Oracle collects 22% of your net license value every year for support — a number that escalates annually and compounds across your entire Oracle portfolio. Rimini Street was founded on a single proposition: provide equivalent or better support for Oracle products at half the cost. After more than a decade of litigation with Oracle and continued market growth, Rimini Street now supports thousands of enterprise Oracle customers globally. This guide provides an evidence-based comparison of Rimini Street versus Oracle's native support programs — covering cost, coverage scope, security patches, customization support, and the real contractual considerations that don't appear in either vendor's marketing materials.
Oracle's support model has a structural flaw that third-party support providers exploit: the 22% annual maintenance rate does not decrease as software ages, but Oracle's actual support investment in mature product versions declines dramatically. Oracle Database 12c, Oracle EBS 12.2, and PeopleSoft 9.2 are proven, stable platforms. The volume of new bugs reported, the complexity of security vulnerabilities, and Oracle's active engineering investment in these versions all decrease over time — while the annual support invoice remains constant or escalates.
Rimini Street identified this gap in 2005. The business model is straightforward: hire former Oracle support engineers with deep product knowledge, provide them to enterprise clients at a lower blended cost than Oracle's global support organization, and compete on service quality rather than on product ownership. Oracle has spent more than a decade in litigation attempting to shut down the model. Oracle has not succeeded in those efforts. Rimini Street is a publicly traded company (RMNI) that supports more than 3,000 active clients globally.
Understanding the context of Oracle's hostility toward Rimini Street is important for any enterprise evaluating the switch. Oracle's warnings about third-party support risks are not neutral advice — they are competitive pressure from a company that loses $500M+ in annual revenue every year to third-party support providers. This guide provides the independent, buyer-side analysis that Oracle's account team will not.
Rimini Street's headline pricing is 50% of Oracle's annual support rate. If you are paying Oracle $2M per year for Enterprise Support and Premier Support combined, Rimini Street would cost approximately $1M per year — a $1M annual saving from day one. Compounded over five years with Oracle's typical 3–4% annual escalation, the saving is materially larger.
| Annual Oracle Support Spend | Oracle (Year 1) | Oracle (Year 5 with 3.5% escalation) | Rimini Street (approx.) | 5-Year Saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $500,000 | $500,000 | $592,000 | $250,000 | ~$1.4M |
| $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,185,000 | $500,000 | ~$2.8M |
| $3,000,000 | $3,000,000 | $3,555,000 | $1,500,000 | ~$8.4M |
| $5,000,000 | $5,000,000 | $5,925,000 | $2,500,000 | ~$14.0M |
Rimini Street's actual pricing varies by product, complexity, and contract terms. For large, complex Oracle estates, Rimini Street may negotiate further. The 50% figure is the standard market positioning, not a floor. Some clients have achieved arrangements at 40–45% of Oracle's rate for multi-product, multi-year engagements.
Important baseline consideration: Before comparing Rimini Street's rate to Oracle's rate, enterprises should first verify that their Oracle support base is accurate. We regularly find enterprises paying Oracle support on decommissioned products, retired licenses, and options never deployed. The first step in any support evaluation is a license optimization assessment — reducing the Oracle base before comparing providers maximises the impact of any switch.
Rimini Street provides third-party support for a broad range of Oracle products. The coverage that matters most for the majority of enterprise Oracle customers includes: Oracle Database (versions 11g, 12c, 12.2, 18c, 19c) across all editions; Oracle E-Business Suite (versions 11i, R12.1, R12.2); PeopleSoft Enterprise (versions 9.0, 9.1, 9.2); JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (versions 9.0, 9.1, 9.2); Siebel CRM (versions 7.x through 8.x); Oracle Middleware including WebLogic Server (12.1.x, 12.2.x, 14.x); Oracle Hyperion EPM; and Oracle Fusion Middleware components.
Rimini Street does not support Oracle Cloud products (Fusion ERP, HCM, SCM, OCI) — these are Oracle-hosted SaaS/PaaS products where Oracle controls the infrastructure and there is no equivalent third-party support model. Enterprises with significant Oracle Cloud footprints will maintain Oracle support for those products regardless of any decision about on-premise support.
For each product covered, Rimini Street provides: 24×7 technical support with a dedicated primary support engineer (not a call center model); security vulnerability patches backported to supported versions (see Security Patches section below); regulatory and tax updates for applications (EBS, PeopleSoft); bug fixes and performance recommendations; interoperability support for third-party integrations; and support for customer customisations. The last two items — interoperability and customization support — are where Rimini Street's service model genuinely outperforms Oracle's native support program. Oracle's Enterprise Support and Premier Support stop at the Oracle software boundary. Rimini Street's engineers work across the full application stack.
Our independent advisors have guided dozens of enterprises through third-party support evaluations — covering technical feasibility, contractual risk, and transition planning. We have no commercial relationship with Rimini Street. See our case study results →
Oracle's quarterly Critical Patch Updates (CPUs) are Oracle's primary mechanism for delivering security fixes. When enterprises move to Rimini Street, they lose direct access to Oracle-released CPUs for covered products. This is the single most significant technical concern that Oracle raises in competitive conversations — and it deserves an honest, evidence-based answer.
Rimini Street delivers security patches through a different mechanism: rather than applying Oracle's official CPU patches, Rimini Street engineers monitor Oracle security advisories, CVE databases, and security researchers' disclosures, then develop and deliver equivalent security fixes independently. These patches are backported to the specific product version the client is running — often providing security coverage for versions Oracle has moved to Extended Support (where CPU access requires an additional fee) or Sustaining Support (where Oracle has frozen new security patches).
The question of whether Rimini Street's security patches are "equivalent" to Oracle's CPUs is legitimate. The answer depends on your risk framework. For most enterprise Oracle deployments, the primary security risk is not in Oracle software vulnerabilities per se — it is in network architecture, access controls, and application-layer security. Oracle CVEs affecting Database 19c in a properly firewalled, network-segmented enterprise environment carry materially lower risk than Oracle's marketing of "unsupported security exposure" would imply. That said, regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, government) may face compliance requirements that mandate Oracle-official CPUs — a factor that must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The compliance question: If your Oracle environment is subject to PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, or similar regulatory frameworks, your auditors may have specific requirements about patch sources and vendor support status. Before making a decision, verify with your compliance team whether third-party support patches satisfy your regulatory obligations. Our Oracle Compliance Review service includes this assessment.
The area where Rimini Street consistently outperforms Oracle's native support in real enterprise environments is customization support. Most large Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards deployments carry years of custom code — bolt-on integrations, modified workflows, custom reports, extended data models. Oracle Premier Support does not support this code. If your custom integration breaks after an Oracle patch application, Oracle support closes the case at the base product boundary. Your internal team — or a consulting engagement — absorbs the remediation cost.
Rimini Street engineers are contractually committed to supporting customers' full production environment, including customisations. In practice, Rimini Street engineers review custom code, understand the specific environment, and provide support across the full stack. For enterprises where the maintenance burden of Oracle customisations is significant, this capability alone can justify the switch from a total cost of ownership perspective — independent of the headline price saving.
Oracle's account teams deploy a standard set of objections when enterprises evaluate Rimini Street. Understanding these objections — and the evidence-based response to each — is essential preparation before entering a renewal conversation with Oracle's sales team.
Oracle and Rimini Street have been in litigation since 2010. Oracle's core claim was that Rimini Street's support delivery involved copying Oracle software in ways that infringed Oracle's copyright. After more than a decade of proceedings, multiple judgments, and a Supreme Court ruling in 2019 (that determined Oracle could not recover litigation costs as a prevailing party), the legal landscape has clarified materially. Rimini Street modified its support delivery process (from "Process 1.0" to "Process 2.0") to address Oracle's specific copyright infringement claims, and its current operations reflect those changes.
Oracle continues to pursue litigation on specific claims, and the legal history between the two companies is complex. Enterprises considering Rimini Street should obtain current legal status information from Rimini Street directly, and should have counsel review the specific contractual implications for their Oracle Master Agreement. The position from an independent advisory standpoint: the legal risk that Oracle's sales team characterises as existential is materially lower than Oracle's messaging implies, but it is not zero, and regulated enterprises should undertake appropriate due diligence.
Based on our advisory work across dozens of Oracle support evaluations, the profile of enterprises where Rimini Street represents the strongest business case includes the following characteristics. You are running a stable, mature Oracle environment — Database 19c, EBS 12.2, PeopleSoft 9.2 — with no planned version upgrade in the next 3–5 years. Your annual Oracle support spend is $500K or higher (below this level, the administrative overhead of switching may erode the cost saving). Your Oracle deployment involves significant customisations that Oracle Premier Support refuses to touch. You are not subject to compliance requirements that mandate Oracle-official CPUs. Your internal IT team is technically capable of managing the transition and the ongoing third-party support relationship.
The case studies on this site include examples of enterprises that moved to third-party support as part of a broader Oracle cost reduction program — in several cases, the support saving alone funded the independent advisory engagement that drove additional savings elsewhere in the Oracle estate.
Third-party support is not the right choice for every enterprise. Stay on Oracle's native support programs if: you are actively using Oracle Cloud products (Fusion ERP, HCM, OCI) — Oracle support is required for these; you plan to upgrade your Oracle on-premise software version in the next 18–24 months; your compliance framework explicitly requires Oracle-official CPU patches as a vendor support condition; you are in active litigation with Oracle where your support status may be relevant; or your Oracle account team has tied specific commercial concessions to maintaining Oracle support (a common tactic Oracle uses to lock in support revenue in exchange for deal discounts).
A structured Rimini Street evaluation follows a predictable sequence. First, run a clean inventory of your Oracle environment — product versions, edition types, customization scope, compliance requirements. Second, obtain a specific Rimini Street proposal for your environment — their pricing and coverage terms are negotiable and vary by scope. Third, obtain an independent assessment of the technical and contractual risks in your specific situation — our Oracle Support Reduction service includes this analysis. Fourth, use the Rimini Street proposal as leverage in your Oracle renewal conversation — Oracle's account team will respond with concessions if they believe the switch is genuinely in play. Fifth, if you decide to proceed with Rimini Street, manage the Oracle notification and contract termination process carefully to preserve your right to reinstatement.
The transition itself is operationally straightforward. Rimini Street handles the onboarding process and typically requires 60–90 days to complete knowledge transfer and environment documentation before the Oracle support contract expires. The main operational risk is timing — if you allow Oracle support to lapse before Rimini Street is fully onboarded, you may face a gap period. Planning the transition well in advance of your Oracle renewal date avoids this scenario.
Our white paper covers the complete framework for evaluating Rimini Street, negotiating Oracle support renewals, and using decommission documentation and Support Rewards to reduce your annual Oracle maintenance bill by 30–50%.
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Our advisors have guided enterprises through Oracle support evaluations, Rimini Street transitions, and renewal negotiations. We have no commercial relationship with any support provider — only with our clients. Not affiliated with Oracle Corporation.