Oracle DB license for only non-production environments My company is a software vendor. We develop software that is later deployed on the customer's environment, on their own machines. Our software uses various DBMS, depending on what the customer has. We do it for PostgreSQL, MySQL and so on.

Currently we have two new customers, which are using Oracle DB in their own production environments. We are obliged, however, to provide an user acceptance environments, which are ought to be 1:1 to the customer's production environment.

Hence my question - do we need to buy an Oracle DB license for ourselves, provided we're never going to have a production environment with that product? In another words - since the customer has the Oracle DB license do we also need to buy one only for testing purposes?
Yes you do.  If you install the Oracle software you need to pay for it.  However numerous exceptions exist including


you can use Oracle Express 11g for free
your customer may have licencing provisions that apply to you


Either way, do not take anything from my answer or anyone else's answer as valid.  Oracle licencing  is complex and a final word can only come from them.  Contact  your representative and ask for clarification.