Actian Ingres vs SAP IQ comparison

Actian and SAP are both solutions in the Relational Databases Tools category. Actian is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.0, while SAP is ranked #24 with an average rating of 6.8. Actian holds a 0.9% mindshare in SQL, compared to SAP’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Actian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Actian Ingres

Read 2 Actian Ingres reviews

800 Views
248 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SAP IQ

Read 23 SAP IQ reviews

1,362 Views
640 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Actian Ingres

SAP IQ

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

SAP IQ and Actian Ingres compete in database management systems. Actian Ingres seems to have the upper hand due to its versatility and adaptability in various applications.

Features: SAP IQ focuses on analytics, offering data compression and high performance for data-intensive tasks. Actian Ingres emphasizes transactional processing capabilities and scalability, suitable for diverse database needs. SAP IQ aims at analytical performance, while Actian Ingres handles various operations efficiently.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP IQ often requires a complex setup but includes extensive support options. Actian Ingres provides a simpler deployment model with direct and responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SAP IQ's initial costs may be higher, but long-term ROI is notable due to analytics strength. Actian Ingres offers competitive pricing and quicker ROI, being cost-effective in database operations with lower upfront expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Actian Ingres vs. SAP IQ Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Actian Ingres vs. SAP IQ

January 2026

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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

Actian Ingres

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

26th

Ranking in Data Warehouse

18th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP IQ

Ranking in Relational Databases Tools

24th

Ranking in Data Warehouse

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of Actian Ingres is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SAP IQ	1.5%
Actian Ingres	0.9%
Other	97.6%

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

GustavHoltzhausen

Sr Sales Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Reliable performance enhances operations with good technical support

We run the entire IRS system, the income system, and the tax system. We also manage the entire Absa banking system in Africa. There's a lot of database applications, similar to those used in banks and the IRS The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance. Our system is used…

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Akhilesh Narayanan

Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Compression performance gets high marks but user-friendly interface needs improvement

The downside of SAP IQ, from what I understood from the management side, is that the front end for the DBA, for the admin, is not that user-friendly. If you compare it with SQL Server Management Studio, it is not that user-friendly GUI for the admin. But the engine is very strong and powerful. It is easy to deploy SAP IQ; the implementation and installation are easy. The downside I see is that it doesn't allow most integrated backups; many of the marketplace players such as NetBackup, those software integrated backups are not available. So, if you want to take a backup, you need to take it locally, and then only you can back it up to any storage or anything. Those features such as integrated backup, which would allow it to stripe into an appliance or something similar, are not present. One thing I notice as a downside is that if the CPU utilization is very high, there is no direct way we can find out which query is taking the most CPU. In any other RDBMS, there are DMVs available to find out which query is taking most of the CPU, but those features are not present in SAP IQ. If our CPU is hitting at 100%, it is not easy to identify which connection is taking the most CPU.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The deployment of our solution across a number of servers using Ingres .NET has meant that we can protect the database server behind a highly secure firewall and deploy the front end solutions on a normal web server."

"The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance."

"SAP IQ is actually quite effective when it comes to scalability; we have a setup that's built with multiple servers involved and that seems to be working fairly efficiently, and if we wanted to add more servers into this entire setup, that would be fairly easy."

"IQ is a very high-performance and high-transaction database."

"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."

"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."

"The primary benefit of SAP IQ is its ability to limit the expansion of the costly SAP HANA database, which has limited storage capacity. This necessitates a form of data management that involves moving data from SAP HANA to SAP NLS, which is essentially archiving. This allows us to retain access to the data via a link whenever it is required."

"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."

"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."

"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."

More SAP IQ pros

Cons

"The ability to reset the log file without stopping the DBMS would be helpful for us."

"The seamless integration is a bit of an issue."

"The tool gets stuck sometimes."

"In my interaction with SAP IQ's technical support, the people we are talking to don't know this application very thoroughly."

"Multiplex is very problematic. There are consistency problems in the metadata, meaning it is possible to lose metadata consistency. You should make sure you have healthy backups."

"I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set."

"The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru."

"Concurrency and functional error messaging."

"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."

"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."

More SAP IQ cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."

"Negotiation is very important."

"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."

"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."

"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."

"Negotiate based on the features required."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

Legal Firm

Financial Services Firm

36%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Actian Ingres?

The seamless integration is a bit of an issue. I would like to see more direct connectors and stuff like SQLAlchemy. It's there but isn't available as a standard, so it involves going to GitHub to ...

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What is your primary use case for Actian Ingres?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Actian Ingres?

Initially, it's a lot less expensive than competitors. Price performance has always been a priority, ensuring we remain competitive in the market.

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP IQ?

When it comes to SAP IQ, the areas that could be improved or enhanced include the error messaging and the locking capabilities, as that's where we often encounter problems. When there is an issue, ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?

Our usual use cases for SAP IQ is that we have a Software-as-a-Service architecture where this database is the foundation for our SAP BusinessObjects platform. This is where it's getting its data f...

See all answers

Comparisons

SQL Server vs Actian Ingres

Compared 21% of the time

IBM Informix vs Actian Ingres

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Database Appliance vs Actian Ingres

Compared 15% of the time

Snowflake vs Actian Ingres

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Tanzu Data Solutions vs Actian Ingres

Compared 9% of the time

More Actian Ingres Competitors

SQL Server vs SAP IQ

Compared 12% of the time

SAP HANA vs SAP IQ

Compared 9% of the time

Snowflake vs SAP IQ

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Database vs SAP IQ

Compared 8% of the time

More SAP IQ Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Data Warehouse

January 2026

Download Actian Ingres product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP IQ

January 2026

Download SAP IQ product report

Also Known As

Ingres, Ingres 2006

Sybase IQ

Overview

Actian’s Ingres is a leading, enterprise-grade database management system designed to reduce IT costs and time-to-value, while delivering the strength and features expected from an enterprise-class database. Ingres 10.2 is the latest version of the database, containing enhancements that will make it easier to internationalize customer applications. Along with improved performance and reduced configuration overhead, users can take their first steps into big data analytics with the new Window functions.

Actian

SAP® IQ software delivers speed and power for extreme-scale enterprise data warehousing and analytics. Its column-oriented, grid-based massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and patented data compression and indexing technologies enable companies to exploit the value of huge amounts of data at the speed of business.

SAP

Sample Customers

Groupe Adeo, IsCool Entertainment

ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.

Buyer's Guide

Actian Ingres vs. SAP IQ

January 2026

Free Report: Actian Ingres vs. SAP IQ

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