Difference Between Oracle lnstant Client and Oracle Client

Question

What is the Difference Between Oracle lnstant Client and Oracle Client ? Could you explain me ? Thanks

Noleta

Answer 1

1. Oracle client comes with an installer and a lot of executable like sqlplus, tnsping, it's complete and huge.

2. Oracle Instant client is a basic lightweight client which can be unzipped in a location without any installation, it contains only the communication layer to be able to connect to oracle. It can be extended by adding for example sqlplus which ships as a separate executable. When using Instant Client, just unzip it to a location, set your ORACLE_HOME environment variable to this location and you are ready to go.

Hemipode

Regarding 1. When you run the installer you can select and unselect various components you like to install or not. So, the scale of "complete and huge" depends on your selections. – Feud

You're right, when I say complete and huge I talk about the size of the client source itself, a few MB for the instant client, a few hundred for the full client. – Hemipode

Which one do you prefer , instant or client for huge project? l – Noleta

Instant Client 19.3 is a zip with 241 MB! The sole "oraociei19.dll" is 200 MB. "lightweight" is a generous compliment :-) – Nitro

A little confused about the ORACLE_HOME part since the installation instructions do not mention that.oracle.com/database/technologies/instant-client/… – Bona

Late to the party but the official recommendation is to NEVER SET the ORACLE_HOME environment variable with Instant Client because in some environments (e.g. when multiple Oracle software bundles are installed) it can lead to issues with config data. – Disepalous

@Alex75 Right, you can install the "basic light" flavor of the instant client, which doesn't include this library. – Amersham