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SAP BW4HANA vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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
6.6
SAP BW4HANA enhances data management, offering in-memory analytics for better insights, decision-making, productivity, and potential ROI over time.
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
5.7
SAP BW4HANA support is generally reliable with good resources, but response times vary based on service agreements.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service is 24/7 but varies in quality; technical support lacks experts, causing slow escalation and limited advanced assistance.
In the meantime, I found solutions independently and provided two solutions to my client.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
I am satisfied with the response time and quality.
Senior consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
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
6.9
SAP BW4HANA is scalable for enterprise needs and effective on the cloud, despite hardware costs and no auto-scaling.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP IQ offers scalable solutions with Simplex and Multiplex architectures, accommodating vast data volumes across PCs or servers.
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
7.5
SAP BW4HANA is reliable and stable, though scalability issues exist; cloud enhancements improve performance and integration with SAP strategy.
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

SAP BW4HANA is viewed as complex, costly, lacking modern features, difficult to integrate, and needing better scalability and support.
SAP IQ faces challenges with high costs, inadequate training, stability issues, and integration limitations, impacting performance and adoption.
Integration needs improvement.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
The integration with AI/ML in SAP BW4HANA is currently very limited, which is definitely an area that needs improvement.
Senior consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ 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
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

SAP BW4HANA is often considered costly due to extra fees, with varied pricing experiences among different enterprise clients.
SAP IQ is cost-effective with various licensing models, though price understanding and negotiation are essential for optimal implementation.
The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
 

Valuable Features

SAP BW4HANA provides fast, flexible analytics, real-time reporting, scalability, and easy integration, enhancing decision-making with robust features.
SAP IQ features column-based architecture, high compression, rapid queries, large-scale data handling, and integration with SAP BusinessObjects.
The capability to handle a large amount of data and perform ETL operations is most valuable.
Senior consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects.
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
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

SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 January 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.7%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.4%, 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 (%)
SAP BW4HANA3.7%
SAP IQ2.4%
Other93.9%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Support and pricing challenges overshadow user expertise
In SAP BW4HANA, I have worked in modeling, extraction, and reporting. I have experience with different tools including Power BI, BEx tools, Web Intelligence reports, and SSC. The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects. It directly maps to target fields and source fields. There is no info cube concept, only ODS concept. We can create BEx queries in HANA itself, not as a separate tool. The modeling and reporting processes are easier to accomplish.
AN
Tech Lead, Database Section. at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Compression performance gets high marks but user-friendly interface needs improvement
The downside of SAP IQ, from what I understood from the management side, is that the front end for the DBA, for the admin, is not that user-friendly. If you compare it with SQL Server Management Studio, it is not that user-friendly GUI for the admin. But the engine is very strong and powerful. It is easy to deploy SAP IQ; the implementation and installation are easy. The downside I see is that it doesn't allow most integrated backups; many of the marketplace players such as NetBackup, those software integrated backups are not available. So, if you want to take a backup, you need to take it locally, and then only you can back it up to any storage or anything. Those features such as integrated backup, which would allow it to stripe into an appliance or something similar, are not present. One thing I notice as a downside is that if the CPU utilization is very high, there is no direct way we can find out which query is taking the most CPU. In any other RDBMS, there are DMVs available to find out which query is taking most of the CPU, but those features are not present in SAP IQ. If our CPU is hitting at 100%, it is not easy to identify which connection is taking the most CPU.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
36%
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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?
One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
The integration with AI/ML in SAP BW4HANA is currently very limited, which is definitely an area that needs improvement. The second area for improvement is integration with third-party systems, whi...
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

SAP BW/4HANA
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BW4HANA vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.