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A Foglight for Oracle Alternative: Less to Run, More Detection

3 November 2026

Quest's Foglight for Oracle is a cartridge inside the Foglight estate: its deployment guide lists a Management Server with a Database Repository, an Agent Manager that hosts the monitoring agents, and an embedded SQL PI Repository, before the first Oracle database is watched. Scops is the most capable Oracle monitoring platform and runs on one Windows server: every session sampled every 5 seconds, 75+ Radar detectors, Scops AI with 40+ agentic tools, automation, Archiving and Compression, nothing on the database hosts and nothing inside the databases, Standard Edition 2 in full, no Oracle pack, and a price on the website. Every Foglight statement below comes from Quest's own product page, datasheet and deployment guide.

At a glance

Criterion	Scops	Quest Foglight for Oracle
What you run	One Windows server with two services. The repository is an Oracle schema on a database you already run.	"Three main components": the Foglight Management Server and Foglight Database Repository, an Agent Manager that "hosts the monitoring database agents", and the SQL PI Repository, "an embedded repository" for the SQL PI data. The deployment guide's disk table for the SQL PI repository runs from 10 GB to 1,600 GB.
On the database hosts	Nothing, ever. One read-only account with CREATE SESSION and SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE, through the listener.	"No agent overhead on the monitored hosts"; the agents run on the Agent Manager host, which you install and size. Privileges needed in the database: not stated.
Detection	Radar Engine: 75+ detectors that forecast, catch pile-ups and anomalies, and name the cause. Each finding earns its level from the data.	Alarms when "baselines are breached via the integrated Intelliprofile baselines", with "drill-down information, remedial actions and impacted components".
Backups, standbys, jobs, accounts	Built in: backups late or failing, standby lag and gap, NOLOGGING changes, scheduler jobs failing, passwords expiring, invalid objects, ASM and recovery area space, the alert and listener logs.	"Monitor RAC, ASM and Data Guard"; "global alerts for issues detected at the cluster or instance levels". Backups, scheduler jobs, password expiry: not stated.
Session history	Every session every 5 seconds, on every database, kept; SQL statistics every 10 minutes; plan changes recorded.	SQL Performance Investigator: "complete historical session data"; the sampling interval and the retention are not stated.
AI	Scops AI, the most capable AI assistant for Oracle: 40+ agentic tools over the live database, the history and the findings, with your own model.	Not stated. No page mentions AI, machine learning or an assistant; "built-in expert advice" and "pop-up advice with correlated workflows".
Automation	Automation, one-click fixes proposed by Scops AI, and the Archiving and Compression modules.	"Remedial actions" shown with an alarm.
Oracle versions	12c to 26ai, Standard Edition 2 and Enterprise Edition, RAC and Data Guard, no Oracle pack.	The product page lists 10g, 11g, 12c, 18c and 19c, all editions; the 2020 datasheet says "10g and above". 21c, 23ai and 26ai: not stated. Packs: not stated.
Price	Community: free for 2 databases. Professional: $499 per database a year, each further database 5% less.	Not stated.
Verdict	Everything a DBA watches, on one server, with nothing on the hosts and a price you can read.	A cartridge in a four-part Foglight estate, a 2020 datasheet, a 19c version list, and no price.

What Foglight needs to run

From the Foglight for Oracle deployment guide, which "applies to all 5.7.5.x and 5.9.2.1 releases":

A Management Server and a Database Repository. "Responsible for managing, alerting and viewing the collected data. Both components can be set to run on the same machine or reside on separate machines."
An Agent Manager. "Hosts the monitoring database agents." A host of its own to install, size and keep up, with a sizing table in the guide by number of agents.
A SQL PI Repository. "An embedded repository which stores the SQL PI data that the monitoring agents collect." Its directory is to be excluded from antivirus scanning, and the guide's disk table for it runs from 10 GB to 1,600 GB, with Linux "the recommended platform for both Oracle and SQL Server monitoring".
A price you ask for. None of the three Quest pages states one.

Scops needs one Windows server with two services, used from a browser, and one read-only Oracle account per database with CREATE SESSION and SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE. Its repository is an Oracle schema on a database you already run, Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition 2. Nothing runs on the database hosts, nothing is installed in the databases, and the price is $499 per database a year after the two free ones.

What Foglight watches, in its own words

The datasheet describes wait-state analysis, "Diagnose wait statistics to easily determine where waits are occurring and what is causing the event", and SQL Performance Investigator, "multidimensional drill-downs and complete historical session data from the powerful analytics engine", whose "analytics include baselines, lock and execution plan analysis, and change tracking". Alarms fire "when baselines are breached via the integrated Intelliprofile baselines" and show "drill-down information, remedial actions and impacted components such as servers, applications or storage". The product page adds automated change tracking, "see changes to server, instance, database and schema environments and SQL degradations", and Query Insights to "narrow the scope of analysis and quickly pinpoint queries causing issues". For RAC, ASM and Data Guard: "global alerts for issues detected at the cluster or instance levels, plus notifications on cluster overhead and interconnect problems".

What the pages do not state: a sampling interval, a retention period, the privileges the agents need in the database, whether any feature uses an Oracle pack, support for 21c, 23ai or 26ai, a price, and anything about AI or an assistant. The datasheet carries a 2020 copyright, and the product page's version list ends at 19c.

What Scops watches

Radar Engine, the detection layer of Scops, runs 75+ detectors on every database, and each one earns its level from the data rather than from a threshold you set:

Forecasts. Tablespace, temp, undo, ASM and recovery area space with the day they run out; datafiles against DB_FILES; CPU capacity; sequences near their MAXVALUE; partitions without a home.
Live pile-ups. Blocking chains to the root blocker, session surges, logon storms, slow single-block reads, slow commits, redo switches waiting for a checkpoint, waits that surge against the hour before, CPU saturation, the parallel pool, PGA at its limit, lost RAC blocks.
Anomalies. Each wait class and the CPU against the same hour on other days, plan changes tied to the statement they slowed, a statement taking most of the load, database growth far above the usual.
Operations. Backups late, failing or stuck; Data Guard transport and apply lag, apply stopped, NOLOGGING changes; scheduler and legacy jobs failing or overdue; passwords about to expire; invalid objects and unusable indexes; errors in the alert, ASM, Grid and listener logs.

On top of the detectors: every session every 5 seconds and SQL statistics every 10 minutes, kept, so the history behind a finding is already there; Scops AI, the most capable AI assistant for Oracle, with 40+ agentic tools that read the live database, the history and the findings, explain why, propose the fix and change nothing without a click, running with your own model; automation for the routine work; and the Archiving and Compression modules that no monitoring tool has. The detector reference lists every detector with its thresholds.

Why Scops wins

One server instead of four parts. No Management Server, no Database Repository, no Agent Manager host, no SQL PI repository with its own disk table. One Windows server, and an Oracle schema you already have.
Nothing on the hosts, nothing in the databases. One read-only account through the listener. No agent host to size, no privileges beyond SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE.
Detection that names the cause. 75+ detectors with forecasts, pile-ups, anomalies and operations, each finding with its cause and its level from the data, against baseline alarms.
The rest of the DBA's day. Backups, jobs, accounts, schema objects, NOLOGGING and the logs are detectors in Scops; Quest's pages state RAC, ASM and Data Guard and nothing about the rest.
AI. The most capable AI assistant for Oracle, with 40+ tools and your own model, against pages that do not mention AI at all.
Current Oracle. 12c to 26ai, against a version list that ends at 19c and a datasheet from 2020.
Standard Edition 2, in full. No Oracle pack anywhere in Scops, so SE2 gets the same monitoring as Enterprise Edition. Foglight's pack requirements are not stated.
Price. On the website: free for two databases, $499 a year per database after that, 5% less for each further one. Foglight's price is not stated anywhere public.
Automation, Archiving and Compression. Routine work done for you, old rows moved online in rowid chunks, Oracle compression managed from one screen. Foglight's pages describe remedial actions on alarms.
The interface. One window for the whole estate, Daily Overview first, built for a DBA's day with nothing to administer, instead of a console for a whole estate of cartridges.

Already running Foglight?

Scops installs beside it in an afternoon. A read-only account through the listener touches nothing that Foglight's agents do, and the Agent Manager keeps running until you turn it off. Add the Oracle databases on day one: the live detectors, the sessions and the SQL statistics are there the same hour, the forecasts and baselines fill in over the first weeks. Compare the two views for a fortnight, then retire the Oracle cartridge, the agents and the SQL PI repository's disk on your own schedule.

Which one, in three lines

Foglight for Oracle: a cartridge in a Foglight estate, four components, baseline alarms, a version list that stops at 19c, no public price.
Scops: the most capable Oracle monitoring platform, one server, nothing on the hosts, 12c to 26ai, a public price.
For Oracle, Scops. The rest of the estate keeps whatever monitors it, and the Oracle side gets the detection, the AI and the price.

Questions

Is Scops a replacement for Foglight for Oracle?
Yes, and more: the sessions and waits Foglight shows, sampled every 5 seconds, plus 75+ detectors, Scops AI, automation, Archiving and Compression, on one Windows server with nothing on the database hosts and nothing installed in the databases.

Does Scops need an Agent Manager or a SQL PI repository?
No. Scops has no agents, so there is no agent host, and its repository is an Oracle schema on a database you already run. Foglight's deployment guide lists a Management Server, a Database Repository, an Agent Manager and an embedded SQL PI Repository.

What does Foglight for Oracle cost compared with Scops?
Quest's product page, datasheet and deployment guide state no price. Scops is free for two databases and $499 per database a year after that, with 5% off for each further database.

Does Foglight support Oracle 23ai and 26ai?
Not stated: the product page lists 10g to 19c and the 2020 datasheet says "10g and above". Scops supports 12c to 26ai, Standard Edition 2 and Enterprise Edition.