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SAP HANA vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Embedded Database (4th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
268
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SAP HANA is 11.4%, up from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 18.6%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

AS
Feb 15, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Jayarami Reddy Pujeri - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive system with real-time analytics for versatile industry applications
Our primary use case is working with various clients in industries such as pharmaceuticals and other services. We support clients as implementers of SAP HANA, providing expertise in functionality, finance, logistics, and processes The solution is very user-friendly and supports all kinds of…
Azizul Haque - PeerSpot reviewer
It has eliminated all kinds of inconsistencies, and it is reliable, secure, and fast
I don't know whether SQL Server can support large organizations where the database size is more than 100 GB. It might be because of SQL Server, or it might be because of the programming of the software vendor, but a lot of people think that it is a problem with SQL Server. It can't handle a large amount of data or large data size. In terms of its usage, about 90% of our applications are running on the SQL Server database. We have around 1,600 users for our software, and all the applications are connected to the SQL Server database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of SAP HANA is the modeling of the databases."
"It's user-friendly so long as you use it frequently."
"SAP HANA's most valuable features are monitoring, reporting, and price and stock control."
"The in-memory database is excellent."
"The functionality is of the solution is very good."
"The product's initial setup phase was really easy."
"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."
"It is difficult for me to narrow down what the best features are in SAP HANA because they work together to provide the overall functionality of the solution. However, the Fiori application is very good."
"It's a good learning environment, it's easy enough to learn and understand. Anybody that picks up the language early on will be able to develop in it."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Without any doubt the Integration Services and Analysis Services are the most widely used. These are the basis for data quality, data gathering, ETL process, as well as collation for the data warehouse, Cube-generation, and ad-hoc processes. The ease in which you may mold a process flow or even modularly add in new structures is something which is much needed in my job."
"The most valuable features for database management in SQL Server are SQL Server Management Studio and Visual Studio Code with its administration capabilities."
"SQL Server is a very mature solution."
"SQL is very easy to manage."
"The scalability is very good."
"The replication feature, user interface, reporting services, and notification services are really good. They are providing SQL profiler and SQLCMD as their integrated software, so we don't find it difficult to integrate any of our third-party applications with MS SQL because all of them support MS SQL very clearly."
 

Cons

"The user experience should be better. Its user interface is not good. I also don't like the transition concept."
"The pricing could be better."
"You cannot apply mulit-join inside the calculation views, for example, when you are joining tables."
"The openness of the system could be more developed. The solution should go into the cloud. The cloud mechanism should be more invested."
"There are a few areas wherein there could be a patch upgrade, and that can cover up the country-specific payroll areas."
"The solution could improve in the handling of backup data and the administration tools."
"The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it."
"The challenge right now is all databases are on S4 HANA architecture. You're running it for HANA, but not all the functionalities are available. If they can speed up getting all the databases on S4 HANA that would help."
"The stability of the solution should be improved in the next release. Sometimes it is great, sometimes it is troublesome. I would also like data conversion and the code pages to be a bit more straightforward."
"The licensing costs are very high."
"In the next releases, I would only like more enhanced backups and more restore points."
"The solution needs to be more secure. It's lacking, compared to, for example, Oracle."
"Maintenance of the solution is an area of concern, and improvements can be helpful."
"Sometimes, the tool doesn't support all the native features, and because of this, our company has to customize it to meet our requirements, which is a challenging process for our company's engineers."
"The solution is rather expensive."
"The pricing and quality of the product could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive, which isn't a problem for us because SAP HANA is processing the data so fast."
"The tool has a high price. I rate the solution’s pricing, one on a scale of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap."
"The tool is expensive compared to other products, like Oracle R or Microsoft, but it offers a range of all the company's functions."
"We pay $200 on a monthly basis."
"It comes with a significant cost."
"Setup and licensing require planning and proper budgeting, as it is not cheap."
"The pricing for SAP HANA is high. You pay a lot for the license, and you also have to pay for some add-ons."
"We pay for a maintenance license, and the licensing cost is high. In general, it is a very expensive solution."
"My advice is quite straightforward. If you know the number of users who really and truly need access to the Server then it is a no-brainer. If you do not know, then get the basic package and minimum licenses and start from there. Needless to say, users can develop/use data structures outside and then deploy onto the Server."
"The price could be better. Aside from the basic features, if you need any additional features that can be extended, for example, if you want to connect with the heterogeneous databases, they are being managed as separate services and not included in the package. If you manage a database in Azure, it's not providing SFS and reporting services. However, on-premises, if you purchase the SQL Server license, it includes SFIS and SFRS services. If you take Postgre SQL and MySQL, they provide almost all the same features even though they are both open source databases."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Some of our clients purchase the license and others do not, they use Express SQL Server."
"The enterprise-level license agreement is very complicated."
"We purchased our license and the pricing is fine for us."
"It is something we have been using for a lot of years. If we're paying, it should be reasonable."
"The price of the solution could be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
53%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP HANA vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.