The different types of LOBs and their characteristics are described in the following table, along with a simple description of the way each of them is typically used. All LOBs can participate in transactions.
| Data type | Characteristics | Usage |
| BLOB | Can store any type of unstructured data | Most frequently used with noncharacter data, such as images or video. |
| CLOB | Changes can be made to the value of a CLOB through the DBMS_LOB built-in package, such as comparing the value of two LOBs orreading and writing selectively to a LOB column. | Used to store large amounts of single-byte text. |
| NCLOB | Changes can be made to the value of a CLOB through the DBMS_LOB built-in package, such as comparing the value of two LOBs orreading and writing selectively to a LOB column. | Used to store large amounts of double-byte and varying-width text, such as character-based languages like Japanese and Chinese. |