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MySQL vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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
6.2
MySQL offers cost benefits with open-source use, achieving up to 60% ROI, despite challenges in precise financial calculations.
Sentiment score
6.2
SAP IQ boasts high ROI with substantial hardware savings, low maintenance costs, though some users lack authorization to confirm it.
I have seen a return on investment with MySQL, as it allows us to manage with fewer employees, focusing on business logic rather than database management.
Software Developer at 8 Gallery India
If we want to scale to 30 or 40 lakh people, then it is still possible, covering three to four million users.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
MySQL users primarily rely on community resources for support, with official Oracle support noted as costly but effective.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service is 24/7 but varies in quality; technical support lacks experts, causing slow escalation and limited advanced assistance.
I would rate the documentation and online support a 10 out of 10.
Student at a university with 10,001+ employees
We have no issues and usually receive timely responses.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
Oracle provides customer support, and we can submit service requests that they solve on a 24/7 basis.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
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
6.7
MySQL scalability depends on the specific environment, with challenges arising in larger applications and benefits from cloud solutions.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ offers scalable solutions with Simplex and Multiplex architectures, accommodating vast data volumes across PCs or servers.
Meeting scalability requirements through cloud computing is an expensive affair.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If the database foundation is very good with well-thought-out table structure and everything, then scalability is easy.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
MySQL's scalability is currently adequate, as we have increased operations from ten thousand to twelve thousand devices, and it is working fine for us.
Software Developer at 8 Gallery India
SAP IQ is actually quite effective when it comes to scalability.
Tech Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
MySQL is generally stable and reliable but faces issues with large data operations and server overload, needing regular maintenance.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP IQ is stable, effectively managing complex transactions despite occasional issues, making it a reliable choice for implementations.
We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
The product that I am working on is quite stable because we have been using it for three years, and it hasn't given us any problems.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
From my experience, MySQL was pretty stable.
Student at a university with 10,001+ employees
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

MySQL needs improved scalability, performance, integration, replication, user interface, security, monitoring tools, documentation, backup, and clustering.
SAP IQ faces challenges with high costs, inadequate training, stability issues, and integration limitations, impacting performance and adoption.
It could be more beneficial if MySQL can enhance its data masking functionality in the same way it has improved data encryption.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
Oracle could improve on scalability.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The load balancer, MySQL LB, which is used to connect to the application, lacks clear documentation.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
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
It is easy to deploy SAP IQ; the implementation and installation are easy.
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

MySQL's free community edition is popular, while the paid Enterprise edition offers advanced features and lower costs than competitors.
SAP IQ is cost-effective with various licensing models, though price understanding and negotiation are essential for optimal implementation.
Oracle has different components, so if you need security, you have to procure a different license, but here everything is inbuilt and it's not costly.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
 

Valuable Features

MySQL offers fast performance, open-source adaptability, reliability, scalability, and excels in web applications with strong community support.
SAP IQ features column-based architecture, high compression, rapid queries, large-scale data handling, and integration with SAP BusinessObjects.
With Oracle, we have to buy another solution for encryption and masking, but MySQL supports native encryption, which enhances our return on investment.
Assistant Vice President at National Bank of Pakistan
The main feature we utilize in MySQL is the view, and I can say that it is the most valuable feature for our needs.
Software Developer at 8 Gallery India
As an RDBMS, MySQL provides us great capability. For a product growing to large scale like ours, where we currently have around 10 lakh users but will grow to 20, 30, 40 million or more, having a strong database foundation is essential. MySQL provides that.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
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.
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

MySQL
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (1st)
SAP IQ
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of MySQL is 5.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MySQL5.8%
SAP IQ1.6%
Other92.6%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Pranay Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
Robust relational data foundation has supported rapid growth and improved user data management
MySQL can be improved in several ways. It has connectivity errors and administration troubles that sometimes occur, though not consistently. MySQL has slow queries; sometimes when I run a query, it scans the whole table, and if the data is very large, it takes too much time to retrieve the data. There can be resource bottlenecks with RAM and CPU usage being a little lower than ideal. Monitoring system metrics is crucial because we need to identify and address these types of issues. Schema designing is another area for improvement, as a poorly designed schema can lead to data redundancy in the future. If I haven't initially planned for a 20 lakh user database and am only working with a 1,000 user case, it will be very problematic because in the future, it will affect the whole table structure, and we will need to change everything. Thorough thinking is necessary before even creating the table. MySQL documentation could be better. Sometimes when I need to find something related to MySQL, the documentation is not very comprehensive. If I have a problem with it, I have to go to Stack Overflow or something similar to get the full detail. Additionally, sometimes when we are connecting to local MySQL, it says we cannot connect to SQL, and I don't know the reason. The error messages are not very helpful, so we have to investigate those cases manually. There are multiple instances of this occurring. Documentation can be better overall. The integration capabilities could be improved slightly. Whatever I have used is working fine for me currently, but it could be a little better. The UI of MySQL Workbench, which I use, is not appealing to me, so it could be improved. MySQL overall is very good, and the foundation is very strong. We can develop features around it and different types of things inside it, which will make it better in the future.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
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 Business75
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise62
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about MySQL vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.