IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs SAP HANA comparison

IBM and SAP are both solutions in the Data Virtualization category. IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.7, while SAP is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 12.8% mindshare in DV, compared to SAP’s 9.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of SAP users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Read 15 IBM Cloud Pak for Data reviews

2,163 Views
238 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SAP HANA

Read 93 SAP HANA reviews

6,000 Views
180 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

SAP HANA

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

SAP HANA and IBM Cloud Pak for Data are active competitors in the enterprise data management market. SAP HANA leads in speed and real-time analytics due to its in-memory processing capabilities, making it more suitable for enterprises seeking enhanced data retrieval and process efficiency, although its high costs can be a drawback for smaller businesses.

Features: SAP HANA offers comprehensive data integration, supports large-scale data processing, and enhances business processes through in-memory computing. It enables automation and supports real-time analytics for swift data access. IBM Cloud Pak for Data is known for its seamless integration with AI tools, offers a flexible data environment, and facilitates efficient multi-type data processing.

Room for Improvement: SAP HANA faces challenges with cost and complexity, needing better integration capabilities, enhanced automation, and user-friendly updates to boost adoption. IBM Cloud Pak for Data could improve its deployment processes, streamline installations, and broaden connector options while enhancing performance and reducing transition complexities between on-premise and cloud setups to better accommodate smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP HANA has a reputation for powerful performance but can be resource-intensive and complex to deploy, especially in on-premises settings. It generally receives high marks for customer service and technical support, though some users encounter delays. IBM Cloud Pak for Data benefits from robust support, usually deployed in public and hybrid cloud settings, though user experience could be improved with simpler installations and enhanced third-party solution integration. Users often find IBM's support helpful despite resolution challenges.

Pricing and ROI: SAP HANA is appreciated for its fast and reliable data processing, offering significant efficiency and time savings despite its high cost. Its ROI is recognized in terms of operational efficiency gains. IBM Cloud Pak for Data is a cost-effective option, especially in comparison to direct competitors, though still considered expensive for smaller organizations. Its functionality is praised, but the total cost of ownership requires careful consideration of substantial initial and recurrent expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAP HANA Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAP HANA

December 2025

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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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.9

IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps large enterprises improve data quality, boosting AI processes and enhancing decision-making productivity.

Sentiment score

6.1

SAP HANA offers time and cost savings, with notable ROI and customization benefits, though integration costs challenge some companies.

We have been able to drive responsible, transparent, and explainable AI workflow to operationalize AI and mitigate risk and regulatory compliance easily.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

We do not feel we're getting value for the investment due to the additional resources needed for integration and maintenance.

A K 18

Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

I have seen a return on investment with SAP HANA as it typically delivers measurable ROI, especially in finance and month-end close processes.

PremKumarR

Finance Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

SAP HANA is a cost-saving solution that helps save money and serves as a time-saving solution that helps save time.

Joe Lau

Senior Manager at PwC

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.4

IBM Cloud Pak for Data's support is responsive and available 24/7, despite some delays due to system complexity.

Sentiment score

6.1

SAP HANA offers high-quality 24/7 customer service, but experiences vary, with concerns over slow responses and complex issue handling.

Cloud Pak is a complicated system, and it's often difficult to find the right resource in IBM to help with specific issues.

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

I would rate IBM's support at about a seven or eight out of ten because we have good support coverage owing to our long association with IBM.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Customer support should be more responsive and reach and respond on time.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

The community support is better than the official SAP support.

Hari Priya

SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc

While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like.

Richard Silhan

Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees

When we raise a ticket for AWS or Azure issues, we find their support is very proactive, while SAP's support is quite passive.

Dhiraj Jankar

Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.5

IBM Cloud Pak for Data is praised for impressive scalability and compatibility, despite being resource-intensive, with ratings mostly 8-10.

Sentiment score

7.8

SAP HANA provides scalable enterprise-level solutions, allowing seamless vertical and horizontal expansion to efficiently handle substantial data volumes.

I have not noticed any downtime or lagging, especially when dealing with large data, so it is relatively very scalable.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

SAP HANA handles large data volumes efficiently, allowing for adding more modules or users without performance issues.

PremKumarR

Finance Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Our operations have grown from a hundred data operations a day to as many in a couple of seconds.

A K 18

Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

It depends on what needs to change in the structure, as some entities cannot be changed and require a new implementation, while others can be modified.

Bassem Mohammed

IT Application Manager at TBTD

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

IBM Cloud Pak for Data is generally stable and well-rated, with users emphasizing scalability despite minor tool integration concerns.

Sentiment score

7.8

SAP HANA is praised for its stability, reliability, and efficiency, with improvements seen in version 2.0 and initial configurations.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

We recently faced customer data loss during the cluster handover or failover fallback.

Dhiraj Jankar

Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We have not had any problems in the last seven to eight years.

Richard Silhan

Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees

Regarding stability, they are using legacy systems and have implemented SAP HANA.

Hari Priya

SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Room For Improvement

IBM Cloud Pak for Data needs better integration, support, features, and pricing to attract small businesses and simplify adoption.

SAP HANA needs improvements in interface, scalability, integration, and cost efficiency, with enhanced support, training, and mobile integration.

Setting up the hybrid and multi-cloud environments is a long job and it takes time.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

I would love Cloud Pak to come with a demo database that illustrates the different components of data management in a logical way, so I can see the whole picture instead of just the area I'm specializing in.

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

I do not know if Cognos has all the features that users are looking for since we provide it as our standard and do not maintain infrastructure for other tools.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.

A K 18

Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.

reviewer8857240

Program manger at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high.

Hari Priya

SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Setup Cost

IBM Cloud Pak for Data's high pricing and complexity make it more suitable for large enterprises than smaller companies.

SAP HANA is costly due to licensing, setup, and hardware expenses, affecting affordability for smaller businesses despite robust capabilities.

The setup cost is very expensive.

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, for a small organization, the price might be relatively high, but for huge enterprises such as ours, the price is relatively affordable.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

It's a recurring subscription model, which is expensive compared to legacy systems with just a maintenance fee.

A K 18

Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

SAP is not a cheap company, and its licenses are expensive.

Richard Silhan

Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees

I would rate the price for SAP HANA as high.

Dhiraj Jankar

Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Valuable Features

IBM Cloud Pak for Data excels with data virtualization, low-code navigation, robust security, and efficient data integration and collaboration.

SAP HANA offers real-time processing, integration, scalability, and user-friendly interface, enhancing speed, reporting, and diverse business adaptability.

From there, I can work my way into a more granular level, applying all of that information on top of my actual data to understand what my data looks like, where it came from, and where it went wrong, managing it throughout the cycle.

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The benefits of choosing IBM Cognos, in addition to saving on cost, include having institutional knowledge about maintaining this infrastructure and enough people who have developed on Cognos in the past, which creates comfort in its use.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have been able to save approximately 80 percent of our time. We are not doing data analysis manually, so this relieves our data department of dealing with data.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

This architecture allows for faster data processing and real-time analytics that were not possible with traditional databases.

A K 18

Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

The concept enhances speed, allowing the database to serve and move data quickly.

Richard Silhan

Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees

One of our dashboards using Excelsius was previously developed on normal BW on Oracle data, which took 10 minutes to open. After developing the same calculation views using those tables and replacing them with calculation views in Excelsius, the dashboard opened in seconds.

Hari Priya

SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc

For more quotes and insights, download the SAP HANA report

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Ranking in Data Virtualization

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (23rd)

SAP HANA

Ranking in Data Virtualization

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Embedded Database (2nd), Relational Databases Tools (3rd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Virtualization category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Data is 12.8%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA is 9.5%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Virtualization Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SAP HANA	9.5%
IBM Cloud Pak for Data	12.8%
Other	77.7%

Data Virtualization

Featured Reviews

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Starts strong with data management capabilities but needs a demo database

What I would love to see is an end-to-end, almost a training demo database of some sort, where one of the biggest problems with data management is demonstrated. There are so many components to data management, and more often than not, people understand one thing really well. They may understand DataStage and how to move data around, but they do not see the impact of moving data incorrectly. They also do not see the impact of everyone understanding a piece of data in the same way. I would love Cloud Pak to come with a demo database that illustrates the different components of data management in a logical way, so I can see the whole picture instead of just the area I'm specializing in. It would be great if Cloud Pak, from a data modeling point of view, allowed us to import our PDMs, for example. It would be ideal to import and create business terms in Cloud Pak. The PEA would be great to create the technical data. The association between the business and the technical metadata could then be automated by pulling it through from your ACE models. The data modeling component is available in Cloud Pak. Additionally, when it comes to Cloud Pak, even though it has the NextGen DataStage built into it, there is Cloud Pak for data integration as well. Currently, I do not think we have a full enough understanding of how CP4D and CP4I can enhance each other.

Read full review

Hari Priya

SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc

Performs well with high database and reporting performance

We face difficulties replicating the AC DOCA table, which is a huge table, from S/4HANA to SAP HANA BAS, Business Application Studio, or HANA Studio using SLT. For developing Power BI reports using the AC DOCA table, we are replicating full data daily. We want to implement delta load, and while we used OData service for one client, the delta OData service link is not properly updating delta records. Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high. Due to high pricing, many clients are moving from BW on SAP HANA and S/4HANA to Azure SQL. I have worked with several clients who have moved all data flows to Azure and developed Power BI queries on top of Azure. Many clients are also using Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The certification costs are also very high, more than ₹1,40,000 INR. Previously, it was ₹30,000 to ₹40,000. I want to pursue three certifications but am unable to do so due to the cost.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	62

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The pricing and setup cost are handled by a different procurement team. Our IT procurement team is centralized, so licensing and the actual cost of the software are taken care of by a different tea...

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What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

I do not know if Cognos has all the features that users are looking for since we provide it as our standard and do not maintain infrastructure for other tools.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The main use case for IBM Cognos is for business intelligence and reporting.

See all answers

What are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?

Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...

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Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?

We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...

See all answers

Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?

SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 38% of the time

Denodo vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 11% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 6% of the time

Import.io vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data Competitors

Oracle Database vs SAP HANA

Compared 28% of the time

SQL Server vs SAP HANA

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs SAP HANA

Compared 7% of the time

MySQL vs SAP HANA

Compared 6% of the time

DuckDB vs SAP HANA

Compared 4% of the time

More SAP HANA Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

January 2026

Download IBM Cloud Pak for Data product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP HANA

January 2026

Download SAP HANA product report

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data

SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA

Overview

IBM Cloud Pak® for Data is a fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data to infuse AI throughout their organizations. Cloud-native by design, the platform unifies market-leading services spanning the entire analytics lifecycle. From data management, DataOps, governance, business analytics and automated AI, IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps eliminate the need for costly, and often competing, point solutions while providing the information architecture you need to implement AI successfully.

Building on the streamlined hybrid-cloud foundation of Red Hat® OpenShift®, IBM Cloud Pak for Data takes advantage of the underlying resource and infrastructure optimization and management. The solution fully supports multicloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud™ and private cloud deployments. Find out how IBM Cloud Pak for Data can lower your total cost of ownership and accelerate innovation.

IBM

SAP HANA, also known as SAP High-performance Analytics Appliance, is a multi-model database that stores data in its memory, allowing users to avoid disk storage. The product combines its robust database with services for creating applications. SAP HANA is faster than other database management systems (DBMS) because it stores data in column-based tables in main memory and brings online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transaction processing (OLTP) together.

The column-oriented in-memory database design allows users to run high-speed transactions alongside advanced analytics, all in a single system. This provides companies with the ability to process very large amounts of data with low latency and query data in an instant. By combining multiple data management capabilities, the solution simplifies IT, helps businesses with innovations, and facilitates digital transformation.

The solution is structured into five groups of capabilities, categorized as:

Database design
Database management
Application development
Advanced analytics
Data virtualization

There are three more SAP products that work alongside SAP HANA and complete the experience for users together. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a ready-to-run cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). SAP BW/4HANA is a packaged data warehouse, based on SAP HANA, which allows users to consolidate data across the enterprise to get a consistent view of their data. Finally, SAP Cloud is a single database as a service (DBaaS) foundation for modern applications and analytics across all enterprise data. All three products can combine with SAP HANA to deliver to users an optimized experience regarding their data.

SAP HANA Features

Each architectural group of capabilities of SAP HANA has various features that users can benefit from. These include:

Parallel processing database: SAP HANA utilizes a single platform to run transactional and analytical workloads.
ACID compliance: This feature ensures compliance with requirements for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) standards.
Multi-tenancy: This feature allows multiple tenant databases to run in one system while sharing the same memory and processors.
Multi-tier storage and persistent memory support: SAP HANA's native storage extension is a built-in capability to manage between memory and persistent storage, including SAP HANA Cloud Data Lake.
Scaling: The scaling feature supports terabytes of data in a single server and distributes large tables across multiple servers in a cluster to scale further.
Data modeling: This feature consists of graphical modeling tools that enable collaboration between stakeholders and the creation of models to execute complex business logic and data transformation in real time.
Stored procedures: The product has a native language to build stored procedures and uses advanced capabilities to create complex logic.
Administration: This feature consists of administration tools for various platform lifecycle, performance, and management operations and automations.
Security: SAP HANA provides its users with real-time data anonymization features to extract value from data while protecting privacy.
Availability and recovery: The tool supports high availability and disaster recovery through an array of techniques, including backup, storage mirroring, synchronous, asynchronous, and multitarget system replication.
Extended application services: Through its built-in application server, users can develop services such as REST and ODATA, as well as web applications that can run on multiple locations.
Client access: The product offers clients the ability to access it via other application platforms and languages, including Java, JavaScript, R, and Go.
Application lifecycle management: This set of features facilitates the building and packaging of applications, transporting them for development to test to production, and then deploying them.
Application development: This feature consists of a set of tools that offer application development on premises and in the Cloud. The programming language ABAP includes additional optimized features to build extensions to SAP applications.
Search: The search feature uses SQL to locate text promptly across multiple columns and textual content.
Spatial processing: This product feature provides native support for spatial data types and spatial functions.
Graph: Through this feature, users of the product can store and process highly connected data using a property graph.
Streaming analytics: This feature combines various data sources that users can utilize to discover trends over a set period.
Data integration and replication: The solution offers comprehensive features to handle all data integration scenarios.
Data federation: This feature allows users to perform queries on remote data sources in real time with data federation.
Caching: The capacity to cache data provides users with the ability to optimize federated queries against remote sources of data.

SAP HANA Benefits

SAP HANA provides many benefits for its users. These include:

This solution offers a high level of data and application security, beginning from a secure setup and providing continuous support.
SAP HANA offers augmentation for applications and analytics with built-in machine learning (ML).
The solution works in a timely manner, as it provides a response to queries within seconds in large production applications.
SAP HANA simplifies work, as it provides a single gateway to all user data with advanced data virtualization.
The product is very flexible, as it allows users to deploy applications in a public or private cloud, in multiple clouds, on premises, or hybrid.
SAP HANA scales easily for data volume and concurrent users across a distributed environment.
This is a powerful solution in terms of querying large datasets with a massively parallel processing (MPP) database.
SAP HANA is a versatile product that supports hybrid transactional and analytical processing as well as many data types.
The product provides a smaller data footprint with no data duplication or advanced compression, and reduces data silos.

Reviews from Real Users

According to a database consultant at a pharma/biotech company, SAP HANA is a very robust solution with good data access.

Bruno V., owner at LAVORO AUTOM INF E COM LTDA, likes SAP HANA because the product offers advanced features, helps reduce hours, and makes it easy to find what you need.

SAP

Sample Customers

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival

Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAP HANA

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAP HANA

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