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MySQL vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise comparison

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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

MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (2nd)
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of MySQL is 6.1%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MySQL6.1%
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise1.6%
Other92.3%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Amandeep Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited
Careful data design has delivered consistent transactions and supports reliable microservices
MySQL is a reliable and mature relational database, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. One area is horizontal scalability. While MySQL supports scaling for applications, handling write-heavy workloads often requires additional solutions such as sharding, which adds complexity. Another area where it could improve is in native support for advanced analytics and large-scale distributed processing, which may require specialized databases. Changing the database schema on large tables can also be challenging and may require careful planning to minimize downtime. Performance tuning is powerful, but identifying and optimizing slow queries often requires manual analysis and experience. Having more built-in performance insights and automated optimization recommendations would be helpful for administrators. In terms of documentation and security, I think MySQL could be improved in those areas. While the official documentation is comprehensive, it can sometimes be difficult for beginners to navigate, especially for advanced topics such as application partitioning and query optimization. More practical examples and architecture-focused guides would be beneficial. On the integration side, MySQL already works well with frameworks such as Spring Boot and Hibernate, but enhancing support for modern cloud-native deployments, Kubernetes, and automated observability would simplify operations. MySQL is a mature and dependable database, and I hope to see improvements primarily around administration, better operational tooling, and a smoother developer experience rather than fundamental database capabilities.
reviewer2784705 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Advisor at a government with 10,001+ employees
Long term database experience has supported OLTP workloads and delivers reliable cross platform migrations
SAP is not putting money into modernizing SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. One of the things I discovered on the last project I was on was that they did not incorporate the Intel new instruction set in SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. Intel has augmented its instruction set referred to as new instructions. They did that to make conversion easier. When you migrate SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise cross-platform, you go through a process where it converts the character set. If you are going from AIX to Linux or from Solaris to Linux, Linux is referred to as Little Endian, while AIX or Solaris are considered Big Endian. This is determined by how the product stores data. The word size of these processors is 32 bits long. If you start numbering from the little end, it is referred to as Little Endian. If you start numbering from the big end, it is called Big Endian. To migrate a SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise database from a Big Endian setup like AIX or Solaris to migrate to a Big Endian setup on an Intel, the operating system determines whether it is Little Endian or Big Endian. When you migrate from Big Endian to Little Endian, the database has to go through a character set conversion, and some of these databases are quite large with gigabytes and gigabytes of data. They have to do a character set conversion to the existing database before they do anything else. The worst part is that you have to rebuild all the indexes when you do that. When you switch endianness of the database, you have to rebuild all the indexes. It will automatically do that for system tables, but for actual user databases, you have to rebuild all your indexes, and it takes a long time. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is a relational database and is the predecessor of Microsoft SQL Server. All that functionality that Microsoft SQL Server had came from essentially SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. The problem with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise these days is it is not expanding its place in the marketplace or expanding its position in the marketplace. A lot of companies have migrated away from SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. It works fairly well, but the problem is SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise was architected to be an OLTP engine and is now doing things for larger databases that were not in its original intended purpose. The endianness of the RDBMS is a major impediment to continuing to use SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. You have a multi-gigabyte database, and it will go through a conversion process in a single-threaded fashion, and then you have to rebuild the indexes. Rebuilding the indexes is lengthy and time-consuming. The part of the conversion process that is concerned with conversion of the character set is single-threaded. You may have eight cores on your machine or virtual machine and only one can be used in the conversion process. There is another problem with the whole thing in that it will sometimes not operate properly. Under certain workloads, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise will become overwhelmed. When you convert it, it does not operate properly in all circumstances. The root cause of that is that SAP in its desire to save money and desire to orphan the product has not recompiled or redeveloped the product to take advantage of the Intel new instruction set. Other relational databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server have the same issue to deal with, but with those platforms, they are taking advantage of the new instruction set. There are some additional Intel instruction sets or instructions in their Intel instruction set. With SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, they did not bother to incorporate support for the new instruction set instructions. In certain circumstances, the database does not operate properly. It is unable to do what it needs to do. If you do your research and go on the internet and see what happens with Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, what comes back is that it takes 4% longer to perform a lot of the instructions. When you are using the new instruction set, it adds 4% to the runtime of the database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The one interesting thing about this product is that it is open source. It comes from an open source product. MySQL has been positioned as open source, but it also provides support."
"ACID attributes are the most valuable feature, as data reliability is a top concern."
"It is a stable solution."
"It's a good tool, a good database platform."
"MySQL's clustering features are very strong, and you can automate scripting, so that helps. We wrote a Terraform script and ran it."
"It facilitated fast processing of the millions of records for billing of the call detail records in the Telecom company."
"MySQL is a very useful database which is used by a lot of companies, so it should be really good."
"I would use MySQL for a medium project, with around 1,00,000 hundred thousand users, because of the indexing and stored procedures."
"This is a wonderful database that is, in my opinion, underrated. Users are able to get the most out of my experience by taking advantage of its centralized environment."
"During the last 20 years, I have never had a stability problem with this product."
"The financials is the most valuable feature for us in operational terms because we deal with a lot of services and SAP has integrated everything for us, both financial reporting and operations."
"The actual interface is good."
"It's user-friendly, especially in the logistics field."
"SAP ERP offers us a robust platform where financial stakeholders spend less time collating and sourcing out records and implementing payments."
"It's pretty good at handling a large number of transactions, which is critical for a banking client."
"In SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, there are some built-in stored procedures that you can use to fire those commands and get the data in a very systematic manner where you can see the results."
 

Cons

"We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar, which affects database performance."
"I would like to have the ability to cancel a query in SQL Developer."
"There should be more tools to manage the on-premises version and more automation features."
"Its performance should be better. When we use big data, it is slow in performance. We should be able to use mirroring for improved performance."
"From a user perspective, the initial setup could be simplified a bit."
"Multi-master replication could be a bit more reliable."
"I would just say that it could be a little bit simpler to use."
"Improvements are required in character set support, scalability, and big data sets."
"The solution is kind-of expensive."
"SAP should refine its debugging method, and the process needs to be a little faster."
"In my opinion, product support is not that great from SAP because they have already declared the end-of-date for SAP ASE. They will be stopping product support."
"They turned a functional product into something where you have to go through a difficult process to do the conversion."
"Because the solution is customized. we do occasionally face unique bugs. There are always some changes that need to be made here and there."
"The solution should improve view partitioning. The documentation is very confined and available only for users. Distributors also would like access to it."
"Better promotion. Sybase seems little known."
"User interface could be more user friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license needed for this solution."
"The pricing is not much expensive, it's cheap."
"My company uses MySQL's corporate licenses."
"The solution does not come with a licensing fee."
"I don't pay for a license."
"We are using the free community version of the solution."
"We are using the free version of MySQL. We prefer paying for a yearly license."
"Microsoft licensing for SQL Server is probably ten times more expensive. I used to work for the government, and I remember when we were looking into upgrading to the enterprise version of SQL Server 2019, the licensing was going to cost 350,000. To get the equivalent in the cloud, it was going to be about four grand to get the same processing power and everything else. With MySQL, it was going to be about 300 for the same licensing. Cost-wise, for sure, there is a huge difference. Would you prefer to pay 300 a month or 3,000 to have the same amount of data resources? You might lose a few options that you need, but it isn't worth the price difference."
"The licensing cost for ASE is pretty low."
"Price-wise, the product is worth it since one needs very less infrastructure to use it."
"I rate SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise's pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
From a pricing perspective, I would say the solution is fairly priced. In Oracle, you have two or three databases at most on one machine. In SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, one machine can have mul...
What needs improvement with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
SAP is not putting money into modernizing SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise. One of the things I discovered on the last project I was on was that they did not incorporate the Intel new instruction set...
What is your primary use case for SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
I have worked with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise IQ, and Replication Server. I also worked with SQL Anywhere at one point. SAP acquired Sybase at one point, and the...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP ASE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International (ARI), Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Coelba (Grupo Neoenergia), RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association - NBA, TALLY
Find out what your peers are saying about MySQL vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,938 professionals have used our research since 2012.