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MySQL vs SAP HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Users experience varied ROI with MySQL due to its open-source nature, cloud or local use, and operational benefits.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP HANA users saw financial and speed benefits, but mid-sized businesses faced mixed feelings about integration costs and challenges.
We do not feel we're getting value for the investment due to the additional resources needed for integration and maintenance.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
MySQL support is mostly community-driven and free, but Oracle's support, while effective, can be costly for smaller businesses.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP HANA customer service is well-received but varies; improvements needed in response speed, solution accuracy, and expert access.
We have no issues and usually receive timely responses.
The community support is better than the official SAP support.
While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like.
When we raise a ticket for AWS or Azure issues, we find their support is very proactive, while SAP's support is quite passive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
MySQL is scalable for small to medium projects but requires enhancements and tools for effective large-scale deployment.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP HANA efficiently scales for various user loads, supports growing data, and manages enterprise transactions across industries.
Meeting scalability requirements through cloud computing is an expensive affair.
Our operations have grown from a hundred data operations a day to as many in a couple of seconds.
There is enough scalability offered by SAP to meet our deployment needs.
The scalability rating is based on the ability to expand.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
MySQL is widely praised for reliability and performance, but occasional issues with large tables require proper maintenance and configuration.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP HANA is generally stable and reliable, but some users face occasional performance issues linked to external factors.
We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar.
We recently faced customer data loss during the cluster handover or failover fallback.
We have not had any problems in the last seven to eight years.
Regarding stability, they are using legacy systems and have implemented SAP HANA.
 

Room For Improvement

MySQL needs scalability improvements, better replication, enhanced security, integration, and upgraded tools, procedures, user interface, and documentation.
SAP HANA faces criticism for high cost, complex deployment, resource limitations, and a challenging interface, affecting adoption and usability.
It could be more beneficial if MySQL can enhance its data masking functionality in the same way it has improved data encryption.
Oracle could improve on scalability.
The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation.
The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.
The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.
Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers appreciate MySQL's flexible pricing, noting affordable options compared to Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.
SAP HANA's high pricing favors larger enterprises, requiring careful budgeting, with some opting for alternatives due to costs.
Oracle has different components, so if you need security, you have to procure a different license, but here everything is inbuilt and it's not costly.
It's a recurring subscription model, which is expensive compared to legacy systems with just a maintenance fee.
SAP is not a cheap company, and its licenses are expensive.
I would rate the price for SAP HANA as high.
 

Valuable Features

MySQL is popular for being open-source, SQL-compatible, scalable, easy to manage, cross-platform, with strong integration capabilities.
SAP HANA offers real-time analytics, integration, scalability, and a user-friendly interface, supporting large enterprises with efficient data handling.
With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment.
It allows programming, writing stored procedures, creating views, constraints, and triggers easily.
My experience with MySQL is very good for organizations that consider database security and availability as priorities.
This architecture allows for faster data processing and real-time analytics that were not possible with traditional databases.
The concept enhances speed, allowing the database to serve and move data quickly.
One of our dashboards using Excelsius was previously developed on normal BW on Oracle data, which took 10 minutes to open. After developing the same calculation views using those tables and replacing them with calculation views in Excelsius, the dashboard opened in seconds.
 

Categories and Ranking

MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
150
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (2nd)
SAP HANA
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of MySQL is 7.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA is 10.1%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers robust security and availability with impressive replication capabilities
Regarding their documentation and interface, there is room for improvement. Documentation is definitely required when running multiple databases on a cluster system. The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation. When there are multiple application servers connecting to the MySQL cluster and going through the MySQL load balancer, the documentation is not user-friendly. It's there, but only technical persons with deep knowledge of the MySQL database can implement it. Most of the community users or ISVs who use MySQL don't have many technical persons or DBA experts, so they face some challenges for the high availability of connecting high available databases from high available applications. That documentation should be simplified.
Dhiraj Jankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Users appreciate the mix of in-memory architecture and ease of backend management
The most valuable SAP HANA features are that, compared to Oracle, there is less administrative work and less complex work to handle, making it very straightforward. The tool itself takes care of the backend work. The main benefits SAP HANA provides to users include its architecture, which combines both column store and row store capabilities. Some places find the row feature important, whereas others find column store important. It allows some tables to be stored in a column base, others in a row base, and the In-Memory functionalities are mostly the highlight of SAP HANA, especially compared to disk-based memory users. This was the main reason SAP HANA was introduced initially.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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

No data available
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about MySQL vs. SAP HANA and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.