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DuckDB vs SAP HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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

DuckDB
Ranking in Embedded Database
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP HANA
Ranking in Embedded Database
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (2nd), Relational Databases Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of DuckDB is 11.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP HANA is 7.7%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Highly efficient data processing, optimizes infrastructure, and offers good integrations
DuckDB is very fast. If we don't have enough memory, we can use swap. For instance, if we use a fast storage space, the system volume in Kubernetes could be a fast swap for DuckDB if we have memory limits. In our framework, DuckDB is five times faster than Spark in some cases. It has an extensive SQL dialect, many SQL Windows functions, and good integration with Polars. We can easily use SQL and Pandas framework in Python to process data.
Jayarami Reddy Pujeri - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive system with real-time analytics for versatile industry applications
Our primary use case is working with various clients in industries such as pharmaceuticals and other services. We support clients as implementers of SAP HANA, providing expertise in functionality, finance, logistics, and processes The solution is very user-friendly and supports all kinds of…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"DuckDB is very fast."
"As I only worked part-time on SAP HANA, I did not have the opportunity to explore the advanced features of the solution. However, I did work with basic features, such as user administration and access controls for the accounting department. The feature that stood out to me the most was the Single Sign-On and user administration, backup, and server management. My experience with SAP HANA was mainly focused on basic server improvements."
"What I like most are the dashboards and pervasive analytics."
"SAP HANA is vertically and horizontally scalable."
"Anyone currently using SAP will be transitioning to HANA."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and the integration with other solutions in data quality."
"The functionality is of the solution is very good."
"The solution is very stable."
"The feature that I like the most is that we can transport the data to our web data application. SAP HANA's performance is really perfect. We're working on big data, and SAP HANA is really working on high performance. We are happy working with it."
 

Cons

"Sometimes we have memory issues that cause job failures, which we don't fully understand why, but we can rerun the jobs without problems."
"In terms of improvement, the speed is not as good as we thought it would be. That is why we are trying different solutions that will be built with different technologies."
"If the developers were to enhance or improve the application logic while processing the transactions, that would be great."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I would have rated the solution higher if this version was not missing some key features the newer version has."
"SAP HANA isn't user-friendly, and it's very hard to train newcomers to use it."
"They can improve their technology for the CRM subsystem. There are other products that are better and more effective for the CRM subsystem. Its price could be better. It is expensive."
"The user interface and CRM need to be more user-friendly."
"One notable issue is the difficulty in finding consultants with experience in the SuccessFactors product, a human resource management tool part of SAP's cloud-based solutions. For example, learning the Oracle database is straightforward. You can easily go to the Oracle website, download the database, install it on your laptop, and access technical resources and books."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"People who are technical will accept the cost, but financially they will assess whether this solution will bring them revenue or not. People often ask, how will I profit when the cost is so high?"
"SAP HANA is very expensive for small to medium businesses."
"The licensing could improve."
"The pricing is a bit on the high side."
"The tool’s subscription is yearly."
"The tool has a high price. I rate the solution’s pricing, one on a scale of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap."
"The price is on the expensive side, at eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Setup and licensing require planning and proper budgeting, as it is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DuckDB?
We use the open-source version of DuckDB and don't have costs associated with it. There is a company that provides commercial software, but we use the open-source library, not the services.
What needs improvement with DuckDB?
Sometimes we have memory issues that cause job failures, which we don't fully understand why, but we can rerun the jobs without problems. There were also problems with binary formats in the previou...
What is your primary use case for DuckDB?
We use the concept of a feature store. We need the engine, and we use Feast as our feature store framework to build our feature store. We use the DuckDB engine as a data engine, which helps us move...
What are the biggest benefits of using SAP HANA?
Based on my work with SAP HANA, the biggest benefit that it can bring to your business is total data management. This product is by SAP - a company that serves almost all needs a client may have co...
Is SAP HANA’s customer and technical support reliable?
We have been using SAP HANA for a fairly short period of time and have only taken advantage of their customer support. So far, we have not had issues that required specialized help from technical s...
Is SAP HANA difficult to set up and start using?
SAP HANA is fairly easy to set up, however, I do not think a complete beginner can do it. You certainly need some preparation - either you need to have experience with similar solutions, or with ot...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance, HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Unilever, NHS 24, adidas Group, CHIO Aachen, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited
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