chat
- Automatic profile enrichment
What’s Missing
- Does not support unlimited contacts
- Has limited third-party integrations
- Offers limited dashboard customization options
Freshsales Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Unlimited users (limited features)
- Growth: $15 per user, per month
- Pro: $39 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $69 per user, per month
*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at slightly higher rates.
Freshsales streamlines your customer data management needs by organizing all your customer information and interactions in a single access point. Its event tracking feature keeps you informed about your customers’ activities to help you decide on your next step and ensure that no deal falls through the cracks. This platform also allows you to collaborate with your teams on tasks using its appointment scheduling, calendar sync, and notes.
Some of Freshsales’ weak points are its limited email integration options and cap on per-user file storage. It does not offer a free tier, unlike HubSpot CRM, Airtable, and monday.com. Still, Freshsales is the best overall customer database software on this list because of its affordability, scalability, ease of use, excellent support, and data management features. It also offers rich built-in phone features like call masking, recording, voicemail, and conferencing.
Freshsales Features
Freshsales contact list (Source: Freshsales CRM)
- Has a user-friendly interface
- Contact and account management features include customizable lifecycle stages, marketing lists, basic segmentation, and auto-profile enrichment
- Customized workflows, fields, and product catalog
- Email marketing campaign and tracking tools
- Create desktop and mobile responsive landing pages with a drag-and-drop builder
- Sales pipeline management and sales forecasting capabilities
- Built-in phone has inbound caller ID, call masking, call recording, conference calling, holiday routing, and voicemail features
- Freddy, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant, provides insights, predictive contact scoring, and sales forecasts
- Engage with website visitors in real time using embedded chat widget
- Mobile apps for Android and iOS
- 24/5 customer support via phone, chat, and email, plus a dedicated account manager for Enterprise users
CENTRIQS
Small Business Management Software by CentriQS. CentriQS offers small business management software and custom database solutions for small and medium enterprise businesses.
CENTRIQS
Conclusion
When it comes to your business, you need software that can stand up to the tough challenges that you will face. You need the best in database software designed to help you store, manage, and retrieve your vast amount of data in an efficient manner.