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SQL Server vs Teradata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
7.3
SQL Server delivers strong ROI through cost-effectiveness, automation, and efficiency, enhancing data processes and supporting substantial transactions.
Sentiment score
8.1
Teradata boosts analytics speed over 100%, enhancing customer service and satisfaction, with high ROI and user approval.
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft SQL Server support is efficient yet slow initially, with online resources crucial, and on-premise users face more delays.
Sentiment score
7.1
Teradata's customer service is praised for expertise but criticized for delays, with ratings ranging from 6 to 10 out of 10.
The technical support from Teradata is quite advanced.
Customer support is very good, rated eight out of ten under our essential agreement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
SQL Server is versatile in scaling across environments but may face challenges with costs and large data volumes.
Sentiment score
7.4
Teradata is praised for its scalability, speed, and flexibility, despite some complexity and cost challenges in cloud environments.
This expansion can occur without incurring downtime or taking systems offline.
Scalability is complex as you need to purchase a license and coordinate with Teradata for additional disk space and CPU.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
SQL Server is stable and reliable, though it faces memory and scaling challenges; proper configuration enhances performance.
Sentiment score
8.4
Teradata excels in stability with minimal downtime, robust architecture, 99.9% uptime, and reliable performance, despite minor large dataset issues.
I find the stability to be almost a ten out of ten.
The workload management and software maturity provide a reliable system.
 

Room For Improvement

SQL Server needs better integration, cost efficiency, scalability, support, security, and compatibility with non-Windows systems for improved performance.
Teradata users seek better transaction processing, enhanced scalability, modern interface, cloud focus, advanced analytics, and improved support and documentation.
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.
Unlike SQL and Oracle, which have in-built replication capabilities, we don't have similar functionality with Teradata.
 

Setup Cost

SQL Server offers generally lower costs than Oracle, but enterprise edition pricing and licensing complexities can be expensive and challenging.
Teradata's high cost is justified by its superior performance, competitive total ownership costs, and flexible pricing models.
Teradata is much more expensive than SQL, which is well-performed and cheaper.
Initially, it may seem expensive compared to similar cloud databases, however, it offers significant value in performance, stability, and overall output once in use.
 

Valuable Features

SQL Server offers high performance, scalability, and user-friendly tools like dynamic resource allocation and advanced data management services.
Teradata offers efficient, scalable data management with fast query performance, robust security, automation, and cloud flexibility for businesses.
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.
The data mover is valuable over the last two years as it allows us to achieve data replication to our disaster recovery systems.
 

Categories and Ranking

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
Teradata
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (5th), Backup and Recovery (20th), Data Integration (15th), Data Warehouse (3rd), BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (9th), Marketing Management (6th), Cloud Data Warehouse (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SQL Server is 17.6%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 5.4%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RajeshKumar25 - PeerSpot reviewer
Harnessing advanced parallelism for top performance while embracing cloud trends
Teradata is primarily used for data warehousing across all customers. My clients have built-in applications that use Teradata, and their use varies from customer to customer, depending on the industry and database size. The primary function is as an OLAP analytical ecosystem Scalability is…
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Relational Databases Tools solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite simi...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the comp...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example,...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about SQL Server vs. Teradata and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.