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Actian Ingres vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Actian Ingres
Ranking in Data Warehouse
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (28th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Actian Ingres is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 3.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse3.2%
Actian Ingres2.5%
Other94.3%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

GH
Sr Sales Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Reliable performance enhances operations with good technical support
We run the entire IRS system, the income system, and the tax system. We also manage the entire Absa banking system in Africa. There's a lot of database applications, similar to those used in banks and the IRS The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance. Our system is used…
reviewer2254953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Virtual machines have handled large data and supported growth but pricing still needs improvement
I believe the product is pretty fast. When I have used it, it is handy. The integration with other Azure products is good and integrates well. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's security measures help ensure our sensitive data protection during analysis through measures such as encryption. Its scalability is impressive as it scales up and down really well. We go from a couple of users to tons of users all the time, and it scales and handles things really well. One of the major benefits with this product is that it's Microsoft, which is one of the best ones, and it's just plug and play.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance."
"The deployment of our solution across a number of servers using Ingres .NET has meant that we can protect the database server behind a highly secure firewall and deploy the front end solutions on a normal web server."
"Ingres is the only database solution that has maintained a level of consistency and integrity about the way users interact with it."
"It handles high volumes of data very well."
"Most features on the SQL Server are quite useful to us."
"Tools like the BI and SAS are excellent."
"One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL, as it is very easy to pull the data from it and also very easy to import data from CSV or Excel."
"The biggest advantage of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is the possibility to stop or pause the service because it can be very expensive, and the ability to pause the service when I don't use it is probably the main feature, along with the possibility to handle huge amounts of data, which is quite an interesting capability of the service."
"With PDW’s Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) design, queries run in minutes instead of hours, and in seconds instead of minutes in comparison to Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) databases."
"The most valuable feature for me is querying."
"The biggest lessons I've learned through the years are that Microsoft is probably the largest research company there is, so people should stick to people that know what they're doing, and Microsoft definitely has some very, very capable people designing these products, and that's probably why I've stayed with Microsoft so long."
 

Cons

"The seamless integration is a bit of an issue."
"The ability to reset the log file without stopping the DBMS would be helpful for us."
"If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data."
"The performance could be improved because the query is slow if we don't optimize it. And even if we optimize it, sometimes it still runs very slow."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"The product does not have all of the features that the native products have."
"When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow."
"There were scalability issues in that there is a limit to 32 concurrent queries."
"Sometimes, the product requires rolling back to its previous version during a software update. This particular area could be enhanced."
"The feature updates on the on-premise solution come very slowly, and it would be great if they came faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"The solution is cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Construction Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Actian Ingres?
The seamless integration is a bit of an issue. I would like to see more direct connectors and stuff like SQLAlchemy. It's there but isn't available as a standard, so it involves going to GitHub to ...
What is your primary use case for Actian Ingres?
We run the entire IRS system, the income system, and the tax system. We also manage the entire Absa banking system in Africa. There's a lot of database applications, similar to those used in banks ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Actian Ingres?
Initially, it's a lot less expensive than competitors. Price performance has always been a priority, ensuring we remain competitive in the market.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.
 

Also Known As

Ingres, Ingres 2006
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Groupe Adeo, IsCool Entertainment
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Actian Ingres vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.