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The State of Oracle APEX Development

2018

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Key Findings

Demographics

Let’s talk APEX !

Developing with APEX

From the community

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Executive Summary

The world of low-code software development is fragmented, with many vendors and toolsavailable, each having their unique strengths and weaknesses.

For those who are at the start of their careers, or for the developers who are looking at alternative technology stacks to switch to without starting from zero, it can be a daunting task to pick the right technology to specialize in.

This report represents our effort to provide an overview for one such development tool - Oracle Application Express (or APEX) - and debunk some of the myths surrounding it.

We aim to provide an overview into how

developers around the world are using the

features and functionality provided by Oracle

APEX to tackle modern challenges and meet

customer requirements.

To achieve this we set out with the following

questions in mind:

What information resources are valued

the most by the community? What’s a

good starting point for learning APEX?

What applications are typically created

with Oracle APEX and who are they for?

What do developers use to improve their

application development experience and

boost productivity?

What development technologies have

they used before APEX? What would they

choose as an alternative?

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The State of Oracle APEX Development - 2018

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Key Findings

Oracle skills are still in demand

The demand for skilled developers proficient in using Oracle technologies continues to grow. A quarter of all survey participants have said that within their organizations the Oracle development team has increased in size within the last 12 months.

Mixed developer background

APEX caters to wide spectrum of developers. One third of those who took the survey and are currently using APEX reported having worked with a non-Oracle technology before making the switch to APEX.

High developer satisfaction levels

In addition of being long term APEX users, the vast majority of developers report high or very high satisfaction levels with the tool’s speed and overall development experience.

Standard is good, Custom is better

It is easy to extend the functionality provided by Oracle APEX by either writing code or by using free / commercial plugins. 89% of respondents declared they bring custom functionality in their projects, rather than using only the standard APEX features.

A community-oriented approach

The community surrounding Oracle APEX is very active. This is also highlighted by the top 3 sources used by survey respondents to keep up to date with what’s new in APEX: personal blogs, Twitter and apex.world.

Backlogs highlight demand

Only 9% of those surveyed declared that they do not have a backlog. Most developers (60%) have stated that they currently have between 2 - 5 applications on their backlog.


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DemographicsSurvey respondents were developers, IT managers and other professionals who are currently working

with Oracle APEX and have agreed to share their feedback about using this development tool to achieve

personal and/or business goals.

Main job function

The list below reflects what respondents identified as their main job role.

Survey participants indicated that they are also fulfilling other job

roles than the ones provided as standard answers in the

questionnaire. These choices have been highlighted in the table to

the right.

24%

24%

29%

54%

70%

77%

IT Manager

Freelance Developer

DBA

System Architect

Front End Developer

Back End Developer

Figure 1: Main job role

Tech Lead 2%

IT Consultant 2%

Project Manager 1%

DB Architect / Designer < 1%

Data Engineer < 1%

CTO < 1%

IT Manager < 1%

System Analyst < 1%

UX Designer < 1%

BI Consultant < 1%

Business Analyst < 1%

Sales Consultant < 1%

Trainer < 1%

Technical writer < 1%

Company owner < 1%

Table 1: Other job functions


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Developer seniority

When asked about their professional

experience 2 out of every 3 survey

respondents declared having more than

10 years of work experience as a software

developer.

This is further confirmed by looking at the

age group distribution graphic, where one

third of survey respondents fall into the

35 – 44 age group, while approximately

another third fall into the 45 -54 age group.

Figure 2: Declared years of work experience

6%

29%

65%

< 2 years 2 - 10 years > 10 years

2%

19%

36%

32%

11%

18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 54 55+

Figure 3: Age distribution


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First APEX version used

The majority of today’s APEX developers got acquainted with Oracle APEX early on - version 4.x or earlier.

Almost one third reported having started their journey with APEX 3.x.

Organization size

One third of those who took the survey are working in organizations with more than 1000 employees, while

almost a quarter of respondents reported working in organizations with less than 10 employees.

23%

13%

14%

14%

36%

< 10 empl.

11 - 50 empl.

51 - 250 empl.

251 - 1000 empl.

> 1000 empl.

Figure 5: Organization size

Figure 4: The first software version that survey participants reportedly began working with (%)


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21% IT / Software Development

13% Banking & Finance

10% Public Administration

9% Healthcare, Life Sciences

6% Transport & Logistics

6% Consumer Goods, Retail

5% Education

5% Training & Consulting

3% Energy, Oil & Gas

3% Construction

3% Utilities

2% Manufacturing

2% Insurance

2% Services

2% Automotive

2% Telecom

1% Marketing, Media & Publishing

1% Legal, Law Enforcement

1% NGO

<1% Hospitality

<1% Sports

Geographical distribution

Europe accounted for 44% of all survey responses. Almost one third of organizations have headquarters

in North America, followed by Asia (11%) and Central & South America (6%), with the remainder spread

across the other regions of the world.

Industries

Figure 6: Geographical distribution

Figure 7: Industries


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24%

54%

12%

10%

Higher

Same

Lower

I don't know

Development teams within organizations

2 out of every 5 companies report having a team of less than 5 Oracle developers, while teams of more than

50 Oracle developers can be found in approximately 1 out of every 6 organizations.

Developer headcount

Oracle skills are still in demand. A quarter of respondents reported that compared to a year before, the

number of Oracle developers employed by their respective organizations has increased. Only 12%

reported a decline in developer headcount.

Figure 9: Developer headcount

41%

17% 16%

9%

17%

< 5 dev. 5 - 10 dev. 11 - 25 dev. 26 - 50 dev. > 50 dev.

Figure 8: The Oracle development team size within the surveyed organizations


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Let’s talk APEX !When asked about their favorite Oracle APEX feature / component, more than a quarter of users picked the

Interactive Report.

A top 3 of the most appreciated APEX features / components by the community also includes the

Interactive Grid and, on equal percentages, for the 3rd place: Dynamic Actions and APEX’s low-code

development capabilities.

Other features / functionality mentioned by the respondents include:

Figure 10: Favorite component / feature of APEX

PL/SQL-based development 5%

Cloud-based tool 5%

JET Charts 4%

Plugins 2%

Classic Report 2%

Setup wizards 2%

Quick SQL 1%

LOVs 1%

SQL Workshop 1%

APIs 1%

Table 2: Other APEX features

6%

7%

8%

8%

18%

28%

Universal Theme

Page Designer

Dynamic Actions

Low code / RAD tool

Interactive Grid

Interactive Report


10

70%

30%

Oracle

Non-Oracle

Sources of information

A vast majority of developers (three quarters) prefer reading blog articles when it comes to staying up to

date with the latest improvements brought to Oracle APEX. apex.world and Twitter (using the official Oracle

APEX Twitter hashtag) - who are community-based channels - come in second and third places.

Before APEX...

Nearly one third of today’s Oracle APEX developers have a non-Oracle background, making APEX their first

contact with the Oracle technology stack.

56%

69%

34%

17%

74%

59%

Oracle website apex.world Conferences Books Blog articles #orclapex

Figure 11: Main sources of information for the APEX community

Figure 12: Oracle vs. Non-Oracle background


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Taking a closer look at the developers who have an Oracle background - meaning that they have a level of

proficiency in using other technologies provided by Oracle - roughly one third have used Oracle Forms in

the past.

* the above graph also includes those survey respondents who have indicated that they made a career change to become developers

and have picked Oracle APEX as the tool to work with in their new roles. These answers have been categorized under the APEX* label.

When considering those who have a non-Oracle background the results were a little more evenly

distributed with Visual Basic, .NET and PHP being the top 3 technologies from which respondents switched

to APEX.

1%

1%

1%

1%

3%

4%

6%

8%

9%

37%

OWA Webtools

Oracle Portal

OAF

Oracle Discoverer

ADF

SQL Developer

APEX*

Java

PL/SQL

Forms & Reports

Figure 13: Technologies used prior to APEX by developers with a declared Oracle background

1%

1%

2%

2%

2%

2%

3%

4%

5%

10%

Perl

Visual FoxPro

PowerBuilder

Delphi

C# or C++

Javascript

MS Access

PHP

.NET

Visual Basic

Figure 14: Technologies used prior to APEX by developers with a declared non-Oracle background


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What if APEX did not exist ?

We asked our survey participants to imagine that Oracle APEX did/does not exist, so what other tools /

development technologies would they consider using.

Who do you build apps for ?

The type of applications developed with Oracle APEX seem to predominantly serve for an organization’s

internal use, rather than as customer-facing apps.

3%

3%

4%

5%

6%

6%

8%

11%

14%

15%

Node.js

Javascript

Oracle JET

React

Angular

ADF

PHP

Oracle Forms

Java

.NET

19%

40%

35%

4%2%

Customers Internal use Internal use &Customers

Internal use,Customers &Personal use

Personal use

Figure 16: General use case for apps developed with APEX

Figure 15: Technologies that developers would choose as alternatives to Oracle APEX.


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Which Oracle APEX versions are used currently ?

More than half of respondents (56%) are working with one of the last two major releases of Oracle APEX

and three quarters (76%) of those surveyed have reported that they are using the latest important release

(18.x).

Single vs. Multi-version usage

A majority of APEX developers (58%) have reported that they are currently working with only one software

version of Oracle APEX.

0% 2%

17%

56%

76%

2.x 3.x 4.x 5.x 18.x

Figure 17: Oracle APEX versions currently being used by developers

58%

34%

8%

1 version

2 versions

3 or more versions

Figure 18: Single vs. Multi-version usage


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Single version APEX users

Out of those respondents who indicated that they’re working with just one version of APEX approximately

two thirds (64%) have said that they use the latest important release.

Multi-version APEX users

When it comes to the developers who work with multiple versions of Oracle APEX the chart below

illustrates which APEX versions they are currently using.

0% 1%5%

30%

64%

2.x 3.x 4.x 5.x 18.x

Figure 19: Single version usage - popular APEX versions

1%

1%

2%

2%

6%

7%

17%

65%

3.x & 4.x

3.x & 18.x

3.x, 4.x & 5.x

3.x, 4.x, 5.x & 18.x

4.x & 5.x

4.x & 18.x

4.x, 5.x & 18.x

5.x & 18.x

Figure 20: Multi-version usage - popular APEX versions


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Most frequently used skills

An Oracle APEX developer uses in their day-to-day work multiple technologies to solve user requirements.

The most frequently used skills have been highlighted below:

Apps deployed to production in the last 12 months

55% of those surveyed said that in the past year they have deployed less than 5 applications developed with

Oracle APEX. Only 16% of developers indicated that they’ve released 10 or more applications within the last

12 months.

95% 98%

70%60% 61%

SQL PL/SQL JavaScript CSS HTML

Figure 21: Frequently used skills for Oracle APEX developers


16

55%29%

16%

< 5 APEX apps

5 - 10 APEX apps

> 10 APEX apps

Figure 22: Apps deployed to production in the past 12 months that were developed with APEX

Just how happy are developers with Oracle APEX ?

A large majority of developers have declared that they are satisfied or very satisfied with APEX as a

development tool, in terms of both overall development experience and development speed.

66% 71%

24% 18%

5% 8%

3% 2%

2% 1%

Overall experience Development speed

66% 71%

24% 18%

5% 8%

3% 2%

2% 1%

Overall experience Development speed

Very dissatisfied

Slightly dissatisfied

Neither satisfied or dissatisfied

Somewhat satisfied

Very satisfied

Figure 23: Satisfaction levels for both overall experience and development speed of Oracle APEX.


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10%

60%

9%12%

9%

1 app 2 - 5 apps 6 - 10 apps > 10 apps No backlog

Developing with APEXAverage time need to develop & deploy an APEX app

Due to its rapid application development capabilities, a cumulated 75% of survey respondents have

indicated that, on average, the time needed to develop and deploy a typical APEX application is less than

three months.

Note: This type of measurement can be seen as subjective since it does not factor in other variables such as: the application’s complexity, the developer’s proficiency, size of the team working on the app etc.

App development backlogs

Backlogs are not going away any time soon. 3 out of 5 APEX developers reportedly have between 2 – 5

applications on their backlog.

30%

45%

11%

5%1%

8%

<1 month 1 - 3 months 3 - 6 months 6 - 12 months > 12 months N/A

Figure 24: The average time, as reported by survey participants, to develop & deploy a typical APEX application

Figure 25: The current number of apps found in a developer’s backlog


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11%16%

18%

55%

89%

Standard

Write code

Use plugins

Code & Plugins

Functionality: Standard vs Customization

One of the advantages provided by the architecture of APEX itself is having the option of extending its

standard functionality by either writing code or using plugins. When asked about whether they use only

the standard features provided by APEX or actively seek to add new functionality, most developers

indicated the latter as their preferred choice.

Custom code, Plugins or Both

Going a step further and looking at the ways in which developers prefer to add new functionality to APEX,

55% have said that they prefer to use a combination of writing code and using plugins (free or commercially

supported).

11%

89%

Standard

Custom

Figure 26: APEX standard vs. custom functionality preference

Figure 27: How developers prefer to extend the standard functionality of APEX


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Cloud adoption

As APEX is a web-based tool, it is important to understand to what extent is the cloud being used by our

respondents’ organizations.

As seen below, 1 of every 3 companies are running 50% or less of all their systems in the cloud. This is nearly

twice as much as those who said that between 50 - 100% of their systems run in the cloud.

Figure 28: Cloud usage within the surveyed organizations


20

15%

31%

14%

29%

11%

We run 50-100%in the cloud

We run less than50% in the cloud

Not now, but planto < 12 months

No plans for thenext 12 months

N / A

We reserved the last part of this report for the feedback received from survey respondents. This is a brief

overview of what some community members have to say about working with APEX:


From the community


For other community-related resources please visit www.foex.at/community

This report is a community-focused project produced by FOEX.

APEX Development - FOEX€¦ · PL/SQL-based development 5% Cloud-based tool 5% JET Charts 4%...

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