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DuckDB vs SAP HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

DuckDB
Ranking in Embedded Database
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP HANA
Ranking in Embedded Database
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Relational Databases Tools (3rd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of DuckDB is 11.0%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA is 12.8%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP HANA12.8%
DuckDB11.0%
Other76.2%
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

MC
Senior Analytics Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Caching analytics queries has reduced repeated compute and supports faster embedded reporting
The use of DuckDB as a cache for analytics in an embedded analytics product is a valuable feature. It helps manage compute resources efficiently by preventing repeated computations of the same query. This has made it quite handy and quick to implement, which aligns with the fast-paced needs of our engineering team.
Bassem Mohammed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Application Manager at TBTD
Integrated business processes have improved real-time analytics and financial performance
Whether I or my customers utilize SAP HANA's real-time analytics depends on the data needed to be displayed, and then choosing how to transfer the data to the analytic object, data source, or database to be displayed in the reports. It may be near real-time, real-time, or running batch every day. There are tools for integration between third-party systems, such as OData or APIs from SAP to get in or push data to other systems. Support for both structured and unstructured data helps organizations unify data sources depending on the needed data to be displayed. There are many ways to store it for report displays, but structured data will be better than unstructured data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The use of DuckDB as a cache for analytics in an embedded analytics product is a valuable feature."
"DuckDB is very fast."
"Its in-memory capabilities are good, which is why many companies still use it."
"The user interface is very good. You can do any kind of reporting analytics from the platform."
"We plan to continue using this solution for our clients."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"What is good about SAP HANA is its simplicity and its flexibility."
"HANA is currently a stable solution after many upgrades."
"I think the in-memory database is excellent as it boosts performance."
"SAP HANA is not just a memory database, it's a big platform, it's a very, very safe database, and the performance is very, very good for an in-memory database."
 

Cons

"Sometimes we have memory issues that cause job failures, which we don't fully understand why, but we can rerun the jobs without problems."
"In terms of improvement, the speed is not as good as we thought it would be. That is why we are trying different solutions that will be built with different technologies."
"I cannot recommend this product to users. I feel that SAP's approach of mandating customers to go with SAP HANA is not a good point; they should make SAP HANA so good that customers willingly choose it."
"SAP HANA is a very proprietary tool and there's not as much support available for it as there is for an SQL Server (which is more popular)."
"I don't have direct access to SAP, and instead, I need to go through the SAP office in India."
"Because SAP HANA is completely in-memory, it requires the use of bigger systems which have a higher amount of RAM. If the system does go down then coming back up is difficult and can take 30 to 40 minutes."
"More standards would help in the future."
"SAP HANA is not perfect and they could improve by having more options and more integration."
"The price is high and could be a bit cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution's license is very expensive so I rate pricing a one out of ten."
"The licensing cost for SAP HANA is approximately $200 per user per month."
"The tool is expensive compared to other products, like Oracle R or Microsoft, but it offers a range of all the company's functions."
"The pricing for SAP HANA is high. You pay a lot for the license, and you also have to pay for some add-ons."
"The pricing is a bit on the high side."
"Set up a consortium of consulting partners and hardware vendors to define your tech. Landscape TCO (total cost of ownership) and then approach the OEM for pricing (on-premise or on cloud or a hybrid model). Check if you can bring your own licenses for some of the existing application licenses on the new platform, to reduce TCO."
"The tool has a high price. I rate the solution’s pricing, one on a scale of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap."
"The price of this product is good."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DuckDB?
We use the open-source version of DuckDB and don't have costs associated with it. There is a company that provides commercial software, but we use the open-source library, not the services.
What needs improvement with DuckDB?
Sometimes we have memory issues that cause job failures, which we don't fully understand why, but we can rerun the jobs without problems. There were also problems with binary formats in the previou...
What is your primary use case for DuckDB?
My main use case for DuckDB is that we're using it as a cache for analytics. We have an embedded analytics product, and in order to manage our compute resources, we are using DuckDB so that we do n...
What are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?
Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...
Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?
We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...
Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?
SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about DuckDB vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.