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SAP SQL Anywhere vs SQL Server comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP SQL Anywhere
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
35th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SAP SQL Anywhere is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.2%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.2%
SAP SQL Anywhere1.6%
Other88.2%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MT
Automation Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Scalable, easy to use, but stability could improve
We use SAP SQL Anywhere because we have a lot of Power BI reports that connect with the SQL database that we have for our robotic process automation data. We create procedures and other elements within the solution The most valuable features of SAP SQL Anywhere are the ease of use and the user…
Shakti Gupta - PeerSpot reviewer
SQL server database administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Hybrid data platform has strengthened performance, security, and incident response for production
SQL Server is very mature, but I see areas for improvement, especially in performance tuning, troubleshooting, and automation. Although tools such as Query Store and dynamic management views are powerful, some troubleshooting tasks still require senior SQL Server database administrator expertise. It would be valuable to have more intelligent, built-in recommendations for root cause analysis, indexing, blocking, and query optimization. I would also like to see simplified and consistent management across on-premises SQL Server and Azure SQL services, as managing hybrid environments sometimes requires different tools and approaches. Finally, improved patching, updates, monitoring, and cost and license transparency could make SQL Server easier to manage at the enterprise scale. One area I would improve in SQL Server is its documentation and troubleshooting guidance. SQL Server documentation is comprehensive, but for complex production issues, I would like to see more real-world troubleshooting examples, especially for scenarios such as Always On synchronization issues, blocking and deadlocks, performance degradation, and upgrade features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SQL Anywhere is easy and it did not cost as much as SQL Microsoft."
"The auto-backup replication is a perfect feature. That is the feature I liked the most."
"It's a great product to use if you are already have an integration with SAP's ERP/CRM systems."
"It works well in general."
"SAP SQL Anywhere is very helpful."
"The most valuable features of SAP SQL Anywhere are the ease of use and the user interface is intuitive."
"We've found the solution very reliable overall. It's very fast."
"Of course, one thing is that as great with this and other Microsoft products is that it's quite well documented and there are also light versions available."
"The license fee is very low."
"I love the developer version. Microsoft tells you about all the cool things they provided for everybody. You can develop and do anything with it. It's really good to learn. Oracle will not give you that much freedom, and Microsoft really kills it. You don't do anything with it but develop, learn, break, and push it to its limits. If there are problems, you show Microsoft or ask them, "what's going on here?" There is good community support for the developer edition, and that's what I really appreciate. You can teach people about it without limitations. You can have small databases created. You can keep it for a year and then work on it. It's a good thing for learners and developers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution, compared to other RDBMS solutions, such as Oracle MySQL or IBM DB2, it is more user-friendly and has backward compatibility. For example, if you have an application that requires an old version of SQL Server and you have the latest version of the license, you are able to install and use it in backward compatibility mode. They keep supporting the existing legacy application."
"I love SQL Server's Common Table Expression, and in addition to that, I like its lead and lag functions, which helped us reduce a lot of code when comparing rows in SQL Server."
"If we want to expand to other servers and create an extra node, it's expandable."
"We use it as part of our product, so it is helpful for us."
"The basic features of the solution are excellent overall."
 

Cons

"We have had some stability issues with SAP SQL Anywhere, but I am not sure if it is an application or network issue. We sometimes have a large amount of data being queried and it cannot handle it."
"It is not as secure as it could be; there needs to be more encryption and we can find passwords very easily."
"A problem we are experiencing now is when doing a backup in SQL 2012 and 14 there's a problem with the license."
"The interface is not easy in comparison to the SQL Server. It could be more user-friendly."
"SAP SQL Anywhere needs to incorporate functionalities like SAP S/4HANA."
"Performance issues when syncing the MBO packages to the server."
"It is not as secure as it could be."
"If you are a new user then this solution could be difficult, they could improve by making the overall usage easier."
"When we run into problems, it's usually during installation, and finding answers to the problem has been a nightmare because the documentation is terrible."
"Setting up some of the more complex systems could be simpler."
"The performance needs some improvement and it needs more features integrated into it."
"The Task Scheduler has a lot of shortcomings. This could be improved quite a bit."
"Its security can be improved. When you look at the Windows environment, it isn't the most secure environment. It is exposed to so many attacks. They continuously need to improve the security of the platform on which it sits."
"Better integration with other platforms would be an improvement."
"Its support for JSON should be improved. It does support JSON, but the support is not good enough currently. They should also improve the way indexes work. Its performance can also be improved because sometimes it becomes very slow for certain table designs. It cannot have more than a certain amount of data. As compared to other databases, its capability to handle large volumes of data is not very good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SQL Anywhere cost us about $400."
"SAP SQL Anywhere is affordable."
"The licensing price could be better, more user-friendly."
"You need to pay for the license. It most probably has per-core licensing."
"SQL Server is an expensive solution."
"The licenses are really expensive. Their licensing model should be more simplistic."
"​It has the easiest licensing."
"SQL Server has the best licensing price."
"There is a license required for this solution and we pay monthly. The price is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"Their options for concurrency and locking are good, as well as their prices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
9%
University
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise122
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

Sybase SQL Anywhere
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AOK Bundesverband, Surgutneftegas Open Joint Stock Company, Molson Coors Brewing Company, City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International, Wªrth Group, Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Coelba, RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association, TALLY WEiJL
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 SQL Anywhere vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.