Oracle Database vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise comparison

Oracle and SAP are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Oracle is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while SAP is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.0. Oracle holds a 11.5% mindshare in SQL, compared to SAP’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Oracle Database

Read 292 Oracle Database reviews

7,648 Views
7,113 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Read 14 SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise reviews

915 Views
860 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Oracle Database

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Oracle Database and SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise compete in the enterprise database management category. Oracle Database appears to have the upper hand due to its high availability, reliability, and a comprehensive feature set that supports large enterprise needs.

Features: Oracle Database is known for its high availability, robust security, and support for massive data volumes, making it suitable for large enterprises. Its diagnostic capabilities help in maintaining consistent performance levels. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is recognized for its cost-efficiency, ability to handle diverse data types including views and objects, and its efficiency in using infrastructure, appealing to transactions-heavy users with budget constraints.

Room for Improvement: Oracle Database faces criticism for its high licensing costs and complexity in setup. Its feature-rich environment can cause performance issues if not properly managed, and its licensing model lacks flexibility. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise struggles with fewer updates to meet evolving transaction needs and may face end-of-life support from SAP, prompting users to transition to newer solutions like S/4HANA.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle Database offers on-premises, hybrid, and cloud deployment models, with customer service noted for being proactive yet sometimes slow and challenging. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise provides quick support, though it has faced criticism for market positioning and infrequent updates.

Pricing and ROI: Oracle Database, while known for high costs, justifies these with its stability and performance, making it a staple for large enterprises but potentially cost-prohibitive for smaller businesses. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise offers more affordable options, efficient infrastructure use, and appeals to organizations handling high transaction volumes while managing budget constraints.

To learn more, read our detailed Oracle Database vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Database vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

December 2025

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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

Oracle Database

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

292

Ranking in other categories

Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

20th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle Database is 11.5%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle Database	11.5%
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise	1.2%
Other	87.3%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Usman Muzaffar

Senior Vice President IT Operations at ZTBL

Running secure internal banking applications has been reliable and supports fast deployments

I am still working with Oracle products. I am still using Enterprise Manager 14c. I am using Oracle Database, Oracle ExaCC, Oracle EBS, Oracle WebLogic, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and Oracle Linux. I can answer questions about my experience with WebLogic Suite. I use it in my company. I have not used WebLogic's diagnostic tools. I do not utilize its lifecycle management features. I do not have much experience with WebLogic Java EE support, as I just deploy the application and the other team utilizes this server. I am not directly involved in WebLogic. I have been using Oracle Linux myself. The deployment is local, on-premises. I have been working with Enterprise Manager as well. All the components of Oracle I am using are on-premises. I use Oracle 19c database, Oracle ExaCC, Exadata on Cloud at Customer. I have been using Oracle Linux, Enterprise Manager, and databases as well. I have been working with Oracle Database for about 20 years. My experience has been 100% positive with Oracle Database. I have utilized its Real Application Clusters along with Data Guard. I do not use Oracle's Advanced Analytics and machine learning features right now. I have given this review an overall rating of 9 out of 10.

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reviewer2784705

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.

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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

"It provided better insight and diagnostics when data problems were encountered by the application."

"When we are not able to solve a problem we immediately contacted Oracle support team to help us solve it."

"They continue to improve and are always introducing new features."

"The most valuable features are stability, its backup and recovery, and its performance."

"It is very fast. The response times are very fast."

"The scalability is quite good."

"Technical support is helpful."

"You can scale the solution without any issues."

More Oracle Database pros

"SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is a good transactional database."

"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."

"SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise was basically as good as its rivals in my experience."

"The most valuable part of the tool stems from the fact that it is a very cost-efficient product compared to the newer technologies because it needs a very small amount of RAM."

"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."

"I like that SAP ASE can match code and the database index to index data in the programming language. There are many other valuable features, such as the table buffer, tuning, and various control agents like dispatcher. SAP ASE can handle many different data types, including views, domains, data elements, structures, objects, and various table types that are most useful in the application. Its modularization technique is also handy."

"They provide easy integration with other systems."

"It's pretty good at handling a large number of transactions, which is critical for a banking client."

More SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise pros

Cons

"Its administration side is very difficult. To install Oracle Database, you need to have some prior knowledge. You must learn their commands. I was new to this, so I found some difficulty in it. Its installation should be easier. It is expensive, and it should be cheaper."

"I believe that the simplicity of installation and configuration for logging in to Microsoft and PostgreSQL could be improved."

"When you try to tell customers that you can critically patch their system, they always complain about the cost."

"Oracle Database could be improved by adding more automation."

"Oracle Database is costly. I think it is an expensive product."

"If you just install a database, it's easy but if you install some other programs it can be a little bit longer and difficult to install."

"The security of the solution could be improved. It's an area that isn't as good as it could be."

"Even if you have backup discs and never use Data Guard, you still have to pay for a license for it."

More Oracle Database cons

"I think that the solution needs to be positioned better within the market as it appears as though the Adaptive Server is being left out of the SAP scope."

"Cost-wise, SAP is still expensive compared to other available products."

"The solution should improve view partitioning. The documentation is very confined and available only for users. Distributors also would like access to it."

"When we acquire a new project that is sometimes related to data migrations, after getting those data, there are lots of deadlocks happening."

"The overall performance of the product is an area where the tool has certain shortcomings and needs to improve."

"There could be some improvements in barcode scanning and RFID access."

"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."

"User interface could be more user friendly."

More SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution could be reduced."

"Oracle is an expensive product."

"We have bought a license, and it was a one-time cost."

"You have to purchase extra licenses for Oracle Data Guard."

"The license is inexpensive."

"Our licensing costs are between $40,000 and $50,000 per year. Those are the costs that cover maintenance and licensing."

"We have a yearly license, and it could be cheaper."

"They are pricing themselves out of the market."

More Oracle Database pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The licensing cost for ASE is pretty low."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	87
Midsize Enterprise	64
Large Enterprise	180

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

How do you run Oracle Database at your organization and why?

My company has been using Oracle Exadata Database Service for some years now, and we are happy with it. I will allow myself to answer your questions about why and what benefits it provides us with ...

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Do you know of any disadvantages of Oracle Database?

Undoubtedly, Oracle Database is a top product in its category. But it does have its disadvantages, and for me and my organization, that has been the limitations of the product. When it comes to Ora...

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What is the best use for Oracle Database?

Oracle Database is flexible and can be used for many things. My company's main use case for this product is for storing data. We benefit from its high level of security as well as from the fact tha...

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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...

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What needs improvement with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

SAP HANA vs Oracle Database

Compared 21% of the time

SQL Server vs Oracle Database

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs Oracle Database

Compared 9% of the time

Tibero vs Oracle Database

Compared 8% of the time

Teradata vs Oracle Database

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle Database Competitors

SAP HANA vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Compared 25% of the time

SAP IQ vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Netezza Performance Server vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Database In-Memory vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

More SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Database

January 2026

Download Oracle Database product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

January 2026

Download SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise product report

Also Known As

Oracle 12c, RDBMS

SAP ASE

Overview

Oracle Database is a top-ranking multi-model database management system by Oracle Corporation. Through Oracle database services and products, clients receive cost-optimized and high-performing versions of Oracle Database, as well as in-memory, NoSQL, and MySQL databases. The solution is available by several service providers on premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid installation. It can be run on vendor servers as well as on Oracle hardware, including Exadata on-premise, Oracle Cloud, or Cloud at Customer.

Users can select from various types of Oracle Database solutions, depending on what they aim to do with this product. Based on their specific needs, they can choose among options that include:

Autonomously managed Oracle databases: This type of database eliminates the complexity of operating and securing Oracle Database, while simultaneously ensuring high levels of performance, scalability, and availability for users.
Oracle Database on Exadata: Users who seek particularly fast platforms can select this type of running solution. Exadata is a computing platform that is optimized for running Oracle Databases and it serves as the fastest platform for Oracle Database.
Oracle Database on-premises deployment: The product allows for deployment on-premises for clients who have data residency and network latency concerns. This option also offers customers the benefit of updated Oracle Cloud technology, including Exadata and Autonomous Database.
Oracle Database in the cloud: Organizations can use a specific version of this tool in the cloud, benefiting from complete control over the versions they run and when these versions change.

Part of this product is a fully automated database service called Oracle Autonomous Database, which facilitates the development and deployment of application workloads for organizations. It is built on Oracle Database as well as on Oracle Exadata. This service supports various data types and simplifies application development and deployment from modeling and coding to extract, transform, load process (ETL), data analysis, and database optimization. The service achieves high results in:

Performance
Availability
Security for online transaction processing (OLTP)
Analytics
Batch
Internet of Things (IoT) workloads

Oracle Database Features

Oracle Database has various features which users can utilize in their work with the solution. Among these features are the following:

Backup and recovery: Oracle Database ensures the integrity of users' data in system failure situations. This feature utilizes a tool named Recovery Manager (RMAN), which allows administrators to perform cold, hot, and incremental database backups, as well as point-in-time recoveries.
Clustering: This feature enables high availability of systems in order to run without interruption of services on occasions when one or more servers in a cluster fail. Included is a tool called Oracle Real Application Clusters.
Data dictionary: Through this set of internal tables and views, Oracle Database can be administered more efficiently.
Logical data structure: Through its feature for logical data structure, Oracle Database stores data in a way that allows users to interact with the database without knowing where the physical storage of the data is located.
Memory catching: Through the memory caching architecture feature, users can scale up very large databases and still perform at a considerably high speed.
Partitioning: This feature allows users to divide large tables into different pieces and store the pieces across storage devices.

Oracle Database Benefits

Oracle Database offers its users various benefits. Some of these include:

The solution decreases costs for organizations and provides a high return on investment (ROI) through the multiple services and features it offers.
Oracle Database has high-security protection which includes encryption, key management, data masking, and activity monitoring, that secures organizations' data within the tool.
The tool offers users the ability to use a single database for all data types, simplifying the process for them.
Oracle Database can be deployed in multiple places, including data centers and public and private clouds, which allows great flexibility for users.
The product allows applications from different platforms to communicate with the database through its networking stack.
Oracle Database is ACID-compliant, which helps maintain data reliability and integrity.

Reviews from Real Users

Paul S., president at Advance Consulting Enterprise, likes Oracle Database because it gets the job done, doesn't fail, and suitable for massively scalable applications.

An Oracle DBA at a computer software company describes Oracle Database as reliable with good performance and very good stability.

Oracle

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) is a high-performance relational database management system designed for mission-critical, data-intensive environments. It provides a centralized environment for storing and managing data, with the ability to handle a wide range of data types and a modularization technique allowing easy customization.

SAP ASE is particularly valuable for financial operations, as it offers integrated financial features. The solution also offers various control agents and the ability to match code and database index. SAP ASE has improved daily data collection and program functionality for many organizations.

SAP

Sample Customers

Agncia Nacional de guas, Anbima, Aria Systems, Asiana Airlines, Astelit LLC, Australian Finance Group, Banco Occidental de Descuento, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, BT, Caja de Seguros S.A., Casas GEO S.A.B. de C.V., Comic Relief UK, Corsair Components Inc., CSAM Health AS, CSOB Group, Datacraft Solutions, DenizBank A.S., Department of Treasury and Finance WA, Office of State Revenue, Deutsche B_rse AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Deutsche Messe AG, Digicel Haiti, DPR COSEA, Essar Group, Essatto Software Pty Ltd, Farmšcia e Drogaria Nissei Ltda., Fomento Econ‹mico Mexicano S.A.B. de C.V. (FEMSA), FundaÊo Petrobras de Seguridade Social, Future Group, GFKL Financial Services AG, Grupo Posadas S.A.B. de C.V., Grupo Sinosserra, Guerra S.A. Implementos Rodovišrios, Hanatour International Service, Hays plc, Henan Mobile Co. Ltd, Hochschule Hof, Hong Kong and China Technology (Wuhan) Co. Ltd (Towngas Technology), Industries Corpa_al C.A., Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatstica, Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial, Kcell, LinkShare Corporation, MercadoLibre Inc., MetLife Inc., Nextgen Distribution, €BB-IKT GmbH, Octagon Research Solutions, Pacific Lutheran University, Paragon Data GmbH, Ping ltd., PJSC Trustbank, Prodaub _ Processamento de Dados de Uberl_ndia, Purdue University, Redknee Inc., Robi Axiata Limited, Shanghai Infoservice Technology Co. Ltd, Shanghai Sihua Technologies Co. Ltd, Sistema de Aguas de la Ciudad de M_xico, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Suddenlink Communications, Suprajit Engineering Limited, Tallink Grupp, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., Therap Services LLC, Think Passenger Inc., Trafigura, Transmed S.A.L Lebanon, ValeShop, VelQuest Corporation, Vodafone Group plc, West Virginia Network, WIND Hellas Telecommunications S.A

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

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Database vs. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise

December 2025

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