What SkillBuilders does

SkillBuilders is a privately held IT services firm founded in 1994 and headquartered in Wakefield, Rhode Island, that specializes exclusively in Oracle Database and Oracle Application Express (APEX) technologies. The firm operates as an Oracle Gold Partner (since 1998) and provides four interlocking service lines: managed cloud hosting (APEX as a Service on OCI or AWS with 99.9% uptime SLAs), remote and on-site Oracle consulting (DBA, administration, performance tuning, migrations, security, cloud), instructor-led training (Oracle DBA, APEX, PL/SQL, OCI), and ancillary product distribution including APEX Office Print (AOP) resale, ApexSec security scanning, and Oracle Database licensing advisory.

The company serves mission-critical Oracle workloads across education (Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Brown, St. George's, Georgia State), federal government (NOAA, HUD, NASA JUNO team), defense (BAE Systems), entertainment (Sony Music, Nintendo), healthcare (XIFIN, Fortune 500 Global Medical Company), retail (Sherwin Williams, Shoe Carnival), utilities (Silicon Valley Power), and research (Southwest Research Institute). Pricing ranges from $500 per short training session to $27,500 for enterprise on-premises AOP licenses, with managed cloud hosting on monthly subscription at custom-quoted rates. Free tutorial content has reached 368,000+ learners with 5,000+ five-star ratings across 115 DBA, 63 APEX, and 176 PL/SQL classes delivered.

SkillBuilders is led by Founder and President David Anderson — developer of the ApexSec tool used by Oracle's internal APEX team — alongside Oracle Certified Master DBA John Watson, Director of Oracle Database Services and Oracle Press author. The firm is founder-controlled with no disclosed external investors, has held an A+ Better Business Bureau rating for 23 years with zero complaints, and offers both worldwide remote delivery and on-site consulting. Firmographic data lists 1-10 employees, though the public team and instructor roster enumerate more than ten named individuals, suggesting contractors and partner instructors may not be captured in that band.

Name

SkillBuilders

Legal name

SkillBuilders Inc.

Website

https://skillbuilders.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1994

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

SkillBuilders is a privately held Oracle specialist founded in 1994 that provides managed APEX cloud hosting (AaaS on OCI or AWS), Oracle DBA consulting, instructor-led Oracle training, and Oracle licensing advisory to enterprises running mission-critical Oracle Database and APEX workloads worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Oracle Database and APEX Consulting & Managed Cloud Services

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Software Publishers (513210), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Managed Databases (Relational/NoSQL/In-Memory DBaaS) (HDABAAAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) Platforms (HDAEAAAN), Infrastructure, Networking & Systems Administration Training (BPAEANAJ), Database Administration & Data Engineering (RDBMS/NoSQL, ETL/ELT, Pipelines) (EDABAFAI)

Keywords

• Oracle database consulting
• Oracle APEX hosting
• Database administration services
• Oracle cloud consulting
• Oracle training courses

Headquarters

HQ city

Wakefield

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Managed Cloud Hosting (APEX as a Service): Fully managed cloud hosting for Oracle APEX applications on OCI or AWS. Shared and dedicated packages available with Oracle Database SE2 or EE. Includes 24/7 monitoring, DBA services, and free APEX training seats.
2. Consulting Services: Oracle Database and APEX consulting including DBA services, administration, tuning, development, migrations, and OCI/AWS cloud consulting. Remote DBA or on-site presence available.
3. Instructor-Led Training: Online and in-person instructor-led hands-on training for Oracle Database, Oracle APEX, PL/SQL, and OCI. Delivered in half-day sessions by expert instructors who also develop APEX applications.
4. Oracle Database Licensing: Sale of Oracle Database software licenses. As Oracle Database experts and Oracle Gold Partner, they recommend cost-effective licensing strategies, often saving customers by suggesting Standard Edition over Enterprise Edition.
5. APEX Office Print (AOP): Reseller of APEX Office Print - a flexible print engine for APEX supporting MS Office, PDF, HTML, and text documents. Cloud subscriptions and on-premises licenses available.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

SkillBuilders delivers fully managed Oracle APEX cloud hosting (APEX as a Service) on OCI or AWS, plus Oracle Database and APEX consulting (DBA, administration, performance tuning, migrations, OCI/AWS deployments) and instructor-led hands-on training. The company also resells Oracle Database licenses and APEX Office Print, and develops security and administration tools such as ApexSec and SBODM for the Oracle APEX ecosystem. Customers are enterprise organizations with mission-critical Oracle workloads across education, government, defense, healthcare, and retail.

Product overview

SkillBuilders offers a portfolio of Oracle Database and APEX-focused services, consulting, training, and tools. The core offering is the managed APEX as a Service (AaaS) hosting platform, providing fully managed cloud environments on OCI or AWS with 24/7 monitoring and support. This is complemented by Oracle Database and APEX consulting services (DBA, development, tuning, administration, OCI migration), instructor-led training courses (APEX, DBA, PL/SQL, SQL), and add-on tools including ApexSec for security scanning, APEX Office Print (AOP) for document export, and Oracle Database Licensing consulting. The company also provides free tutorials and mentoring programs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• APEX Office Print (AOP): A flexible print engine for APEX that supports MS Office, HTML, Text and PDF document printing and reporting.
• SBODM (SkillBuilders Oracle Database Manager)

Products and services

• APEX as a Service (AaaS) Fully managed, secure, cloud-hosted Oracle APEX environment running on Oracle Database SE2 or EE on OCI or AWS, with 24/7 monitoring, 99.9% uptime guarantee, free SSL, daily backups, included instructor-led APEX training, and comprehensive DBA and sysadmin support. Available in shared and dedicated subscription packages for enterprise and mid-market customers.
• Oracle Database Consulting (DBA Services) Remote and on-site Oracle Database consulting covering administration, performance tuning, security hardening, migrations, upgrades, and high-availability configurations (RAC, Data Guard). Targeted at enterprise IT teams that require expert Oracle DBA capacity without building an internal Oracle practice.
• Oracle APEX Consulting Custom Oracle APEX application development and consulting, including APEX tuning, administration, and application migration. Serves enterprises that need to extend or modernize APEX-based business applications.
• OCI Consultants Oracle Cloud Infrastructure consulting including design, provisioning, migrations, and ongoing support for customers moving Oracle workloads to OCI or running hybrid Oracle-on-AWS architectures.
• Instructor-Led Oracle Training Courses Online and in-person hands-on training covering Oracle Database administration, Oracle APEX (beginner through advanced), PL/SQL, Oracle SQL tuning, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, delivered by instructors who also actively develop APEX applications. Targeted at IT professionals and corporate learners.
• ApexSec (APEX Security Analyzer) Automated security analysis tool for Oracle APEX applications (versions 3.x through 23.2) that performs security scans and identifies vulnerabilities with detailed threat explanations. Developed by founder David Anderson and adopted by Oracle's internal APEX development team.
• APEX Office Print (AOP) Reseller Services US-based reseller of APEX Office Print, a flexible print engine for Oracle APEX supporting MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), PDF, HTML, Text, and Markdown output via template-based merging. Offered as cloud subscriptions (Shared, Silver, Gold, Enterprise) and on-premises perpetual licenses (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Enterprise).
• Oracle Database Licensing Sale of Oracle Database software licenses (Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and options) with consulting expertise in licensing strategy, cost optimization recommendations (often saving customers by suggesting Standard Edition over Enterprise Edition), and implementation assistance. Sold as part of the firm's Oracle Gold Partner role.
• SBODM (SkillBuilders Oracle Database Manager) Free and open-source database management tool for Oracle Database, written in Oracle APEX, providing RMAN backup scheduling, resource utilization display, session management, SQL execution with execution plans, alert log monitoring, threshold alerts, APEX workspace exports, ASM storage management, and a customizable help system. Sunsetted as of January 2025; remains a free downloadable product historically delivered to Oracle DBAs and developers.

Quantifiable outcome

• 368,000+ students have viewed SkillBuilders' free Oracle training content
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers24 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.

• Oracle CorporationflagshipTechnology or IntegrationOracle Gold Partner since 1998. Specializes exclusively in Oracle Database and APEX. Provides consulting, training, and managed services for Oracle technologies including OCI, Autonomous Database, and DB Systems.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreTechnology or IntegrationAWS Cloud partner since 2010. Provides Oracle APEX hosting on AWS infrastructure. Experience with VPN tunnels, VPC configurations, and Oracle deployments on AWS.
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)coreTechnology or IntegrationOracle Cloud Infrastructure experts since 2020. Primary hosting platform for APEX as a Service. Certified OCI consultants for design, provisioning, and support.
• APEX Office Print (AOP)coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorUS-based reseller of APEX Office Print (AOP). Offers on-premise and cloud licenses for AOP print engine. 500 prints/month included in shared hosting plans.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Insum Solutions: Insum is a Canadian Oracle APEX-focused consulting and managed services firm with a similar specialist positioning around Oracle APEX development, hosting, and training. Direct competitor for APEX enterprise services.
• K21Academy: K21Academy is an Oracle-focused online training provider offering instructor-led courses across Oracle Database, Cloud, and APEX — comparable to SkillBuilders' training business model and audience.
• Pythian: Pythian is a database managed services and consulting firm specializing in Oracle (and other RDBMS) administration, performance tuning, and cloud migrations — directly comparable to SkillBuilders' Oracle DBA consulting and managed hosting.
• Viscosity North America: Viscosity is an Oracle-focused consulting firm specializing in database performance, Exadata, RAC, and cloud migrations — closely comparable to SkillBuilders' enterprise DBA consulting practice.
• OpFocus: OpFocus is an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle E-Business Suite consulting firm offering managed services, migrations, and training — overlapping with SkillBuilders' OCI consulting and AaaS hosting offerings.
• FOEX GmbH: FOEX is an Austria-based Oracle APEX plugin developer and consulting firm — closely aligned with SkillBuilders' APEX tooling (e.g., ApexSec) and APEX consulting focus.
• eprentise: eprentise is an Oracle-focused consultancy specializing in APEX, HCM, and ERP modernization — comparable Oracle boutique competing for APEX migration and development engagements.

Emerging players

• Percona: Percona provides open-source database managed services and consulting (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB) — adjacent rather than direct, but competes for the same enterprise database-services budget with a different technology focus.

Broad incumbents

• Rimini Street: Rimini Street is a large independent Oracle (and SAP) third-party support and services provider — broader scope but competes for Oracle maintenance, support, and managed services spend.
• Apps Associates: Apps Associates is a larger Oracle-focused systems integrator offering managed services, cloud migration, and Oracle applications consulting — broader portfolio but competes for the same Oracle services wallet.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/skillbuildersus

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about SkillBuilders