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IBM Informix vs Teradata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 4, 2026

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 Informix
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (10th)
Teradata
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (6th), Backup and Recovery (16th), Data Integration (14th), Data Warehouse (3rd), BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (9th), Marketing Management (6th), Cloud Data Warehouse (3rd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 3.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Teradata3.9%
IBM Informix1.8%
Other94.3%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Consultant at i2c
Has offered a cost-effective option despite frequent technical issues and limited market demand
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this frequent. The good thing is they cover those bugs in the next release within weeks or days on demand. IBM Informix should become hybrid and should include AI features similar to other DBMS systems such as Snowflake, Redshift, and DataBricks. This would help its value rise with the market.
David Durand Velásquez - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineers at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Delivers consistent performance and enables advanced analytics across complex data environments
Teradata stands out as a solid platform for managing and analyzing large volumes of data. Its architecture allows information to be processed efficiently while maintaining stable performance, even in highly demanding environments. One of its most notable strengths is the ability to run complex queries at high speed, which is essential for organizations that require timely and reliable analytics. Teradata offers a well-integrated ecosystem that supports working with different types of data and enables scalability as organizational needs grow. Its focus on advanced analytics, integration with modern business intelligence tools, and the ability to operate both on-premise and in the cloud make it a versatile solution for data warehousing and large-scale processing. Teradata's stability, technological maturity, and the availability of strong documentation and best practices are noteworthy. I consider Teradata to be a tool with great potential for any organization looking to enhance its analytical capabilities, optimize data processing, and move toward more data-driven decision-making. Teradata stands out as a solid platform for managing a large volume of data in different projects. Its architecture allows information to be processed efficiently while maintaining stable performance, even in high-demanding environments. A well-integrated AI ecosystem that supports working with different types of data and enables scalability as organizational needs grow across different kinds of enterprises or organizations. The focus on advanced analytics integration with modern business intelligence tools is particularly valuable. Teradata combines a powerful parallel process and optimizing SQL engine with a highly scalable architecture allowing businesses to execute complex queries and analytics in real-time. It supports multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments, giving organizations flexibility to choose the setup that best aligns with their strategy. One of the biggest strengths is the ability to unify disparate data sources and support high concurrency, enabling different teams, such as analytics, operations, BI, and data science, to access consistent, trusted data across the enterprise.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has made financial reporting possible by allowing financial people the opportunity to set Informix to "Auto Pilot" so that they can attend other duties."
"The most valuable feature is concurrency and locking because my customers usually use databases in OLTP mode. So, for a large number of competitive users. Other features that are well valued are quick large-scale data types. It is better than Oracle."
"Flexible Grid provides the ability to automatically create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and stored procedures on all nodes within the grid as a single operation."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"It is very easy to install IBM Informix, very easy to scale, and support is quite better."
"It supports in-house-built applications in .NET and VB6"
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"​Building a data warehouse with Teradata has definitely helped a lot of our downstream applications to more easily access information."
"Teradata's best feature is its speed with historical data."
"When it comes to integration, tools like Informatica seamlessly connect with Teradata. We ensure the Teradata database is configured correctly in Informatica, including the proper hostname and properties for the load process. We didn't find any major complexity or issues with integration."
"It is a stable program."
"Teradata's pretty fast."
"Teradata combines a powerful parallel process and optimizing SQL engine with a highly scalable architecture allowing businesses to execute complex queries and analytics in real-time."
"Teradata effectively uses parallelism to the granular level, performing better than other databases."
"It is a highly robust software solution."
 

Cons

"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"The solution really doesn't add new features very often."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"The following could be better: licensing, architecture openness, integration with other tools."
"Apart from Control-M, it would be nice if it could integrate with other tools."
"I'd like to see better processing on a transactional level and star schema optimization."
"I was not impressed by tech support. We made several requests regarding performance issues we had with our applications but did not get helpful answers."
"The cost of Teradata Cloud Data Warehouse has room for improvement."
"Since I was working on the very basic, legacy systems, the memory thing was always a challenge. If Teradata is moving to the cloud, the space constraint or the memory issue that my company generally faces will eventually resolve, in time. What I'd like to see in the next release of Teradata is that it becomes full-fledged on the cloud, apart from better connectivity to various systems. For example, if I have to read or include a Python script, if I write some basic codes, I should be able to read even unstructured data. I know that it's not supported even in Snowflake, but at least semi-structured data support, if that can be a little more enhanced, that would be good."
"It needs a teaching web site with more training on third-party tools used for BI."
"I choose 8 out of 10 for Teradata because there is always the scope for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The free edition can be enough to handle moderate-size implementations, but you may want a pay for edition to benefit from more functionality, such as replication."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"The cost of running Teradata is quite high, but you get a good return on investment."
"​When looking into implementing this product, pricing is the main issue followed by technical expertise​."
"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Teradata IntelliFlex, which is very expensive."
"I am using the free version of Teradata."
"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"We are looking for a more flexible cost model for the next version that we use, whether it be cloud or on-premise."
"The initial cost may seem high, but the TCO is low."
"The tool costs about 30,000 euros a month, while Azure Synapse SQL only costs 10,000."
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Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise52
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
There is a cost reason to move from IBM Informix. It is relatively cheaper than Oracle. The second reason is that moving the whole application to a new database would require significant cost. The ...
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this f...
What is your primary use case for IBM Informix?
We are using IBM Informix for OLTP systems. We are using IBM Informix although it is a technology that is not very popular compared to others. We are using it because our application was initially ...
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite simi...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the comp...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example,...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Informix
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture, Teradata Vantage Enterprise (DIY)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Informix vs. Teradata and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.