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Actian Ingres vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Relational Databases Tools
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (17th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Actian Ingres is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.4%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.4%
Actian Ingres1.3%
Other88.3%
Relational Databases Tools
 

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…
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"They have improved the UI and ease of accessing the database and server which is good. You can load it up and start using it from the very minute it is implemented."
"This solution has proven stability and operational power."
"For the most part, we have been satisfied with its capabilities."
"It is easy to manage for the administrator. It is also easy to use for applications that are Windows-based. It is a very stable product, and it has got backup and recovery tools."
"I find query optimization to be highly valuable for data management. Additionally, drag-and-drop query creation greatly facilitates data management tasks."
"The solution can be used for a host of applications."
"In summary, this is a good product, I plan to continue using it, and I definitely recommend it."
 

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."
"I would like to have the option to use fewer processors for certain tasks, thus reducing the licensing fee."
"We have no vision. We don't know when or how we have been hacked."
"Analysis services have a lot of room for improvement. Basically, manageability on the available tools. They should have improved them already. They are not very efficient. My main headache is with the analysis service, and it would be really good if Microsoft developed some additional tools that are more user-friendly to manage the analysis. This is both from the perspective of management, users' roles, and performance analysis. My main wish for SQL Server would be that management tools for analysis services grow and mature a bit."
"It will be very useful to have high-level database monitoring. It should also have built-in business intelligence reporting."
"For Turkey, the licensing costs are too high."
"Indexing, as well as integration, are areas of this product that need improvement."
"It's not scalable. It hinders your performance as it's slow in nature and you need experienced people to work on it."
"The solution could be better integrated with the SQL Server Studio tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay monthly. The price is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"It is annual."
"For our purpose, we are not required to have a license for what we are using it for."
"The price of SQL Server is great. In my company, SQL Server is part of the Microsoft Suite, we don't have to pay for any additional license costs, it's quite cost-effective for us."
"Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server."
"I believe the licensing to be on an annual basis."
"We pay per second of usage, but there are different offerings of the license."
"There is a subscription that needs to be purchased to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise118
 

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.
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Also Known As

Ingres, Ingres 2006
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Groupe Adeo, IsCool Entertainment
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Actian Ingres vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.