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InterSystems IRIS vs SAP IQ comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

InterSystems IRIS
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (15th)
SAP IQ
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of InterSystems IRIS is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP IQ2.3%
InterSystems IRIS0.9%
Other96.8%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2892648 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer/Database Administrator at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
Robust multidimensional database has enabled smooth API integrations and modern data workflows
I think InterSystems IRIS is a continuation of the Caché legacy. Since I have been working with it since 2005 with Caché, I think it is a really amazing tool. It is a very robust and very scalable database. It is very good to work with, and I am already used to working with it. Where it falls a bit short is in the availability of manpower and professionals who work with InterSystems IRIS or Caché. There are few professionals who work with it. Another thing is the cost and the license cost. I think there could be some kind of package that could serve smaller companies and small and medium-sized companies. That would reach a larger slice of the market, because the cost to work with Caché, InterSystems IRIS, and so on is high. I would make this remark about putting together a package and a new product that could serve small and medium-sized companies. The area where InterSystems IRIS falls a bit short is in the cost and the licensing cost. The licensing cost is the main issue I have already mentioned.
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

"The best features InterSystems IRIS offers, in my experience, include being a really powerful engine and a really good database."
"InterSystems IRIS as a database is very efficient, with its best features being its speed and high performance, along with an easy understanding of its data searching functionalities."
"InterSystems IRIS has had a positive impact on my organization by improving performance and data security."
"My final observation is that everyone should use InterSystems IRIS; it is an amazing tool on the market."
"In my opinion, the best features that InterSystems IRIS offers are its very optimized database, which I found amazing, and the observability it provides for checking messages and how the data is being transferred, which I find very interesting."
"The best features InterSystems IRIS offers are its powerful database and speed, which contribute greatly to my work."
"The best features that InterSystems IRIS offers in my opinion are the speed in querying data, and due to our system, which requires a large query with a large volume of data, InterSystems IRIS stands out for its query speed, making my work easier."
"With IQ, a transaction that previously took three days to execute can now be completed in thirty seconds."
"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."
"SAP IQ is actually quite effective when it comes to scalability; we have a setup that's built with multiple servers involved and that seems to be working fairly efficiently, and if we wanted to add more servers into this entire setup, that would be fairly 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."
"We can now have over one billion rows in a table for semi-real trans-national querying."
"While queries with previous products could run for hours, with SAP IQ, they run in a matter of minutes or seconds."
"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."
 

Cons

"I cannot determine a very positive impact or a beneficial result from InterSystems IRIS, although this observability part is important because we were able to find problems much faster."
"Python support can be enhanced further, as it's really clunky at the moment, considering that the use of Python is pretty much all over the world and nobody knows ObjectScript really thoroughly and deeply."
"InterSystems IRIS can be improved since its studio is very poor."
"InterSystems IRIS can be improved by addressing the lack of libraries, mainly mathematical ones, where we would save a lot of time on some formulas that we have to build by hand every time we need them."
"The area where InterSystems IRIS falls a bit short is in the cost and the licensing cost."
"The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions 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."
"With various patches of v15.4 and v16.0, we had instances where the IQ server crashed under certain circumstances."
"Aborts happen, and we don't know why."
"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."
"Concurrency and functional error messaging."
"There is very little documentation available."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
30%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Healthcare Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with InterSystems IRIS?
InterSystems IRIS can be improved by addressing the lack of libraries, mainly mathematical ones, where we would save a lot of time on some formulas that we have to build by hand every time we need ...
What is your primary use case for InterSystems IRIS?
My main use case for InterSystems IRIS is hospital integrations. In hospital integrations, I use InterSystems IRIS for object conversions. Regarding this use case, I utilize TCP/IP, REST, and SOAP ...
What advice do you have for others considering InterSystems IRIS?
My advice to others who are considering using InterSystems IRIS is to use it without fear, take advantage of all the platform's resources, and follow the community that has many tips and solutions ...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Global Investment Bank, Parkview Medical Center
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about InterSystems IRIS vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.