Licensing

Is AWR Free? Is ASH Licensed? The Answer in Oracle's Own Manual

3 November 2026

No, AWR is not free, and yes, ASH is licensed: both are the Oracle Diagnostics Pack, an extra-cost option on Enterprise Edition that Oracle's Technology Global Price List puts at $7,500 per processor plus 22% a year, and that cannot be licensed on Standard Edition 2 at all. The confusion comes from the database itself: the snapshots are taken by default, the views are there, the reports run, and nothing asks for a license key. Oracle's Database Licensing Information User Manual settles what is in the pack and what is not, object by object, and this page is that list, with the one line about SQL plan baselines that is worth knowing by heart, and the way to a session history that needs no pack on any edition.

In the pack

The manual's table of the Diagnostics Pack is specific about the objects, and Oracle's licensing manual for Enterprise Manager closes the door on the workarounds: "Any and all methods of accessing Oracle Diagnostics Pack functionality, whether through Enterprise Manager console, desktop widgets, command-line APIs, or direct access to the underlying data, require an Oracle Diagnostics Pack license." A hand-written query against a pack view is a use, the same as the report.

Object	Pack	What the manual says
V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY, X$ASH	Diagnostics	"The V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY dynamic performance view and its underlying table, X$ASH, are part of this pack"
DBA_HIST_ views	Diagnostics	"All data dictionary views beginning with the prefix DBA_HIST_ are part of this pack", with the six exceptions listed below
DBMS_WORKLOAD_REPOSITORY, DBMS_ADDM, DBMS_PERF, DBMS_UMF	Diagnostics	Listed by the manual as part of the pack
awrrpt.sql, ashrpt.sql, addmrpt.sql	Diagnostics	The AWR, ASH and ADDM reports
Performance Hub, ASH Analytics, Real Time ADDM	Diagnostics	Listed under the pack in the Enterprise Manager licensing manual
DBMS_SQLTUNE, DBMS_SQL_MONITOR, DBMS_AUTO_SQLTUNE, sqltrpt.sql	Tuning	SQL Tuning Advisor, SQL Access Advisor and Automatic SQL Tuning; the Tuning Pack "also requires Oracle Diagnostics Pack"
V$SQL_MONITOR, V$SQL_PLAN_MONITOR	Tuning	Real-Time SQL Monitoring

Free, by the same manual

Object	Pack	What the manual says
DBA_HIST_SNAPSHOT, DBA_HIST_DATABASE_INSTANCE, DBA_HIST_SNAP_ERROR, DBA_HIST_SEG_STAT, DBA_HIST_SEG_STAT_OBJ, DBA_HIST_UNDOSTAT	None	The six DBA_HIST_ views that "can be used without the Oracle Diagnostics Pack license"
SQL plan baselines (SQL Plan Management)	None	"SQL Plan Management does not require a license for Oracle Diagnostics Pack or Oracle Tuning Pack"
V$SESSION, V$SESSION_WAIT, V$SESSION_EVENT, V$SYSTEM_EVENT, V$SYSSTAT, V$SQL, V$SQLSTATS, V$SQL_PLAN, V$SEGMENT_STATISTICS	None	Not on the manual's lists: the database you already own, as it is at this moment
Statspack	None	Not on the manual's lists; Oracle's RAC guide keeps it "available for backward compatibility" and notes that it "provides reporting only"
The AWR snapshots being taken	None	Taken by default, and not themselves on the manual's lists; reading them, through the DBA_HIST_ views, the packages or the reports, is the pack

Standard Edition 2

The manual's feature table marks both packs as not available on Standard Edition 2, so the question "can I run AWR on Standard Edition?" has a shorter answer than on Enterprise Edition: there is no license to buy. CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS defaults to NONE on every edition other than Enterprise Edition, the AWR and ASH reports do not run, and session history on SE2 comes from sampling V$SESSION yourself, or from a tool that does. On Enterprise Edition the parameter defaults to DIAGNOSTIC+TUNING, which is why a database that has never been licensed for a pack has usually used one, and why the check is worth running before a license review does.

What a use looks like, and the switch

SELECT name, value FROM v$parameter
WHERE  name = 'control_management_pack_access';

SELECT name, detected_usages, last_usage_date
FROM   dba_feature_usage_statistics
WHERE  detected_usages > 0
AND   (name LIKE '%AWR%' OR name LIKE '%ADDM%'
    OR name LIKE '%Active Session%' OR name LIKE '%Tuning%')
ORDER  BY last_usage_date DESC;

The first query is the switch: NONE makes both packs unavailable, DIAGNOSTIC the Diagnostics Pack only, and DIAGNOSTIC+TUNING both, and the reference notes that "A license for DIAGNOSTIC is required for enabling the TUNING pack". The second is the record Oracle keeps of every use, which an Oracle license review reads through a script of its own. Setting the switch to NONE on a database without a pack license stops the reports and the advisors at once, without a restart. It does not stop the snapshots, which DBMS_WORKLOAD_REPOSITORY.MODIFY_SNAPSHOT_SETTINGS with an interval of 0 does, and it does not stop the nightly Automatic SQL Tuning Advisor, a Tuning Pack use that DBMS_AUTO_TASK_ADMIN.DISABLE stops. The usage check page has the full query and the steps.

What AWR and ASH are for, without them

A DBA opens AWR for the hour that already happened and ASH for the sessions in it, because the V$ views are only now. A session history that needs no pack is therefore a matter of keeping the now: sample V$SESSION every few seconds into a table of your own, which this page shows, or let Scops do it. Scops samples every session every 5 seconds and collects the SQL statistics from V$SQL every 10 minutes, through one read-only account with CREATE SESSION and SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE, and keeps them in its own repository, so the Activity chart by wait class, statement, object and session, the top SQL with its plans and plan changes, and the warning before the trouble from the Radar Engine's 75+ detectors come from Scops' own data, on Standard Edition 2 and on Enterprise Edition alike. It reads no pack object unless the per-database pack switch is turned on, which asks for a license confirmation and records who turned it on and when, and the License page lists the packs and options each database has used, flagging any use that is new in 90 days and not marked licensed.

You open it for	With the pack	In Scops, no pack
Who was active at three in the morning, on what	ASH, ASH Analytics	5-second session samples: the Activity chart by wait class, statement, object and session
The top SQL of the hour, with the plan	AWR report, SQL Monitor	SQL statistics every 10 minutes, plans and plan changes recorded
What is wrong, and why	ADDM	Radar Engine: 75+ detectors, live and hourly, naming the cause; Scops AI's 40+ tools for the question behind it
Fix the plan	SQL Tuning Advisor, SQL profiles	SQL plan baselines first, which need no pack on Enterprise Edition; the advisor and profiles behind the per-database pack switch

Questions

Is AWR free?
No. The AWR report, the DBA_HIST_ views it reads and the DBMS_WORKLOAD_REPOSITORY package are part of the Oracle Diagnostics Pack, an extra-cost option for Enterprise Edition at $7,500 per processor list plus 22% a year, by Oracle's licensing manual and its price list. Six DBA_HIST_ views are exempt, and the snapshots being taken is not itself a use.

Is ASH licensed?
Yes. The manual says V$ACTIVE_SESSION_HISTORY and its underlying table X$ASH are part of the Diagnostics Pack, and DBA_HIST_ACTIVE_SESS_HISTORY is a DBA_HIST_ view, so a query against either is a pack use, with or without the ASH report.

Can I use AWR on Oracle Standard Edition 2?
No. The manual marks the Diagnostics Pack and the Tuning Pack as not available on SE2, and CONTROL_MANAGEMENT_PACK_ACCESS defaults to NONE there, so the reports do not run. Session history on SE2 comes from sampling V$SESSION, which Scops does every 5 seconds.

Is Statspack free?
Statspack is not on the licensing manual's list of pack objects. Oracle's RAC guide keeps it "available for backward compatibility" and notes that it "provides reporting only"; it has no session history, which is the part of the pack most DBAs want.

Do SQL plan baselines need the Tuning Pack?
No. The manual states that "SQL Plan Management does not require a license for Oracle Diagnostics Pack or Oracle Tuning Pack", so a baseline that pins a good plan is free on every Enterprise Edition database. The SQL Tuning Advisor and SQL profiles are Tuning Pack features.