IBM solidDB vs SAP IQ comparison

IBM and SAP are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. IBM is ranked #41, while SAP is ranked #23 with an average rating of 6.8. IBM holds a 0.7% mindshare in SQL, compared to SAP’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SAP users who would recommend it.

IBM solidDB

Read 1 IBM solidDB review

384 Views
365 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SAP IQ

Read 22 SAP IQ reviews

2,252 Views
1,036 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

IBM solidDB

SAP IQ

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM solidDB and SAP IQ based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and others in Relational Databases Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Relational Databases Tools Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Relational Databases Tools

March 2026

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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 solidDB

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

41st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP IQ

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

23rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM solidDB is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SAP IQ	1.8%
IBM solidDB	0.7%
Other	97.5%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

it_user722241

Senior System Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

No other solution came close to this product's speed and tech support is on a really high level

If you need local DB cache with extreme speed, then go for it, if you need something to work as a distributed cloud database, then solidDB would not be the right decision. With our Telco experience, we help with suggestions for new features and improvements of existing ones for new versions of solidDB. Also, in our labs, we do some pre-alpha testing to help them to complete some new features in the right way.

Read full review

Reviewer302462

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.

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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

"Memory cache DB and carrier grade high availability, best fit to Telco demands."

"The initial setup is easy."

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

"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."

"While queries with previous products could run for hours, with SAP IQ, they run in a matter of minutes or seconds."

"It’s the central component of our enterprise data warehouse."

"In the organizations I have worked with, SAP Sybase IQ has been used successfully as a datawarehouse solution and as data store for ad hoc querying, and it delivers performance and enormous scalability."

"It has the best performance in data retrieval compared to other database engines and reduces HW cost, achieving up to 70% less storage; Database is smaller than input data, even with all the indexes."

"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."

More SAP IQ pros

Cons

"Data replication and data distribution between multiple nodes definitely have room for improvement here."

"Multiplex is very problematic. There are consistency problems in the metadata, meaning it is possible to lose metadata consistency."

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

"It's too complex. This is concerning something that will change immediately."

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

"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."

"Customer Service: It has been good, but more can be done in this area."

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

"The tool gets stuck sometimes."

More SAP IQ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

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

"Negotiation is very important."

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

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

"Negotiate based on the features required."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

32%

Comms Service Provider

Healthcare Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

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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?

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, ...

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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...

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Comparisons

SQL Server vs IBM solidDB

Compared 28% of the time

MySQL vs IBM solidDB

Compared 23% of the time

Oracle Database vs IBM solidDB

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Java DB vs IBM solidDB

Compared 16% of the time

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise vs IBM solidDB

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM solidDB Competitors

SQL Server vs SAP IQ

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Database vs SAP IQ

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) vs SAP IQ

Compared 6% of the time

SAP HANA vs SAP IQ

Compared 5% of the time

Snowflake vs SAP IQ

Compared 5% of the time

More SAP IQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Relational Databases Tools

March 2026

Download IBM solidDB product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP IQ

March 2026

Download SAP IQ product report

Also Known As

solidDB

Sybase IQ

Overview

IBM solidDB is a relational database server that combines the high performance of in-memory tables with the nearly unlimited capacity of disk-based tables.

Pure in-memory databases are fast, but strictly limited by the size of memory. Pure disk-based databases allow nearly unlimited amounts of storage, but their performance is dominated by disk access. Even if the computer has enough memory to store the entire database in memory buffers, database servers that are designed for disk-based tables can be slow because the data structures that are optimal for disk-based tables are far from being optimal for in-memory tables. The solidDB solution is to provide a single hybrid database server that contains two optimized engines inside it:

The main-memory engine (MME) is optimized for in-memory access.
The disk-based engine (DBE) is optimized for disk-based access.

Both engines coexist inside the same server process, and a single SQL statement can access data from both engines.

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

Iskratel

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

Buyer's Guide

Relational Databases Tools

March 2026

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