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SAP IQ vs SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP IQ
Ranking in Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (23rd)
SAP NetWeaver Business Ware...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP IQ is 3.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is 2.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP IQ3.2%
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse2.2%
Other94.6%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AK
Project Manager - Analytics at Mindsprint
Can transform data per clients' needs and can easily distribute reports to end users
I would recommend looking at all of the solutions currently available and then decide. I would not immediately suggest going for SAP NetWeaver. Being able to transform the data according to my requirements is a crucial feature; the phasing layers are helpful to distinguish data with respect to a specific project; analytics and reporting are very feasible; and the distribution of reports to the end users is also very easy. However, connectors need to be simplified, and technical support needs to be improved. Thus, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse at eight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
"In the organizations I have worked with, SAP Sybase IQ has been used successfully as a datawarehouse solution and as data store for ad hoc querying, and it delivers performance and enormous scalability."
"But I do not think that other products really have an advantage for warehousing over the SAP IQ solution."
"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."
"It’s the central component of our enterprise data warehouse."
"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."
"With IQ, a transaction that previously took three days to execute can now be completed in thirty seconds."
"IQ is a very high-performance and high-transaction database."
"Data modeling is a valuable feature."
"Queries based on the Data warehouse have enabled the Service department of the organization analyze data deeply and get insights into daily inflow and revenue as well as analyze data over time periods, various models, model years, by customer segment, etc."
"The security and audit procedures are the most valuable features."
"Data cleansed and harmonization. It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users."
"With SAP BW, the organization can start to deploy a data warehouse and deliver data to business people."
"We are an airline and use the system for data modeling and data warehousing, and we implement it for time performance and feedback analysis."
"It is a robust system."
"Transformation is a valuable feature of SAP NetWeaver. I can transform the data as per my needs or my client's needs. For example, flat tables can be transformed with respect to our requirements to combine multiple modules into one single table, and we can derive analytics."
 

Cons

"I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set."
"There could be more documentation and training."
"A production database server should never crash in response to user input, but Sybase IQ has repeatedly done that for us, over multiple revisions of the product."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"Technical Support: 6/10 because at the time I was using it, Sybase Turkey were short on staff and not very experienced."
"Very few people are familiar with this technology, as training programs are very expensive."
"There is very little documentation available."
"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."
"The complexity of this data warehouse application is huge and makes it tough to manage and deploy it. In general, it requires a lot of know-how and time which makes it expensive to deliver fast answers."
"The program is difficult to learn to use"
"It is difficult when your native language is not English. It is difficult for us to explain our issue and also difficult for the technical team to explain a resolution to us."
"Connectors are complex, and it is difficult to understand or know which connector should be used. For instance, if I want to connect APIs, I will not be able to do it directly. I would have to go to the portal integration to get the data. Therefore, having simplified connectors will make things much easier."
"The setup needs skilled resources in SAP BW. A lack of trained resources can create serious problems."
"The solution could be improved by simplifying the modeling and the design. We're faced with too many options and too many object types."
"People using SAP BW have to undergo some training to be able to use the product. Complexity can be reduced and could be made a bit more user-friendly."
"Design and modeling could be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"Negotiation is very important."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"The licensing cost is high for SAP NetWeaver compared to that for other products."
"All SAP products are expensive."
"Pricing is based on the number of user IDs and tyhe user ID works across a suite of products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

Sybase IQ
NetWeaver Business Warehouse, NetWeaver BusinessObjects Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
EMC Corporation, Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Eldorado, Mozzart, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, Hilti Group, Nissha Printing Company Ltd., Asian Paints, Aareal Bank Group, Magazine zum Globus (Migros Group)
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP IQ vs. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.