Unless you’re a Fortune 500 company or an arm of the government, news that the latest version of the Oracle database is probably irrelevant to you.

But it’s coming out  in January and will be called 26ai.  This follows 23ai and 19c.  And there’s a free version.  Really.

Why Use Oracle?

If you go back to the 1990s, the answer was simple: it could do things no other database could.  People chose Oracle because of its features.  This was the MySQL 3 era, back when that product didn’t even support foreign keys!  SQL Server 2000 was still in the future, and that product didn’t really start to catch up in core features until the 2005/2008 era.  Postgres was available, but was nothing like it is today, and the idea of running an RDBMS without a giant corporation backing it wasn’t as accepted as it is now.

Fast forward and in 2025, Oracle can still do things other databases can’t…but competitors have caught up.  Postgres (the most advanced FOSS database) can maybe only do 80-85% of what Oracle can, but that’s good enough for a huge number of use cases.  The relational database has become commoditized.  SQL Server is a lot more capable product now, and IBM’s DB/2 got into more of the open systems game a couple decades ago, but those products are also quite expensive.

So why hasn’t everyone gotten off Oracle?

Ecosystem, Baby

The number one driver for Oracle sales is ecosystem.  You buy a software application and it requires Oracle, so you buy Oracle.  Oracle’s own applications (eBusiness Suite, Peoplesoft, etc.) require Oracle.  Fast forward a few years and now your enterprise has a billion different hooks into it and you’ll never get rid of it.

This phenomenon of stack-down-driven architecture used to be much more widespread 30 years ago.  Some examples:

• A company I know wanted to get into the warehouse management space, and the dominant solution at that time required the Informix database and HP-UX servers, so that’s what they bought and staffed for.  Both database and OS/hardware were foreign to the organization but they needed them for this application.
• A bank a friend worked at wanted to get into a specialized mortgage niche, and the dominant solution only ran on AS/400, so they bought one.  That meant a backup solution that supported AS/400, a monitoring solution that could watch it, new staff that could admin it, a disaster recovery solution for AS/400, etc.

Today, most business applications are either SaaS or run on Linux or Windows.  At the database level, non-SaaS products increasingly allow Postgres but some still require Oracle or SQL Server.

No one is developing green field Oracle database applications in 2025, unless they already have a fleet of Oracle databases, and a staff that is familiar with them.  If you have 100 Oracle-based applications and you have a new need, sure, application 101 will go on Oracle.  But if you’re starting a brand new venture, you don’t call Oracle.  None of the major web or AI companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) use Oracle, or if they do, it’s only for accounting or HR.

Oracle Free Version

There is a free version of Oracle 26ai.  Oracle started offering “Express Editions” of their software way back in the mid-2000s with version 11.  SQL Server and IBM’s DB/2 do this as well.

They really are free.  Not quite as in libre because they’re no open source, but there’s no gotcha…you don’t have to pay a dime.  Support is limited to community forums, even if you have a support contract (if you do, you’d probably use the full version).

These Free/Express versions are all pretty similar in that they have resource limitations.  For Oracle, 26ai Free is limited to 2 cores, 2GB of RAM, and 12GB of data, and some of the clustering and other scale-out options are not available.  That means that even if you put it on a 256-core server with 2TB of memory, it’s only going to use 2c/2GB.

In theory, these express editions are meant to be gateway drugs.  You start using Oracle, fall in love, and then you’re ready to buy the real deal.  I doubt that actually happens.  I’ve encountered some vendors who use these express editions for cases where they need to ship a product, they know Oracle or SQL Server really well, and the product’s data will never grow beyond the limits.

For example, BitWarden runs SQL Server Express Edition in a docker container to hold all of its data.  I’ve run into a couple industry vertical apps that have SQL Server Express under the covers, much like you might use sqlite.

If you want to run Oracle Free (formerly called Oracle XE), you can run it as a Docker image, or you can download x86-64 binaries and install it on a RHEL or RHEL-adjacent image.

Of course, you also need to be an Oracle DBA to actually use the thing.  They’re a bit more complicated than MySQL or Postgres.  Try the 2-Day DBA course, which is also free.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.