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Oracle Database vs SAP IQ comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Oracle Database offers high ROI with excellent performance and management, justifying its cost for medium-to-large businesses.
Sentiment score
6.2
SAP IQ boasts high ROI with substantial hardware savings, low maintenance costs, though some users lack authorization to confirm it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Oracle Database support has mixed reviews; effective for some, but others face slow responses and complex processes.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service is 24/7 but varies in quality; technical support lacks experts, causing slow escalation and limited advanced assistance.
Oracle's technical support is not very effective.
It seems very difficult to get proper advanced assistance on advanced or complicated problems.
The quality of support from SAP is very good; if it's a known problem, they will have a knowledge base, so we will get immediate assistance.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Oracle Database is praised for scalability and large dataset management, though costs and configurations can be challenging for growth.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ offers scalable solutions with Simplex and Multiplex architectures, accommodating vast data volumes across PCs or servers.
The database regularly releases new versions with better performance and security features.
SAP IQ is actually quite effective when it comes to scalability.
We can span the read and write load into multiple nodes, and that scalability is there.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Oracle Database is highly stable and reliable, offering consistent performance with minimal downtime and 24/7 availability.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP IQ is stable, effectively managing complex transactions despite occasional issues, making it a reliable choice for implementations.
Oracle Database is very robust, and I rate its stability nine out of ten.
It's usually something external, such as lack of disk space or problems arising from the integration to other systems.
 

Room For Improvement

Oracle Database users seek better pricing, usability, and technical support, with improvements needed in performance, cloud services, and documentation.
SAP IQ faces challenges with high costs, inadequate training, stability issues, and integration limitations, impacting performance and adoption.
Oracle Database needs improvement in data analytics capabilities, AI involvement, machine learning, and deep learning.
One existing feature that distinguishes Oracle Database from others is its ability to log errors in the database itself.
When there is an issue, the error messaging we get is not always sufficient to do a fast and solid fix.
If the CPU utilization is very high, there is no direct way we can find out which query is taking the most CPU.
 

Setup Cost

Oracle Database is costly with complex licensing, though offers discounts; valued for features but hefty traditional licensing persists.
SAP IQ is cost-effective with various licensing models, though price understanding and negotiation are essential for optimal implementation.
For medium businesses, Oracle and IBM DB2 pricing are quite similar.
 

Valuable Features

Oracle Database is renowned for high availability, scalability, security, and comprehensive features, making it essential for enterprises.
SAP IQ features column-based architecture, high compression, rapid queries, large-scale data handling, and integration with SAP BusinessObjects.
Its data management capabilities include data quality, data integration, data architecture, modeling, and data security, which are very important for data-driven companies.
Regarding what I value about Oracle Database, as far as execution is concerned, I think it is one of the best databases I have come across.
We can get historical data quickly, and you can fetch information very quickly because every column is indexed.
The most valuable feature of SAP IQ for us is that it works very effectively with the SAP BusinessObjects which we use it with.
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Database
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
291
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP IQ
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle Database is 12.6%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Database12.6%
SAP IQ1.1%
Other86.3%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Praful Kolekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Has developed advanced procedures and improved flexibility through extensive experience
One existing feature that distinguishes Oracle Database from others is its ability to log errors in the database itself. We can directly log the errors, which I have observed and used. Another improvement could be the ability to predict the actual time required to execute a particular query or procedure. This would be very helpful. If it has already been predicted that a particular query will take a specific amount of time, then there is no point in waiting for execution, especially during testing. For instance, if we are doing improvement or optimization for a particular query, and we are aware that this query will take one hour, we can stop it immediately and do more optimization instead of waiting.
Tejas Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Columnar database, so pulling records is easy but there isn't enough documentation for installation
I've seen very few SAP IQ systems in recent years. So people are moving away from SAP IQ In the last three years, I've rarely encountered customers using it. Fewer systems with SAP IQ usage among our customers. Most of them have moved on to HANA. There are parallel products, and there are also viable alternatives from AWS, so many have migrated to those.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business87
Midsize Enterprise64
Large Enterprise178
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

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 ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Oracle 12c, RDBMS
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agncia 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), FundaÊo 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 Estatstica, 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 Ro 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
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Database vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.