Oracle – Schema vs User

For all intents and purposes you can consider a user to be a schema and a schema to be a user.

A schema is the set of objects (tables, views, indexes, etc) that belongs to an user account. It is often used as another way to refer to an Oracle account.

• CREATE USER command creates a user. It also automatically creates a schema for that user. We can call as empty schema.
• The CREATE SCHEMA command allows creating multiple tables and views and performing multiple grants in your own schema in a single transaction.

Example:

• SCOTT is a schema that includes the EMP, DEPT and BONUS tables with various grants etc.
• SYS is a schema that includes tons of tables, views, grants, etc