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IBM Informix 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

IBM Informix
Ranking in Embedded Database
10th
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP HANA
Ranking in Embedded Database
1st
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 3.8%, up from 1.4% 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%
IBM Informix3.8%
Other83.4%
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Consultant at i2c
Has offered a cost-effective option despite frequent technical issues and limited market demand
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this frequent. The good thing is they cover those bugs in the next release within weeks or days on demand. IBM Informix should become hybrid and should include AI features similar to other DBMS systems such as Snowflake, Redshift, and DataBricks. This would help its value rise with the market.
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

"Informix can support huge quantities of data with less memory and less capacity."
"It is very easy to install IBM Informix, very easy to scale, and support is quite better."
"Overall, this is a great product. It works really well, is very stable, and is very scalable."
"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"My advice is to take it; you will never regret it."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"I like the integration process. Also, the data is trusted by our management, and we use the data from transactions for analysis."
"It is in the internal control system and with the most important decisions for the management of the enterprise, the process of decision-making."
"It's user-friendly so long as you use it frequently."
"The performance in terms of processing time is unmatched due to the in-memory processing capability."
"As I only worked part-time on SAP HANA, I did not have the opportunity to explore the advanced features of the solution. However, I did work with basic features, such as user administration and access controls for the accounting department. The feature that stood out to me the most was the Single Sign-On and user administration, backup, and server management. My experience with SAP HANA was mainly focused on basic server improvements."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and the integration with other solutions in data quality."
"What I like best about SAP HANA is that it's faster than Microsoft SQL Server."
"The solution operates well, and I had no problems with the functionality."
 

Cons

"The solution really doesn't add new features very often. Other solutions are much more actively pushing out upgrades and improvements."
"For me, it's always too expensive. The problem is that Informix sometimes competes with free products, so yes, it's very expensive, but when we're talking about licensed products like SQL Server or anything, the midsize pricing could be significantly improved."
"In my opinion, the packages could be improved. The version I use doesn't allow for packages. I can do some general procedures, but no packages like in Oracle. So, develop separate modules in SQL language. This would be most beneficial for me."
"The product needs a lot more marketing involvement from IBM."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"The support team could include local engineers to establish efficient communication. It will help us speed up the escalation process."
"The solution should offer replication. It would be helpful if the solution would allow us to access third-party tools."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"While new users to this solution have the benefit of the new design, existing ERP users may experience issues with migrating legacy data. We would like to see development of ready-made tools that allow for easy mapping when upgrading."
"The SAP ERP processes are quite complex and it can be challenging."
"High availability and disaster recovery are very poor in HANA."
"The initial setup of SAP HANA is complex. We did the implementation of one site, and a global deployment will take another three to four years."
"Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high. Due to high pricing, many clients are moving from BW on SAP HANA and S/4HANA to Azure SQL."
"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."
"If the developers were to enhance or improve the application logic while processing the transactions, that would be great."
"The solution is very expensive for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"The free edition can be enough to handle moderate-size implementations, but you may want a pay for edition to benefit from more functionality, such as replication."
"We are spending about 20,000 to 30,000 euros on the solution."
"It comes with a significant cost."
"The price of this product is good."
"I would rate the pricing of the solution a ten on ten. The pricing for on-prem SAP HANA is on a yearly basis and expensive. I am not aware of the actual pricing but it is based on 64 Gigabytes. For instance, if you consider $10,000 for 64 Gigabytes, then you can calculate the cost for Terabytes in case you have one. You will have to buy expensive hardware as well which is quite a lot."
"SAP HANA is affordable. I rate it a seven out of ten."
"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."
"The licensing could improve."
"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?"
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
There is a cost reason to move from IBM Informix. It is relatively cheaper than Oracle. The second reason is that moving the whole application to a new database would require significant cost. The ...
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this f...
What is your primary use case for IBM Informix?
We are using IBM Informix for OLTP systems. We are using IBM Informix although it is a technology that is not very popular compared to others. We are using it because our application was initially ...
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

Informix
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.