Posted by Just a quick post because this is perhaps what I think is one of the biggest game changers for the Oracle Database.
18c Express Edition (18x XE) is now available for general use. For those people with experience with 11g XE, this might not seem to be a big deal, but there is one crucial difference.
Unlike 11g XE, the new version has virtually no restrictions on the functionality offered by the database. And yes, we are talking Enterprise Edition features and options here.
So if you want to explore:
- In-memory
- Multi-tenant
- Partitioning
- Text
etc etc etc, the list goes on, then these will all be there in 18c XE for you.
And the product installs with just a couple of commands.
So don’t just sit there reading my post! Get out there and play!
https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/appdev/xe.html
And of course, a huge shout out to Gerald Venzl who was the driving force in making this happen.
Learning is not a spectator sport 
“Virtually no restrictions”? Parallel? Diagnostic and Tuning Pack?
Big step forward, yes.
Lots of Features included, yes.
But some important restrictions remain.
Not sure if I want XE in application development
– no Oracle support available
– no patches available
– might result in unequal versions if migrating to Standard or Enterprise Edition => eg. XE 18.4.0 vs. SE/EE 18.5.7
Yeah, I’m calling phooey on that one 🙂
Most of my corporate life, probably the two *rarest* thing at a customer site is
a) all versions in alignment across a customer site, or between dev and production.
b) patches all up to date (even in production).
Your experience may be different, and if so, that’s cool, I’m pleased for you. But more often than not, I see differing patch levels etc in dev, test and production, and even different major versions during times where upgrade are being tested, eg Dev at 12c and Prod at 11g until the upgrade project is completed.
Does development just “stop” at the places? No. It continues on regardless.
In terms of no support for XE, then either
a) you’re a customer with *no* support contract at all, in which case, you’re no better or worse off when it comes to XE
b) you’re a customer *with* a support contract, which means if you encounter an issue with XE, you have an opportunity to replicate that in any non-XE database you’ve got, and log a call.
Hello, I saw that some companies offer Apex hosting running Oracle 18c XE on CentOS, although Oracle strongly suggests not using it in production environments because there is no direct support for the product, THEN I wonder: why are they at risk? How do they reduce the risk of a failure in Oracle XE or how to mitigate it if they do not have technical support?
Can I use XE safely and confidently to deploy Apex applications on the network or on a local network?
Regards.
Basically it comes down to managing and assessing that risk.
For example, I would have no concerns about running XE for
– development and testing databases
– production applications that are not internet facing and do not contain sensitive data
Because the main risk is that we do not issue *security* patches for XE, so if a vulnerability is found, then unlike our other database offerings, then you will not get a patch until the next XE is release (which obviously could be a year away depending on timing etc).
Having said that – I’ve seen many customers that run on standard edition and enterprise edition on internet facing applications that do *not* apply security patches when they come out. They might apply them once per year, or once per 2 years etc because it can be hard to convince business owners of their importance. In those cases, running XE in full production is probably no worse than their current usage. Running without security patches on production is not something I’d recommend for *any* edition of the database….but it happens.