Oracle APEX vs. Oracle Java SE

It is appropriate for database application development supporting data driven processes, online transaction processing, BI/reports/analytics ... for addressing about any business data processing need I can think of. Oracle Application Express is fantastic for creating beautiful rich user interfaces with support for all major browsers rendering well on a range of devices. It is less appropriate for applications requiring native low level access to device peripherals and is less appropriate for applications that must execute offline without network/internet connection to supporting application and database servers.

Incentivized

Oracle Java SE is well suited to long-running applications (e.g. servers). Java Swing (UI toolkit) is now rather outdated, lacking support for modern UI features. JavaFX, the potential replacement for Swing, has now been separated out of Java core. Ideally, there would be a path to migrate a large application incrementally from Swing to JavaFX, but due to different threading models and other aspects, it is difficult. At this point, it is probably better to use an embedded web browser (e.g. JxBrowser) to provide a modern UI in HTML/Javascript and keep just the business logic in Java.

Incentivized

• It is an easy tool to adopt, which allowed us to replace developments in Oracle Forms in many cases.
• It is very simple to develop different kinds of analysis, in a faster and more friendly way than running Oracle Reports.
• It helped us to extend our approval workflow, in order to cope with difficult branches that were hard to solve with the standard workflow.
• It was possible to develop web applications, to share information and transactions with our commercial partners.

Incentivized

• Since Java runs on a virtual machine, it's generally considered to be agnostic of the hardware it's running on. It allows for deployment across a mix of hardware setups with the same binary.
• Lots of literature, third party libraries, support forums, and books have been devoted to Java in general, making it a great language to use to support the business.
• Backwards compatibility has been an important strength of Java for us. Legacy code that isn't ready to be retired yet can still run on our newer setups despite using older versions of OJSE.

Incentivized

• For complex APEX applications you need to be a pro expert in PL/SQL
• Debugging in APEX can be complicated if there is a logical error. Syntax errors will end up shown as ORA errors
• Lack of designer interface. Even though you are designing a form you need to do it by means of APEX interface using a series of steps, no UI for design
• Oracle specific not applicable for other databases

Incentivized

• I would like to see more standardization on the convention level of good code practices in Java that could be promoted by Oracle
• I would like to see a little more investment into JavaFX as with Graal VM there is a big potential
• I would like to see more WebAssambly/WASM related features

I felt very comfortable using Oracle Application Express from the start. I designed my data model and quickly developed the basic CRUD pages for master tables. Then I designed the main functionality and was able to test and deploy it in a couple of days work. I will probably share the app with other members of the team and continue adding some features in the short term.

Incentivized

Because it's very easy to develop, fast, secure, has a lot of features. It's like a prototyping tool such as figma, but it can be used as a real product. Dynamic action, plugin, rest api, minimize a lot of coding, a lot of templates, PWA, really bring Oracle APEX functionality to be able to solve most common internal users pain points.

Incentivized

The language is fluent and has good support from a number of open source and commercial IDEs. Language features are added every 6 months, although long-term service releases are only available every 3 years. It would be nice if some of the older APIs were depreciated with more pressure to move to the new replacement APIs (e.g. File vs. Path), but transitions to new features are generally well implemented.

Incentivized

Very active and knowledgeable community support includes quick and helpful responses from the Oracle employees on the product development team. I've never had to raise an official support request - everything is dealt with via forums and user groups - or via direct emails. The supposrt commuinty is one of the great things about Apex.

Incentivized

Java is such a mature product at this point that there is little support from the vendor that is needed. Various sources on the internet, and especially StackOverflow, provide a wealth of knowledge and advice. Areas that may benefit from support is when dealing with complex multithreading issues and security libraries.

Incentivized

Using it on the cloud is really simple, the entire process of configuring and provisioning an Oracle Database takes only a few minutes (less than 10) and then Oracle APEX is already deployed on the database, so you just have to start using it. I would strongly recommend using APEX on Oracle Cloud Free Tier.

Incentivized

Oracle APEX and Oracle Visual Builder are both low-code development platforms within the Oracle ecosystem, but they serve different purposes. Oracle APEX is more suited for the people who are familiar with SQL, PLSQL. It provides rapid application development features based on data residing in Oracle database. It's a low code platform and best suited for web based applications/extensions based on Oracle DB that may use REST APIs and other web services. It also provides mobile application support. Oracle Visual Builder is best suited for web applications based on Oracle Cloud services. It utilizes javascript based drag-drop UI builder. It's very deeply integrated with Oracle Fusion Cloud platform.

We choose Java as our system has multiple sub-applications that have different purposes and architecture including back-end applications, front-end UI, front-end Rest API, and Selenium Automation tests. They are deployed in Windows and Linux, communicate with each other using Rest API, RMI and Queue Message and need to support different deployment environment from Dev, Test, UAT to Production so using Java allows us to have a common standard from development, build and deployment for all applications.

Incentivized

• It has increased our development output over Forms greatly. For instance, when starting at my current company, I was able to replace our aging ASP Intranet site within 4 months when our IT manager had budgeted over a year for the task.
• We've been able to standardize under one technology, incorporating previously unsupportable disparate systems under one roof.
• It's free with an Oracle Database so the only investment was our time, something we now have more of thanks to Application Express.

Incentivized

• We didn't need to spend more time and resources on developing apps for each OS. Our Java application worked perfectly on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
• Our customers aren't fully satisfied with the performance of our application, specifically load up times.
• We didn't need to purchase training courses for our software developers. Each of them were already well-versed in using Java SE.

Incentivized