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OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Users report significant ROI from OpenText Analytics Database due to enhanced analytics, performance, and data accessibility, despite its cost.
Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations experience significant returns and financial advantages with SQL Server, preferring its cost-effectiveness and analytics over Oracle.
I saved a lot of money because the storage was on a cheaper alternative and was not directly on OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica), but on S3.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The time we used to take with our earlier databases has reduced to one-tenth of what was there earlier, which is a positive outcome that can be converted to financial metrics in terms of return on investment.
Data Engineering Associate Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SQL Server is the most cost-effective with good human resource availability to manage it.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
With Standard edition, they have saved a ton of money and they are really happy about that.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
OpenText Analytics Database customer service is praised for knowledgeable support, though some users report slow response and escalation needs.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft's technical support is reliable, praised for responsiveness, though communication and on-premise SQL Server support may need improvement.
Throughout this process, customer support was outstanding, and we had a person actively supporting us from the OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) team for our use case.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
I give their technical support a rating of ten out of ten.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
There was a time when Microsoft support provided very crisp answers, but over time, they have diluted their support to third parties, leading to a drop in support quality.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When we created support tickets, the experience was very positive.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) excels at scaling large data volumes but faces challenges with schema modifications and node additions.
Sentiment score
7.1
SQL Server is highly scalable, especially in the cloud, though performance may vary with complex applications and configurations.
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) has very good scalability.
Data Engineering Associate Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The scalability of OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) is very strong.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The server where we installed it has grown from 64 gigabytes in RAM to 256 gigabytes, demonstrating significant scalability capabilities.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
Most of the time, they simply add another node in the availability group.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
I can scale both horizontally and vertically without challenges.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) is stable and robust, with minor query and network issues noted by users.
Sentiment score
7.6
SQL Server is reliable and stable, performing well in transactions despite occasional performance and deployment challenges.
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) is very stable.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
There was an issue with memory-optimized tables, but it was resolved in 2025, allowing you to remove that file group, which was not possible before.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
All applications supporting SQL Server in my experience work very well across various industries including telecom, finance, banking, ad, entertainment, and workforce management.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

OpenText Analytics Database needs better workload management, documentation, SQL optimization, cloud support, machine learning, and cost efficiency.
SQL Server faces criticism for requiring Internet Explorer, high licensing costs, complex operations, and lacking scalability and compatibility.
Projections could be made more dynamic, and if they could find a faster way to update, insert, and delete data, that would also be helpful.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) does not have a cloud-based UI that Snowflake has, which features a very good comprehensive GUI for querying and analyzing data.
Data Engineering Associate Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
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.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
When we consider the price for replication in another site, the pricing becomes prohibitive.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Setup Cost

OpenText Analytics Database offers flexible pricing based on storage, with competitive costs, community edition, and negotiable licensing options.
SQL Server offers high initial costs but delivers value in features, scalability, and ROI, and is cheaper than Oracle.
The pricing for OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) is somewhat on the higher side for the license.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Cost savings on human resources for Windows plus SQL Server versus other solutions.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

OpenText Analytics Database offers rapid data processing, scalability, ease of use, and cost efficiency with advanced analytics capabilities.
SQL Server offers robust features, ease of use, and reliability, ideal for organizations needing effective database management and optimization.
I can use it in Eon Mode in which I can store the data in cheaper storage such as Amazon S3 and have different compute nodes.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The best features that OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) offers are mainly the parallel processing, ETL capabilities, and the multi-cloud features which are very handy to use.
Data Engineering Associate Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Always On HADR functionality is one of the features that I use on a daily basis and one of my most used features, saving me lots of time, especially since previously I had to build a SQL cluster and Windows clusters that had many dependencies on shared infrastructure, but now with Always On, it is too stable with easy management and almost zero maintenance, which SQL Server handles itself.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Categories and Ranking

OpenText Analytics Database...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th), Cloud Data Warehouse (12th)
SQL Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
272
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) and SQL Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) is designed for Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 5.3%, down 8.6% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 11.8% mindshare, down 19.4% since last year.
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica)5.3%
Snowflake10.1%
Teradata9.4%
Other75.2%
Data Warehouse
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SQL Server11.8%
Oracle Database11.7%
SAP HANA7.1%
Other69.4%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

PS
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Reporting has become faster and more cost-effective but data cleanup and writes still need work
The best features OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) offers are that it is parallel, with Massively Parallel Processing (MPP), and it is a columnar database. It works in append-only mode, which is ideal for analytics and read queries. Additionally, I can use it in Eon Mode in which I can store the data in cheaper storage such as Amazon S3 and have different compute nodes. That helped me save costs. Beyond that, it is massively scalable, which was quite useful for our fintech use case. The read speed was excellent, and the data compression is good. OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) has positively impacted our organization by helping us reduce storage costs and improve reporting efficiency in our fintech company. The analytics team could run reports much faster, and we saved significant costs on compute and storage, especially with Eon mode and compression.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise115
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
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

Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
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 Snowflake Computing, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: February 2026.
882,594 professionals have used our research since 2012.