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Actian Ingres vs SQL Server comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Actian Ingres
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (17th)
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 Actian Ingres is 1.2%, up from 0.6% 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%
Actian Ingres1.2%
Other88.6%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

GH
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…
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

"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."
"Ingres is the only database solution that has maintained a level of consistency and integrity about the way users interact with it."
"The most valuable features for us are reliability and performance."
"This is a very affordable solution, which is why it's used so widely in the market."
"We use it for our on-premises solutions, virtual servers and SSAS, SSRS packages. Also, our applications are .NET based, so it made to use it."
"They have improved the UI and ease of accessing the database and server which is good. You can load it up and start using it from the very minute it is implemented."
"It is easy to deploy and easy to maintain."
"Everything is valuable. It is a relational database system which is critical for storing reporting data or any data that is highly relate-able."
"It is an overall very good product."
"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."
"SQL is our main data store for enterprise applications, all applications that we have in the organization."
 

Cons

"The seamless integration is a bit of an issue."
"The ability to reset the log file without stopping the DBMS would be helpful for us."
"In my experience, I've found that scalability can be improved."
"Besides that, SQL Server has become very expensive like Oracle."
"SQL Server work best with Windows Operating System and it is not compatible with some other systems hence limiting its platform friendliness."
"We're paying too much for licensing at this time. They need to work on the pricing."
"SQL Server has good performance, but it could be better."
"SQL Server is a stable solution, but it could be improved."
"In some cases it is quite difficult, like the lack of ease of the replication and other issues. They have to improve on that. They do not have features like "always on," which is complicated."
"The solution could be better when it comes to security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is expensive in terms of licensing costs and pricing. If you want to scale SQL Server, it is very expensive. We probably have to pay extra for technical support. We also have to pay for the license of Windows on which the SQL Server resides, which is an extra cost."
"Currently, almost all of my machines are in Azure and I think it is the best way of licensing now (VM+software)."
"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."
"Since we are a cloud-based company, there is AWS pricing on top of the SQL Server pricing. The Enterprise Edition can typically sell from around $1000 dollars a month, which is not cheap. Then, there is an additional one-time Windows cost, based on the code, which can go anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 for the license."
"It is expensive."
"Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server."
"We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license."
"The price has been going higher and higher. The market is quite price sensitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
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

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 ...
What is your primary use case for Actian Ingres?
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 ...
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.
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

Ingres, Ingres 2006
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Groupe Adeo, IsCool Entertainment
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 Actian Ingres vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.