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IBM Netezza Performance Server vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.1
IBM Netezza Performance Server improves data query speed and efficiency, enhancing business performance and cost savings through compression.
Sentiment score
7.2
Organizations experience significant returns and financial advantages with SQL Server, preferring its cost-effectiveness and analytics over Oracle.
SQL Server is the most cost-effective with good human resource availability to manage it.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
With Standard edition, they have saved a ton of money and they are really happy about that.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Netezza Performance Server praised for knowledgeable support; mixed feedback on resolution speed post-acquisition, yet communication remains consistent.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft's technical support is reliable, praised for responsiveness, though communication and on-premise SQL Server support may need improvement.
Technical support is very costly for me, accounting for twenty-five to thirty percent of the product cost.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
There was a time when Microsoft support provided very crisp answers, but over time, they have diluted their support to third parties, leading to a drop in support quality.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I give their technical support a rating of ten out of ten.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
When we created support tickets, the experience was very positive.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Netezza struggles with scalability, requiring extra hardware for expansion, prompting users to consider cloud alternatives for growth.
Sentiment score
7.1
SQL Server is highly scalable, especially in the cloud, though performance may vary with complex applications and configurations.
It is provided as a pre-configured box, and scaling is not an option.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
Most of the time, they simply add another node in the availability group.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
The server where we installed it has grown from 64 gigabytes in RAM to 256 gigabytes, demonstrating significant scalability capabilities.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
I can scale both horizontally and vertically without challenges.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
IBM Netezza Performance Server is stable, offering high uptime and reliable performance, with occasional issues due to maintenance or compatibility.
Sentiment score
7.6
SQL Server is reliable and stable, performing well in transactions despite occasional performance and deployment challenges.
There was an issue with memory-optimized tables, but it was resolved in 2025, allowing you to remove that file group, which was not possible before.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
All applications supporting SQL Server in my experience work very well across various industries including telecom, finance, banking, ad, entertainment, and workforce management.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Netezza struggles with scalability, user interface, query performance, big data support, and high costs, needing better tools and integration.
SQL Server faces criticism for requiring Internet Explorer, high licensing costs, complex operations, and lacking scalability and compatibility.
The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
I would appreciate using Microsoft Pro as it can integrate with Excel or, with a simple query, consume information from the database using Microsoft Excel.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
One long-pending request from Microsoft is for two-node write capabilities, as currently, I can write from one node and read from multiple nodes.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

IBM Netezza offers high performance and low maintenance but is considered costly, especially for mid-sized organizations, with significant licensing fees.
SQL Server offers high initial costs but delivers value in features, scalability, and ROI, and is cheaper than Oracle.
Cost savings on human resources for Windows plus SQL Server versus other solutions.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

IBM Netezza Performance Server delivers fast analytics, ease of use, robust support, and efficient data warehousing with minimal maintenance.
SQL Server offers robust features, ease of use, and reliability, ideal for organizations needing effective database management and optimization.
It operates as a high-speed data warehouse, which is essential for handling big data.
Project Manager at MAF Retail
Always On HADR functionality is one of the features that I use on a daily basis and one of my most used features, saving me lots of time, especially since previously I had to build a SQL cluster and Windows clusters that had many dependencies on shared infrastructure, but now with Always On, it is too stable with easy management and almost zero maintenance, which SQL Server handles itself.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I have been working with SQL Server for a long time, and it works well for me as I am using it in different applications, such as web applications, Windows applications, or the data warehouse reporting.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Netezza Performance Server
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (13th), Hadoop (7th)
SQL Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
272
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Netezza Performance Server and SQL Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Netezza Performance Server is designed for Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, up 3.9% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 12.1% mindshare, down 19.8% since last year.
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Netezza Performance Server4.2%
Snowflake10.4%
Oracle Exadata9.9%
Other75.5%
Data Warehouse
Relational Databases Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SQL Server12.1%
Oracle Database11.5%
SAP HANA7.5%
Other68.9%
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shiv Subramaniam Koduvayur - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at MAF Retail
Parallel data processing streamlines operations while cost and cloud integration challenge adoption
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only available in AWS, and in the Middle East, it is not well-developed in the Azure environment. For the cost to be reduced, it should match competitors. Many features need to be incorporated on the cloud.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.
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Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Performing Arts
5%
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise115
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The cost of the solution is on the more expensive side, which is a concern for me. Additionally, its promotion and interaction with cloud applications are limited. The cloud version is only availab...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Netezza Performance Server?
The solution has generally received positive feedback from me and is recommended for continued use by end users. However, the product cost is high compared to others in the market, and this cost ha...
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

Netezza Performance Server, Netezza, Netezza Analytics
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Seattle Childrens Hospital, Carphone Warehouse, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Battelle, Start Today Co. Ltd., Kelley Blue Book, Trident Marketing, Elisa Corporation, Catalina Marketing, iBasis, Barnes & Noble, Qualcomm, MediaMath, Acxiom, iBasis, Foxwoods
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 Snowflake Computing, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: December 2025.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.