IBM Db2 Database vs SAP HANA comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jan 9, 2023

We performed a comparison between IBM DB2 Database and SAP HANA based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: For the most part, users of both solutions say they are easy and straightforward to deploy.
  • Features: IBM DB2 Database users say the solution is available 24/7 and offers very good performance, availability and security. The self-maintaining and self-monitoring features are cost-effective. Reviewers say that users of this solution need to be tech savvy; it is not for the complete novice.

    Users say SAP HANA is easy to use, scalable, and very flexible. Its robust memory capabilities help make the performance excellent and reliable. The solution can easily scale both horizontally and vertically. Reviewers say SAP HANA should consider providing more mobile options and improved open-source integrations.
  • Pricing: Users of both solutions feel they are expensive.
  • Service and Support: IBM DB2 Database users are satisfied with the support; SAP HANA users feel the support has room for improvement.

Comparison Results: SAP HANA finishes ahead of IBM DB2 Database in this comparison. Users say SAP HANA fully controls workflows and makes almost every process automated. This improves productivity and saves time and money. The solution makes it easy to manage enterprise resources, which facilitates good company growth. Users say IBM DB2 Database has a very steep and long learning curve. It is very complex and many users feel it takes a long time to learn how to use it productively and properly.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Db2 Database vs. SAP HANA Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
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 aspect of this solution is its stability. We have never had any problems and have never had to contact technical support.""Some of the most valuable features are the scaling from a small very cheap installation to a very large enterprise installation. In addition, the backups and assistance are good.""The solution is stable.""Its functionality and availability are valuable. Its availability is great. It is available 99.99% of the time.""We are dealing with millions of transactions a month and the performance is very good.""Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.""It's a very mature product.""IBM Db2 Database has good performance."

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"It has a very huge bandwidth and data transfer.""The user interface is very good. You can do any kind of reporting analytics from the platform.""SAP HANA is a stable solution.""Technically it resembles Oracle, but as a somewhat lighter version.""When we upgraded, we received more functions or more features.""The best feature of SAP HANA is column computing. The computing speed of the solution is also very high, so developers can easily develop programs through SAP HANA.""We like that the product is both vertically and horizontally scalable, allowing us to do around 86 percent compression of documentation from 50 to seven terabytes.""The most valuable features are the flexibility and the integration with other solutions in data quality."

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Cons
"The backup solution lacks flexibility.""The technical support can be faster.""Microsoft SQL Server is comparatively very simple to use. I wish IBM would move towards making Db2 easy to use for both basic and advanced users. This is where I see room for advancement. Db2 is also more expensive than Microsoft SQL Server, and its price can be reduced. The replication feature needs to be there in Db2. Microsoft provides similar functionality in SQL Server. IBM also has similar functionality, but it exists in a different product. So, to have the replication ability, you have to buy a different product. It makes sense to have this functionality within Db2 instead of a different product. It will also be helpful in terms of competition. In Africa, the problem for Db2 is competition. Oracle Database and Microsoft SQL Server have been in this market for a very long time. These companies have built the ecosystem and the brand within this market for a very long time. So, they are very popular with users. Db2 or IBM came a little later in the game, and that's where the problem lies. They also don't do a lot of marketing for it, which is also a problem.""The capabilities of this solution could improve.""They should develop its containerized version.""End-to-end encryption specifically is something the solution needs to have in the next release.""I would like to see some artificial intelligence brought into the solution.""The solution could improve by providing more integration."

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"There could be better management for faster updates, last year there were some changes in India to the e-invoicing feature.""The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it.""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.""In my limited experience using SAP, the process of granting access to different modules is difficult. Specifically, the requirement to assign roles and key codes to users rather than being able to assign them individually made the process more complex. It would be beneficial if there was a way to assign key codes separately, rather than having to create multiple roles. This would make managing access easier.""Ease of use could be improved in SAP HANA. I like SAP because SAP solutions can be used by anyone, which means even laymen can start working on SAP tools, but in SAP HANA modeling, you'll need to know some other technologies and sequel scripting, and you need a separate skillset, so if you don't have the skillset, you won't be able to work on SAP HANA. Making SAP HANA low-code would make it even better.""The installation process could be more straightforward.""I would like more technical documentation. I would like it to be easier to find online help or have a better launch-based service. SAP has a lot of functions, so we need more best practices and more detailed documentation on industry solutions. For example, it would be good to have documentation on why a certain process needs to be set up and which kinds of configurations need to be set up.""It's a complex initial setup."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "They are competitive and honest (compared to how peer firms approach licensing conversations). ​"
  • "Compared to Oracle, it is so much cheaper."
  • "Licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
  • "We don't see what the specific price of the DB2 license is because we pay for the backup license as a package."
  • "I think that everyone knows that with IBM the standard price is higher than the others."
  • "Db2 is less expensive than Oracle."
  • "We did not buy it. It came with our hardware without any complimentary maintenance. If I compare Db2 Database with Oracle Database, its price is lower than Oracle Database."
  • "There is a license for this solution and we pay every three years."
  • More IBM Db2 Database Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "People who are technical will accept the cost, but financially they will assess whether this solution will bring them revenue or not. People often ask, how will I profit when the cost is so high?"
  • "It is expensive, which isn't a problem for us because SAP HANA is processing the data so fast."
  • "SAP HANA is an expensive product."
  • "It is expensive."
  • "Setup and licensing require planning and proper budgeting, as it is not cheap."
  • "The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."
  • "The price of this product is good."
  • More SAP HANA Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Db2 database scalability and performance capabilities match our database needs. It covers pretty much everything a database administrator or engineer might need.
    Top Answer:I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. Since it's a government contract, the rates are negotiated and agreed upon with the government. So, it's not like the standard market price. It's not super… more »
    Top Answer:Db2 interface could be improved a bit. Comparing it to Oracle, Db2's interfaces could be improved.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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 other… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    11,325
    Comparisons
    7,717
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    443
    Rating
    8.0
    Views
    16,752
    Comparisons
    11,792
    Reviews
    39
    Average Words per Review
    398
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Oracle Database logo
    Compared 34% of the time.
    SQL Server logo
    Compared 28% of the time.
    MySQL logo
    Compared 8% of the time.
    Apache Spark logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Also Known As
    DB2
    SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
    Learn More
    Overview
    DB2 Enterprise for Linux, UNIX, and Windows is the ideal data server for the most demanding workloads. New XML support is designed to help firms minimize the time and effort it takes to persist and use their XML data reducing development costs and improving business agility.

    SAP HANA, also known as SAP High-performance Analytics Appliance, is a multi-model database that stores data in its memory, allowing users to avoid disk storage. The product combines its robust database with services for creating applications. SAP HANA is faster than other database management systems (DBMS) because it stores data in column-based tables in main memory and brings online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transaction processing (OLTP) together.

    The column-oriented in-memory database design allows users to run high-speed transactions alongside advanced analytics, all in a single system. This provides companies with the ability to process very large amounts of data with low latency and query data in an instant. By combining multiple data management capabilities, the solution simplifies IT, helps businesses with innovations, and facilitates digital transformation.

    The solution is structured into five groups of capabilities, categorized as:

    • Database design
    • Database management
    • Application development
    • Advanced analytics
    • Data virtualization

    There are three more SAP products that work alongside SAP HANA and complete the experience for users together. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a ready-to-run cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). SAP BW/4HANA is a packaged data warehouse, based on SAP HANA, which allows users to consolidate data across the enterprise to get a consistent view of their data. Finally, SAP Cloud is a single database as a service (DBaaS) foundation for modern applications and analytics across all enterprise data. All three products can combine with SAP HANA to deliver to users an optimized experience regarding their data.

    SAP HANA Features

    Each architectural group of capabilities of SAP HANA has various features that users can benefit from. These include:

    • Parallel processing database: SAP HANA utilizes a single platform to run transactional and analytical workloads.

    • ACID compliance: This feature ensures compliance with requirements for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) standards.

    • Multi-tenancy: This feature allows multiple tenant databases to run in one system while sharing the same memory and processors.

    • Multi-tier storage and persistent memory support: SAP HANA's native storage extension is a built-in capability to manage between memory and persistent storage, including SAP HANA Cloud Data Lake.

    • Scaling: The scaling feature supports terabytes of data in a single server and distributes large tables across multiple servers in a cluster to scale further.

    • Data modeling: This feature consists of graphical modeling tools that enable collaboration between stakeholders and the creation of models to execute complex business logic and data transformation in real time.

    • Stored procedures: The product has a native language to build stored procedures and uses advanced capabilities to create complex logic.

    • Administration: This feature consists of administration tools for various platform lifecycle, performance, and management operations and automations.

    • Security: SAP HANA provides its users with real-time data anonymization features to extract value from data while protecting privacy.

    • Availability and recovery: The tool supports high availability and disaster recovery through an array of techniques, including backup, storage mirroring, synchronous, asynchronous, and multitarget system replication.

    • Extended application services: Through its built-in application server, users can develop services such as REST and ODATA, as well as web applications that can run on multiple locations.

    • Client access: The product offers clients the ability to access it via other application platforms and languages, including Java, JavaScript, R, and Go.

    • Application lifecycle management: This set of features facilitates the building and packaging of applications, transporting them for development to test to production, and then deploying them.

    • Application development: This feature consists of a set of tools that offer application development on premises and in the Cloud. The programming language ABAP includes additional optimized features to build extensions to SAP applications.

    • Search: The search feature uses SQL to locate text promptly across multiple columns and textual content.

    • Spatial processing: This product feature provides native support for spatial data types and spatial functions.

    • Graph: Through this feature, users of the product can store and process highly connected data using a property graph.

    • Streaming analytics: This feature combines various data sources that users can utilize to discover trends over a set period.

    • Data integration and replication: The solution offers comprehensive features to handle all data integration scenarios.

    • Data federation: This feature allows users to perform queries on remote data sources in real time with data federation.

    • Caching: The capacity to cache data provides users with the ability to optimize federated queries against remote sources of data.

    SAP HANA Benefits

    SAP HANA provides many benefits for its users. These include:

    • This solution offers a high level of data and application security, beginning from a secure setup and providing continuous support.

    • SAP HANA offers augmentation for applications and analytics with built-in machine learning (ML).

    • The solution works in a timely manner, as it provides a response to queries within seconds in large production applications.

    • SAP HANA simplifies work, as it provides a single gateway to all user data with advanced data virtualization.

    • The product is very flexible, as it allows users to deploy applications in a public or private cloud, in multiple clouds, on premises, or hybrid.

    • SAP HANA scales easily for data volume and concurrent users across a distributed environment.

    • This is a powerful solution in terms of querying large datasets with a massively parallel processing (MPP) database.

    • SAP HANA is a versatile product that supports hybrid transactional and analytical processing as well as many data types.

    • The product provides a smaller data footprint with no data duplication or advanced compression, and reduces data silos.

    Reviews from Real Users

    According to a database consultant at a pharma/biotech company, SAP HANA is a very robust solution with good data access.

    Bruno V., owner at LAVORO AUTOM INF E COM LTDA, likes SAP HANA because the product offers advanced features, helps reduce hours, and makes it easy to find what you need.

    Sample Customers
    Knorr-Bremse, Mizuho Bank Ltd., Australian Government Department of Defence, SCHWENK Zement, Friedhelm Loh Group, YAZAKI Europe Limited, Ekornes ASA, Baldor Electric, VSN Systemen BV, Lion Brewery (Ceylon) PLC, PLANSEE Group, TE Connectivity, Hansgrohe SE, Openmatics, University of Toronto
    Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm39%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Insurance Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization52%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Computer Software Company6%
    Government4%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Energy/Utilities Company11%
    Retailer9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise59%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business8%
    Midsize Enterprise56%
    Large Enterprise36%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise67%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Db2 Database vs. SAP HANA
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Database vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Db2 Database is ranked 6th in Relational Databases Tools with 66 reviews while SAP HANA is ranked 3rd in Relational Databases Tools with 79 reviews. IBM Db2 Database is rated 8.2, while SAP HANA is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of IBM Db2 Database writes "Very scalable with high availability and excellent technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP HANA writes "Excellent compatibility between modules and the control". IBM Db2 Database is most compared with SQL Server, Oracle Database, MySQL, Teradata and IBM Informix, whereas SAP HANA is most compared with Oracle Database, SQL Server, MySQL, Apache Spark and SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. See our IBM Db2 Database vs. SAP HANA report.

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    We monitor all Relational Databases Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.