IBM Db2 Warehouse vs SAP IQ comparison

IBM and SAP are both solutions in the Data Warehouse category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0, while SAP is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.7. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in Data Warehouse, compared to SAP’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of SAP users who would recommend it.

IBM Db2 Warehouse

Read 11 IBM Db2 Warehouse reviews

1,000 Views
368 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

SAP IQ

Read 21 SAP IQ reviews

513 Views
370 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

IBM Db2 Warehouse

SAP IQ

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

SAP IQ and IBM Db2 Warehouse are competing in the data management space, with each product offering unique advantages. SAP IQ stands out for its cost-effective pricing and high customer satisfaction, while IBM Db2 Warehouse is favored for its extensive features that are often deemed worth the investment.

Features: SAP IQ is known for its data retrieval speed, robust data compression, and efficient query performance due to its columnar storage architecture. IBM Db2 Warehouse excels in advanced analytics, seamless cloud integration, and scalability, making it suitable for meeting modern data demands.

Room for Improvement: SAP IQ could benefit from enhanced cloud integration, improved scalability for extensive datasets, and more advanced analytics capabilities. IBM Db2 Warehouse may improve by reducing its setup complexity, optimizing cost efficiency, and enhancing on-premise deployment options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP IQ offers a straightforward deployment process with efficient support options, appealing to organizations focusing on minimal setup complexity. IBM Db2 Warehouse presents a more complex deployment but provides significant cloud integration support, catering to customers seeking hybrid solutions.

Pricing and ROI: SAP IQ is attractive for cost-sensitive organizations due to its lower setup cost and rapid ROI. IBM Db2 Warehouse requires a higher initial investment, yet delivers strong ROI through features that support scalability and advanced analytics, offering valuable returns justified by its functionality.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. SAP IQ Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. SAP IQ

April 2025

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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

IBM Db2 Warehouse

Ranking in Data Warehouse

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP IQ

Ranking in Data Warehouse

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (26th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse is 2.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Ismail Aboulezz

Chief Executive Officer at LeaseWeb

Enhancements in data analysis and decision-making elevate overall performance

The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse ( /products/ibm-db2-warehouse-reviews ) include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support. The response time is very quick, and the technical manuals and support from IBM are of high quality. Additionally, it is easy to install, troubleshoot, operate, and secure the environment.

Read full review

Tejas Raj

Manager at Capgemini

Columnar database, so pulling records is easy but there isn't enough documentation for installation

I've seen very few SAP IQ systems in recent years. So people are moving away from SAP IQ In the last three years, I've rarely encountered customers using it. Fewer systems with SAP IQ usage among our customers. Most of them have moved on to HANA. There are parallel products, and there are also viable alternatives from AWS, so many have migrated to those.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data."

"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."

"It can be mounted on the cloud, which is a huge plus. If the client, for example, starts small with on-premise deployment and then it rapidly needs to grow, we can transfer this to the cloud easily."

"Provides good security and reliability."

"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."

"The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support."

"The solution is stable."

"I think it scales really well and as long as you take enough time to learn a little bit about it, it works really well."

More IBM Db2 Warehouse pros

"Valuable features for us include the compression, speed, fast response time, and easy object maintenance."

"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The primary benefit of SAP IQ is its ability to limit the expansion of the costly SAP HANA database, which has limited storage capacity. This necessitates a form of data management that involves moving data from SAP HANA to SAP NLS, which is essentially archiving. This allows us to retain access to the data via a link whenever it is required."

"The product is easy to learn."

"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."

"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."

"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."

More SAP IQ pros

Cons

"Lacks sufficient documentation and particularly in Spanish."

"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."

"Responding to support tickets takes a lot of time. It can range from two to four days, even for critical issues."

"It takes a long time to have a new version or release, similar to Oracle."

"The biggest challenge anyone could have with Db2 Warehouse is their references or online resources and documentation. They are very, very, very limited on the web."

"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."

"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."

"The biggest problems we have is when the backup solution is failing or slow and we run out of log space, which has happened probably a couple of times in the last four years."

More IBM Db2 Warehouse cons

"The tool gets stuck sometimes."

"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."

"Multiplex is very problematic. There are consistency problems in the metadata, meaning it is possible to lose metadata consistency. You should make sure you have healthy backups."

"The solution works best when combined with other SAP solutions. If the environment has other systems other options might be better."

"There is very little documentation available."

"Concurrency and functional error messaging."

"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."

"I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set."

More SAP IQ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."

"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."

"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."

"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."

"Negotiate based on the features required."

"Negotiation is very important."

"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

56%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

46%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Db2 Warehouse?

The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?

The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?

There is room for improvement in optimizing certain processes, but most issues arise from my data, hardware architecture, and resources, not from IBM Db2 Warehouse itself.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP IQ?

IQ implementation costs about three thousand dollars. It's less expensive compared to alternatives like Teradata Base in terms of transactional efficiency.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP IQ?

The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?

I worked on implementing new databases, migration data in production, and developer environments with SAP IQ.

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 42% of the time

Teradata vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 34% of the time

Oracle Exadata vs IBM Db2 Warehouse

Compared 24% of the time

More IBM Db2 Warehouse Competitors

Snowflake vs SAP IQ

Compared 30% of the time

SAP HANA vs SAP IQ

Compared 15% of the time

SQL Server vs SAP IQ

Compared 11% of the time

Apache Hadoop vs SAP IQ

Compared 9% of the time

SAP BW4HANA vs SAP IQ

Compared 8% of the time

More SAP IQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Db2 Warehouse

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

SAP IQ

April 2025

Download SAP IQ product report

Also Known As

InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse

Sybase IQ

Overview

InfoSphere Warehouse is a suite of products that combines the strength of DB2 with a data warehousing infrastructure from IBM. You can use InfoSphere Warehouse to build a complete data warehousing solution that includes a highly scalable relational database, data access capabilities, and front-end analysis tools.

IBM

SAP® IQ software delivers speed and power for extreme-scale enterprise data warehousing and analytics. Its column-oriented, grid-based massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and patented data compression and indexing technologies enable companies to exploit the value of huge amounts of data at the speed of business.

SAP

Sample Customers

Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited

ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.

Buyer's Guide

IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. SAP IQ

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. SAP IQ

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