No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs SAP IQ 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (16th)
SAP IQ
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (23rd), Data Warehouse (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
KK
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Works well with existing platform integration but could improve error messaging and technical support
I do not use SAP IQ's machine learning capabilities. I cannot assess the benefit of SAP IQ's distributed query processing for complex queries, as I am a non-technical operator. I am not sure if we use SAP IQ's data compression features. I think the compression we are doing is on the data storage level and not on the database level. I believe we do not use it, but I'm not certain. We do not utilize SAP IQ's support for unstructured data, as we do not have unstructured data. I do not have any strong opinions on SAP IQ's security features such as data encryption. It's not been something that has been much in focus, neither in our choice of the platform, nor in our daily operations. I guess they're satisfactory as they have not been a problem. I am not aware of the pricing and licensing of SAP IQ, as it's part of a bigger agreement, and I'm not the owner of that agreement. My impression is that SAP IQ is a rather expensive tool in terms of value for money. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SAP IQ a 7.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"Since my company is an IBM partner, it has enabled us to offer cloud data warehouse solutions on a 100% IBM stack."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"DashDB is a good product to work with and the extra cost you spend on performance, technical support and tools to work with is worth it."
"One of the most amazing features of dashDB is how it uses compression to get results in lighting speed."
"Ease of migration from Netezza DB; IBM ported over all Netezza's functionality and made the warehouse DB/dashDB the best of breed of the two."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"I like that the dashDB solution is built on DB2 technology, which means that you can use all the features of a DB2 database while outsourcing all the hardware and software maintenance."
"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."
"While queries with previous products could run for hours, with SAP IQ, they run in a matter of minutes or seconds."
"The product is easy to learn."
"In the organizations I have worked with, SAP Sybase IQ has been used successfully as a datawarehouse solution and as data store for ad hoc querying, and it delivers performance and enormous scalability."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The feature I appreciate the most about SAP IQ is the compression, which is very good; we cannot compare with any other type of EDW."
"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."
 

Cons

"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Db2 is not a solution that I recommend. We have a lot of experience and we are not satisfied with the product or the support that we received."
"The support channels need to improve."
"I would like to see improvements in backup and authentication. It needs the ability to increase the number of retained backups to more than 2 days."
"I would rate the level of dashDB support 3.5/5. While they are very knowledgeable in many areas, you can still struggle to get the correct resolution."
"The tool gets stuck sometimes."
"Aborts happen, and we don't know why."
"It's too complex. This is concerning something that will change immediately."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"A production database server should never crash in response to user input, but Sybase IQ has repeatedly done that for us, over multiple revisions of the product."
"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."
"The downside I see is that it doesn't allow most integrated backups; many of the marketplace players such as NetBackup or Veritas, those software integrated backups are not available."
"I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"Negotiation is very important."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
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.
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, ...
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...
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.