Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise vs SQL Server 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SQL Server
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
270
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 16.6%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SQL Server16.6%
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise0.9%
Other82.5%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Tejas Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-efficiency as it needs a very small amount of RAM to function
SAP is least bothered about Adaptive Server Enterprise nowadays since it wants to focus on promoting its new product, which is S/4HANA. If SAP gives out new releases and a patch upgrade to improve performance and provide additional options, then SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise can compete with other relational database systems in the market. The overall performance of the product is an area where the tool has certain shortcomings and needs to improve. I work in a very stable environment, and I prefer a very stable replication and database management system. Most of our company's customers do not want to opt out of SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, but SAP has announced that it will be ending its support for it in 2027, and though I feel SAP might extend it, I feel SAP will want to promote its new product. Previously, I heard that SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise's end-of-support dates were announced for 2025, but now I think that they have extended it to 2027 or 2030.
Gus Mtz - PeerSpot reviewer
Availability and financial reporting thrive with robust integration tools
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability. We never have concerns about the database. The ability of SQL Server to integrate with other Microsoft services, such as Azure for supporting business intelligence or data analytics, is primarily through Power BI for analytics tools. We use Power BI, but not in the cloud. We have interfaces with other databases. We extensively use the ETL tools of SQL Server for integrating with other databases or text files. The ETL tools are excellent for making jobs that run daily or hourly. For disaster recovery features supporting mission-critical applications in our organization, we have implemented the high availability feature of SQL Server. The always-on feature provides high availability in SQL Server. We use this tool daily for our risk management application.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The actual interface is good."
"This is a wonderful database that is, in my opinion, underrated. Users are able to get the most out of my experience by taking advantage of its centralized environment."
"They provide easy integration with other systems."
"It's user-friendly, especially in the logistics field."
"SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is a good transactional database."
"The most valuable part of the tool stems from the fact that it is a very cost-efficient product compared to the newer technologies because it needs a very small amount of RAM."
"It's pretty good at handling a large number of transactions, which is critical for a banking client."
"I like that SAP ASE can match code and the database index to index data in the programming language. There are many other valuable features, such as the table buffer, tuning, and various control agents like dispatcher. SAP ASE can handle many different data types, including views, domains, data elements, structures, objects, and various table types that are most useful in the application. Its modularization technique is also handy."
"It is fairly easy to work with. I like the high-availability options, like mirroring for example, and the high-availability groups."
"The performance is great."
"Most valuable features include: high availability, clustering, save backup and recovery."
"I have seen that this is a very stable product."
"The solution has a reliable database."
"It is the latest technology and pretty powerful in terms of the high availability of the virtual server."
"It integrates well with other platforms."
"It's a very stable solution."
 

Cons

"The overall performance of the product is an area where the tool has certain shortcomings and needs to improve."
"User interface could be more user friendly."
"I think that the solution needs to be positioned better within the market as it appears as though the Adaptive Server is being left out of the SAP scope."
"Because the solution is customized. we do occasionally face unique bugs. There are always some changes that need to be made here and there."
"In my opinion, product support is not that great from SAP because they have already declared the end-of-date for SAP ASE. They will be stopping product support."
"Cost-wise, SAP is still expensive compared to other available products."
"SAP should refine its debugging method, and the process needs to be a little faster. It should use more Pragmas and fewer pseudocomments. I would like if SAP added more features based on advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence and voice control. The modularization and if-else techniques could also incorporate the latest technology to code and solve complex problems. The SAP Editor should be more elaborative, and it should allow many more types of statements for all uses."
"The solution should improve view partitioning. The documentation is very confined and available only for users. Distributors also would like access to it."
"I am fine with the pricing, but pricing is an area that can always be improved."
"The performance needs some improvement and it needs more features integrated into it."
"The pricing of the product could be better."
"We experience latency at times when there is a lot of data being processed."
"Our biggest problem with SQL Server is latency. The communication between the cloud and the on-premises environment is slow. The data needs to be encrypted for security, and you have to exchange data certificates between environments. You can adjust the configuration to improve performance, but it would be nice if SQL Server had some templates to resolve problems."
"In terms of exceptionally large databases, it doesn't scale as well as Oracle."
"It could be more stable."
"SQL Server is an expensive solution"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost for ASE is pretty low."
"I rate SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise's pricing a six out of ten."
"Price-wise, the product is worth it since one needs very less infrastructure to use it."
"Pricing for this product is very reasonable."
"We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time."
"Pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The price of the solution is very expensive. If I went with the cloud version of SQL a license would cost me approximately 11,000 Riyals per month."
"The licensing involves a one time fee."
"There is no licensing cost for SQL Server."
"The price for the Standard Edition is approximately $3,000 USD per core. Once you include technical support, SQL Server is cheaper than PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"I know the SQL Server pricing model, I believe, is based on CPU cores that your database server has, but I don't know what the solution's prices are though."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Relational Databases Tools solutions are best for your needs.
866,218 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business120
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise110
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise is a good transactional database.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
The licensing cost for ASE is pretty low when you compare it with Microsoft SQL Server. If you compare it with SQL Server, it is pretty low.
What needs improvement with SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise?
The main thing is it's not getting upgraded to meet today's needs. It's not upgrading at the level of transaction needs. For example, PostgreSQL or Oracle, these are pretty good databases. They can...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Also Known As

SAP ASE
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International (ARI), Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Coelba (Grupo Neoenergia), RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association - NBA, TALLY
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,218 professionals have used our research since 2012.