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SAP IQ vs SQL Server 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
7.0
SAP IQ offers a high ROI with low implementation costs and significant hardware savings, despite some users not tracking exact returns.
Sentiment score
7.3
SQL Server delivers strong ROI through cost-effectiveness, automation, and efficiency, enhancing data processes and supporting substantial transactions.
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
SAP IQ's service is mixed, with good global support but issues with expertise, staff shortages, and inefficient initial responses.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft SQL Server support is efficient yet slow initially, with online resources crucial, and on-premise users face more delays.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ excels in scalability, with easy expansion, though some multiplex architecture limitations are noted by users.
Sentiment score
7.0
SQL Server is versatile in scaling across environments but may face challenges with costs and large data volumes.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.1
SAP IQ's stability has improved, handling high data volumes well, despite occasional issues in earlier versions under high load.
Sentiment score
7.6
SQL Server is stable and reliable, though it faces memory and scaling challenges; proper configuration enhances performance.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP IQ needs better integration, stability, training, and affordability to overcome awareness and concurrency issues, enhancing user appeal.
SQL Server needs better integration, cost efficiency, scalability, support, security, and compatibility with non-Windows systems for improved performance.
I would appreciate using Microsoft Pro as it can integrate with Excel or, with a simple query, consume information from the database using Microsoft Excel.
 

Setup Cost

SAP IQ offers cost-effective licensing options and economical implementation, ideal for large databases needing partitioning and performance evaluation.
SQL Server offers generally lower costs than Oracle, but enterprise edition pricing and licensing complexities can be expensive and challenging.
 

Valuable Features

SAP IQ provides fast query processing, data compression, and scalability, ideal for BI with high data demands and user concurrency.
SQL Server offers high performance, scalability, and user-friendly tools like dynamic resource allocation and advanced data management services.
I have been working with SQL Server for a long time, and it works well for me as I am using it in different applications, such as web applications, Windows applications, or the data warehouse reporting.
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP IQ
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (16th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
269
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SAP IQ is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 17.6%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kapil Dev Khatri - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps monitor queries and identify which indexes need to be created in the databases
SQL Server is very simple due to its GUI, which is available for users. It allows for modifications and has execution plans available, along with options such as activity monitoring. This helps monitor queries and identify which indexes need to be created in the databases, tables, or columns to improve performance.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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

Sybase IQ
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
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 IQ vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.