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SAP BW4HANA vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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
7.7
SAP BW4HANA centralizes data, enhances productivity and insights, with ROI expected in three to five years.
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
5.6
SAP BW4HANA support receives mixed reviews, praised for technical assistance but criticized for variable response times and delays.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service is 24/7 but varies in quality; technical support lacks experts, causing slow escalation and limited advanced assistance.
In the meantime, I found solutions independently and provided two solutions to my client.
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
7.1
SAP BW4HANA provides strong scalability through horizontal and vertical scaling, with positive user feedback despite budgeting challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ offers scalable solutions with Simplex and Multiplex architectures, accommodating vast data volumes across PCs or servers.
We can span the read and write load into multiple nodes, and that scalability is there.
If we wanted to add more servers into this entire setup, that would be fairly easy, so it's rather good when it comes to scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
SAP BW4HANA is stable and reliable but faces scalability challenges with large datasets and needs more cloud-orientation.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP IQ is stable, effectively managing complex transactions despite occasional issues, making it a reliable choice for implementations.
It's usually something external, such as lack of disk space or problems arising from the integration to other systems.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP BW4HANA struggles with complexity, integration issues, high costs, a steep learning curve, and limited customization and support.
SAP IQ faces challenges with high costs, inadequate training, stability issues, and integration limitations, impacting performance and adoption.
Integration needs improvement.
It is easy to deploy SAP IQ; the implementation and installation are easy.
When there is an issue, the error messaging we get is not always sufficient to do a fast and solid fix.
 

Setup Cost

SAP BW4HANA is costly, with high migration and certification fees, affordable for large enterprises but expensive for smaller ones.
SAP IQ is cost-effective with various licensing models, though price understanding and negotiation are essential for optimal implementation.
The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
 

Valuable Features

SAP BW4HANA offers flexible, efficient data management and real-time analytics, featuring user-friendly interfaces and strong integration with SAP ERP.
SAP IQ features column-based architecture, high compression, rapid queries, large-scale data handling, and integration with SAP BusinessObjects.
The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects.
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

SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP IQ
Ranking in Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (26th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.7%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP BW4HANA3.9%
SAP IQ2.7%
Other93.4%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Csaba Grünblatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities
SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.
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
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?
One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?
The certification cost is extremely high. I completed certification for $40,000. The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
Integration needs improvement. In reporting, I am not comfortable with the creation of variables, and some calculations need improvement in BW queries.
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?
The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru.
What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?
I worked on implementing new databases, migration data in production, and developer environments with SAP IQ.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP BW/4HANA
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BW4HANA vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.