No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

SAP SQL Anywhere 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP SQL Anywhere
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
32nd
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
6.6
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SAP SQL Anywhere is 1.4%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 10.7%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server10.7%
SAP SQL Anywhere1.4%
Other87.9%
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…
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable features of SAP SQL Anywhere are the ease of use and the user interface is intuitive."
"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."
"SAP SQL Anywhere is very helpful."
"SQL Anywhere is easy and it did not cost as much as SQL Microsoft."
"Stability and usability, which is quite simple, are two of the solution's most valuable features."
"It is secure, and it is fast. For our present database size, we are using the Always-On feature on SQL Server so that our transactions are replicated among three servers. If one server goes down, we can find the data from other servers. We have benefited from this feature."
"Technical support is very good."
"The solution is easy to use and provides similar features to other competitors."
"The columnstore index feature is useful for us, and we also use the integration services."
"We assist companies to improve the performance of their servers, and we're generally able to improve performance by 40%."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"It is a simple query language. It is consistent across all versions. If you start with an older version, move to the newer version. The same code will still work."
 

Cons

"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."
"It is not as secure as it could be."
"The interface is not easy in comparison to the SQL Server. It could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Performance issues when syncing the MBO packages to the server."
"A problem we are experiencing now is when doing a backup in SQL 2012 and 14."
"The interface is not easy in comparison to the SQL Server. It could be more user-friendly."
"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 price of SQL Server could be reduced, the license is expensive."
"I want to see one improvement and this involves the replication between the DC and DR."
"Running long and complicated queries could make the software crash."
"SQL Server could integrate better with other platforms."
"The solution could be better integrated with the SQL Server Studio tool."
"The web interface and the command line interface could be better so we could manage and build some things around an API. If we could build our own solution, our own interface, and then manage the solution through that open API, that would be better."
"The solution could be better when it comes to security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP SQL Anywhere is affordable."
"SQL Anywhere cost us about $400."
"It costs a lot."
"Synapse is a bit costly. If I compare it with different databases, I think it's a reasonable price"
"It is something we have been using for a lot of years. If we're paying, it should be reasonable."
"​We are a Microsoft shop, so we use Active Directory. That integrates well with this product, but we did look at Oracle. We also looked at IBM. This was the best price point for us for what we were getting.​"
"We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time."
"SQL Server has the best licensing price."
"Its price is fine. You have to buy the license and support."
"This solution is available at a much lower price point than Oracle."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Relational Databases Tools solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
University
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
40%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
4%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise118
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.