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IBM Netezza Performance Server vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

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
7.1
IBM Netezza Performance Server improves data query speed and efficiency, enhancing business performance and cost savings through compression.
Sentiment score
6.2
SAP IQ boasts high ROI with substantial hardware savings, low maintenance costs, though some users lack authorization to confirm it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Netezza Performance Server praised for knowledgeable support; mixed feedback on resolution speed post-acquisition, yet communication remains consistent.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service is 24/7 but varies in quality; technical support lacks experts, causing slow escalation and limited advanced assistance.
Technical support is very costly for me, accounting for twenty-five to thirty percent of the product cost.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
It seems very difficult to get proper advanced assistance on advanced or complicated problems.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The quality of support from SAP is very good; if it's a known problem, they will have a knowledge base, so we will get immediate assistance.
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Netezza struggles with scalability, requiring extra hardware for expansion, prompting users to consider cloud alternatives for growth.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ offers scalable solutions with Simplex and Multiplex architectures, accommodating vast data volumes across PCs or servers.
It is provided as a pre-configured box, and scaling is not an option.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
We can span the read and write load into multiple nodes, and that scalability is there.
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
If we wanted to add more servers into this entire setup, that would be fairly easy, so it's rather good when it comes to scalability.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
IBM Netezza Performance Server is stable, offering high uptime and reliable performance, with occasional issues due to maintenance or compatibility.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP IQ is stable, effectively managing complex transactions despite occasional issues, making it a reliable choice for implementations.
It's usually something external, such as lack of disk space or problems arising from the integration to other systems.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Netezza struggles with scalability, user interface, query performance, big data support, and high costs, needing better tools and integration.
SAP IQ faces challenges with high costs, inadequate training, stability issues, and integration limitations, impacting performance and adoption.
The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
If the CPU utilization is very high, there is no direct way we can find out which query is taking the most CPU.
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
When there is an issue, the error messaging we get is not always sufficient to do a fast and solid fix.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

IBM Netezza offers high performance and low maintenance but is considered costly, especially for mid-sized organizations, with significant licensing fees.
SAP IQ is cost-effective with various licensing models, though price understanding and negotiation are essential for optimal implementation.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Netezza Performance Server delivers fast analytics, ease of use, robust support, and efficient data warehousing with minimal maintenance.
SAP IQ features column-based architecture, high compression, rapid queries, large-scale data handling, and integration with SAP BusinessObjects.
It operates as a high-speed data warehouse, which is essential for handling big data.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
We can get historical data quickly, and you can fetch information very quickly because every column is indexed.
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable feature of SAP IQ for us is that it works very effectively with the SAP BusinessObjects which we use it with.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Netezza Performance Server
Ranking in Data Warehouse
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (7th)
SAP IQ
Ranking in Data Warehouse
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Netezza Performance Server is 4.3%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.8%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Netezza Performance Server4.3%
SAP IQ2.8%
Other92.9%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Shiv Subramaniam Koduvayur - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at MAF Retail
Parallel data processing streamlines operations while cost and cloud integration challenge adoption
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment. For the cost to be reduced, it should match competitors. Many features need to be incorporated on the cloud.
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.
report
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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
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
35%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only availab...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The solution has generally received positive feedback from me and is recommended for continued use by end users. However, the product cost is high compared to others in the market, and this cost ha...
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

Netezza Performance Server, Netezza, Netezza Analytics
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Seattle Childrens Hospital, Carphone Warehouse, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Battelle, Start Today Co. Ltd., Kelley Blue Book, Trident Marketing, Elisa Corporation, Catalina Marketing, iBasis, Barnes & Noble, Qualcomm, MediaMath, Acxiom, iBasis, Foxwoods
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.