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SAP HANA vs Spark SQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SAP HANA
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (1st), Relational Databases Tools (3rd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (5th)
Spark SQL
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Performs well with high database and reporting performance
We face difficulties replicating the AC DOCA table, which is a huge table, from S/4HANA to SAP HANA BAS, Business Application Studio, or HANA Studio using SLT. For developing Power BI reports using the AC DOCA table, we are replicating full data daily. We want to implement delta load, and while we used OData service for one client, the delta OData service link is not properly updating delta records. Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high. Due to high pricing, many clients are moving from BW on SAP HANA and S/4HANA to Azure SQL. I have worked with several clients who have moved all data flows to Azure and developed Power BI queries on top of Azure. Many clients are also using Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The certification costs are also very high, more than ₹1,40,000 INR. Previously, it was ₹30,000 to ₹40,000. I want to pursue three certifications but am unable to do so due to the cost.
Kemal Duman - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com
Data pipelines have run faster and support flexible batch and streaming transformations
We do not have any performance problems, but we do have some resource problems. Spark SQL consumes so many resources that we migrated our streaming job from Spark to Apache Flink. Resource management in Spark SQL should be better. It consumes more resources, which is normal. The main reason we switched from Spark is memory and CPU consumption. The major reason is the resource problem because the number of streaming jobs has been increasing in our company. That is why we considered resource management as a priority. Because of the resource consumption, I would say the development of Spark SQL is better. For development purposes, it is a top product and not difficult to work with, but resources are the major problem. We changed to Flink regardless of development time. Development time is less in Spark compared with Flink.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like that the product is both vertically and horizontally scalable, allowing us to do around 86 percent compression of documentation from 50 to seven terabytes."
"The performance in terms of processing time is unmatched due to the in-memory processing capability."
"The feature I found most valuable in SAP HANA is modeling. I also like that the solution has good integration and you can integrate it with any system, even third-party systems."
"This is a feature-rich product and I like all of them."
"Probably the main feature is its in-memory database."
"The most valuable features I have found are speed, dashboard, and reporting."
"It is in the internal control system and with the most important decisions for the management of the enterprise, the process of decision-making."
"I like the integration process. Also, the data is trusted by our management, and we use the data from transactions for analysis."
"The team members don't have to learn a new language and can implement complex tasks very easily using only SQL."
"Data validation and ease of use are the most valuable features."
"This solution is useful to leverage within a distributed ecosystem."
"The speed of getting data."
"This solution is a much more scalable and adventurous solution."
"Overall the solution is excellent."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"Spark SQL gives us a handful of methods to design queries based on its own syntax and also incorporates the regular SQL syntax within tasks."
 

Cons

"Unlike other databases, it lacks management features that legacy databases like Oracle or SQL servers have. They need to make the solution easier to manage and offer tools that make management more effective. A lot of things you have on traditional databases you have to develop into HANA."
"SAP HANA is not perfect and they could improve by having more options and more integration."
"I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement."
"I'd just like to see some more improvements done on the training, both on the functional training and technical training sides as a part of the complete solution."
"Some production features are lacking. For example, we cannot see any dashboards in the production department."
"Ease of use could be improved in SAP HANA. I like SAP because SAP solutions can be used by anyone, which means even laymen can start working on SAP tools, but in SAP HANA modeling, you'll need to know some other technologies and sequel scripting, and you need a separate skillset, so if you don't have the skillset, you won't be able to work on SAP HANA. Making SAP HANA low-code would make it even better."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The pricing is expensive."
"There are many inconsistencies in syntax for the different querying tasks."
"It would be beneficial for aggregate functions to include a code block or toolbox that explains its calculations or supported conditional statements."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The solution needs to include graphing capabilities. Including financial charts would help improve everything overall."
"In terms of improvement, the only thing that could be enhanced is the stability aspect of Spark SQL."
"Anything to improve the GUI would be helpful."
"Being a new user, I am not able to find out how to partition it correctly."
"In the next update, we'd like to see better performance for small points of data. It is possible but there are better tools that are faster and cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP HANA is affordable. I rate it a seven out of ten."
"The price of licensing is dependent on the size of the project, however, we have found that there is scope to negotiate the cost. If the solution is implemented on-premises there may be some extra costs for hosting etc."
"The licensing could improve."
"The licensing cost for SAP HANA is approximately $200 per user per month."
"Setup and licensing require planning and proper budgeting, as it is not cheap."
"It is expensive, which isn't a problem for us because SAP HANA is processing the data so fast."
"We pay for a maintenance license, and the licensing cost is high. In general, it is a very expensive solution."
"SAP HANA is very expensive here in China. My company bought the SAP ERP suite, which includes SAP HANA. For others who use SAP HANA as an analytical database, CPU numbers will affect the pricing, so as a solution, it's costly."
"We use the open-source version, so we do not have direct support from Apache."
"The solution is bundled with Palantir Foundry at no extra charge."
"There is no license or subscription for this solution."
"The solution is open-sourced and free."
"We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small."
"The on-premise solution is quite expensive in terms of hardware, setting up the cluster, memory, hardware and resources. It depends on the use case, but in our case with a shared cluster which is quite large, it is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
21%
University
12%
Retailer
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise63
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Spark SQL?
We do not have any performance problems, but we do have some resource problems. Spark SQL consumes so many resources that we migrated our streaming job from Spark to Apache Flink. Resource manageme...
What is your primary use case for Spark SQL?
Spark SQL has been in our stack for less than one year, though some of our colleagues are using it. It is a useful product for transformation jobs. We generally use Spark SQL for batch processing. ...
What advice do you have for others considering Spark SQL?
Regarding the Catalyst query optimizer, I think we are using it. We were using it in the past, but I am not certain if we use it now. We used it a long time ago. I rate my experience with Spark SQL...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, Hitachi Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP HANA vs. Spark SQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.