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Why?

Free + Fast + no weird syntax (like Oracle) + Most features (although I think Oracle replication might still be better)

Oracle replication usually requires Golden Gate to the best of my knowledge. Someone was telling me the other day they hacked their own system together with shell scripts (ship and restore log files using scp etc), but that's probably not something you'd want to build your business on.

So yes, Oracle replication is probably better if you use Golden Gate. But Golden Gate is pretty expensive (17k per CPU?).

I'm still unclear under what criteria Oracle comes out on top of MSSQL. Aside from the extreme high end, I can't think of a circumstance where I'd prefer using Oracle to MSSQL.

MSSQL < Oracle?

No way. Maybe Postgre is nicer than MSSQL for you. I don't know. But Oracle? Oracle is worse than MSSQL in just about every way that matters.