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IBM Informix vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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 Relational Databases Tools
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
SAP IQ
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP IQ2.2%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other96.0%
Relational Databases Tools
 

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.
KK
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Works well with existing platform integration but could improve error messaging and technical support
I do not use SAP IQ's machine learning capabilities. I cannot assess the benefit of SAP IQ's distributed query processing for complex queries, as I am a non-technical operator. I am not sure if we use SAP IQ's data compression features. I think the compression we are doing is on the data storage level and not on the database level. I believe we do not use it, but I'm not certain. We do not utilize SAP IQ's support for unstructured data, as we do not have unstructured data. I do not have any strong opinions on SAP IQ's security features such as data encryption. It's not been something that has been much in focus, neither in our choice of the platform, nor in our daily operations. I guess they're satisfactory as they have not been a problem. I am not aware of the pricing and licensing of SAP IQ, as it's part of a bigger agreement, and I'm not the owner of that agreement. My impression is that SAP IQ is a rather expensive tool in terms of value for money. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SAP IQ a 7.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We don't have any problems with the Informix Database."
"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"The solution is quite stable and reliable; we use it mainly due to its general stable nature."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"Flexible Grid provides the ability to automatically create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and stored procedures on all nodes within the grid as a single operation."
"The product is easy to learn."
"The product itself is the best in the industry, which I liked and would like to work with again."
"IQ has enabled our company to load data from our data vendors in under one hour and eliminated multiple copies and hours of processing time."
"Valuable features for us include the compression, speed, fast response time, and easy object maintenance."
"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."
"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."
"The performance is amazing, but the stability issues, and the expense of the product, coupled with less than top-tier technical support, should be considered when evaluating the product for your specific environment."
"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
 

Cons

"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The product needs a lot more marketing involvement from IBM."
"The support team could include local engineers to establish efficient communication. It will help us speed up the escalation process."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"Informix is very sturdy, but the problem for us is the marketing action around Informix."
"This product could be made easier to use for beginners."
"A production database server should never crash in response to user input, but Sybase IQ has repeatedly done that for us, over multiple revisions of the product."
"Technical support for the product has become almost nonexistent for this product."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"A production database server should never crash in response to user input, but Sybase IQ has repeatedly done that for us, over multiple revisions of the product."
"Aborts happen, and we don't know why."
"The downside I see is that it doesn't allow most integrated backups; many of the marketplace players such as NetBackup or Veritas, those software integrated backups are not available."
"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."
"The solution works best when combined with other SAP solutions. If the environment has other systems other options might be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"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."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"Negotiation is very important."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

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 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.
What needs improvement with SAP IQ?
When it comes to SAP IQ, the areas that could be improved or enhanced include the error messaging and the locking capabilities, as that's where we often encounter problems. When there is an issue, ...
What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?
Our usual use cases for SAP IQ is that we have a Software-as-a-Service architecture where this database is the foundation for our SAP BusinessObjects platform. This is where it's getting its data f...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
Sybase IQ
 

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
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.