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SAP IQ vs Vertica 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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (26th)
Vertica
Ranking in Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 8.6%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Tejas Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Columnar database, so pulling records is easy but there isn't enough documentation for installation
I've seen very few SAP IQ systems in recent years. So people are moving away from SAP IQ In the last three years, I've rarely encountered customers using it. Fewer systems with SAP IQ usage among our customers. Most of them have moved on to HANA. There are parallel products, and there are also viable alternatives from AWS, so many have migrated to those.
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IQ is a very high-performance and high-transaction database."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."
"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."
"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."
"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
"The primary benefit of SAP IQ is its ability to limit the expansion of the costly SAP HANA database, which has limited storage capacity. This necessitates a form of data management that involves moving data from SAP HANA to SAP NLS, which is essentially archiving. This allows us to retain access to the data via a link whenever it is required."
"The product is easy to learn."
"Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability."
"Vertica enabled us to close large deals. Customers with large data sets had to be migrated from PostgreSQL to Vertica due to performance."
"The hardware usage and speed has been the most valuable feature of this solution. It is very fast and has saved us a lot of money."
"I like the projection feature, which increases query performance."
"It maximizes cloud economics with Eon Mode by scaling cluster size to meet variable workload demands."
"DBAs don’t need to add a partition every month/quarter like with other DBs."
"The performance is very good and the aggregate records are fast."
"The solution was executed quite quickly due to its columnar storage underground, which is the most valuable feature of our company"
 

Cons

"The tool gets stuck sometimes."
"The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru."
"Concurrency and functional error messaging."
"I think the universe should be part of the Sybase IQ tool set."
"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."
"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."
"Multiplex is very problematic. There are consistency problems in the metadata, meaning it is possible to lose metadata consistency. You should make sure you have healthy backups."
"There is very little documentation available."
"Performance of management of metadata layer (database catalog) needs improvement. We still have to have smaller customers on PostgreSQL; Vertica cannot manage thousands of schemata."
"They could improve on customer service."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"Vertica can improve automation and documentation. Additionally, the solution can be simplified."
"Vertica offers a platform-as-a-service version, but their software-as-a-service solution is only available on AWS. They need to get a SaaS version on Azure and GCP as fast as possible."
"In our company, we have faced difficulties in scaling the solution for certain use cases."
"If you do not utilize the tuning tools like projections, encoding, partitions, and statistics, then performance and scalability will suffer."
"One feature, which has really benefited us, is the scalability offered by Vertica as it has enabled Pythian's clients to manage data with agility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Negotiate based on the features required."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"Negotiation is very important."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"Start with license per 1TB. Starting from hundreds of TB there is unlimited licensing to be considered. Move historical data to HDFS/S3 which are significantly cheaper or even free."
"The price of Vertica is less expensive than some competitors, such as Teradata."
"The price is reasonable. We use a pay per license model. Firstly, you need to buy a license. After that, you mainly pay the annual support fee of around 20% or 25%. I think their prices are quite reasonable."
"The solution is free and we pay for the storage."
"It's free up to three nodes and 1TB, and then get in contact with their sales guys."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"The pricing depends on the license model because there are several. It depends on the client, but it's cheaper than other solutions. I think it's cheap for all the functionality and robustness. It's not very expensive to deploy."
"It's an expensive product"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru.
What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?
I worked on implementing new databases, migration data in production, and developer environments with SAP IQ.
What do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Sybase IQ
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP IQ vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.