SQL Server and SAP HANA compete in the database management systems category. SQL Server often has the upper hand because of its user-friendly interface and cost-effectiveness.
Features: SQL Server is renowned for its ease of use, pricing advantages, and strong community support. Notable features include In-Memory OLTP, AlwaysOn Availability Groups, and robust support for deployment flexibility across cloud platforms. SAP HANA excels in in-memory computing capabilities, offering exceptional speed and reducing data latency, which is especially beneficial for big data analytics. Additionally, SAP HANA's integration capabilities enhance its value for complex enterprise environments.
Room for Improvement: SQL Server could improve in handling large volumes of transactions and enhancing data analytics capabilities. Cost reductions for licensing and better built-in AI/ML support would also be beneficial. SAP HANA, while powerful, is expensive and complex, necessitating more user-friendly interfaces and flexible pricing models. Integration with third-party tools could be less cumbersome for users seeking seamless operations.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SQL Server is favored for its straightforward deployment process and comprehensive community support available for various environments like on-premises, hybrid, and public clouds. Although its customer service is generally well-regarded, improvements in speed and accessibility are suggested. SAP HANA offers flexibility in deployment but often requires specialized expertise, potentially leading to more complex deployment processes. Its customer support is competent but could benefit from enhanced direct accessibility and better support for newer features.
Pricing and ROI: SQL Server is generally seen as cost-effective, offering a good balance of features for its price. Although its licensing complexity is noted, it provides suitable models for different organizational needs, leading to quicker ROI for many businesses compared to SAP HANA. Conversely, SAP HANA's high costs may challenge smaller organizations, but it justifies its expenses with high performance, particularly for large enterprises with demanding data needs.
We do not feel we're getting value for the investment due to the additional resources needed for integration and maintenance.
SAP HANA is a cost-saving solution that helps save money and serves as a time-saving solution that helps save time.
SQL Server is the most cost-effective with good human resource availability to manage it.
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
With Standard edition, they have saved a ton of money and they are really happy about that.
The community support is better than the official SAP support.
While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like.
When we raise a ticket for AWS or Azure issues, we find their support is very proactive, while SAP's support is quite passive.
I give their technical support a rating of ten out of ten.
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.
When we created support tickets, the experience was very positive.
Our operations have grown from a hundred data operations a day to as many in a couple of seconds.
There is enough scalability offered by SAP to meet our deployment needs.
The scalability rating is based on the ability to expand.
The server where we installed it has grown from 64 gigabytes in RAM to 256 gigabytes, demonstrating significant scalability capabilities.
Most of the time, they simply add another node in the availability group.
I can scale both horizontally and vertically without challenges.
We recently faced customer data loss during the cluster handover or failover fallback.
We have not had any problems in the last seven to eight years.
Regarding stability, they are using legacy systems and have implemented SAP HANA.
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.
All applications supporting SQL Server in my experience work very well across various industries including telecom, finance, banking, ad, entertainment, and workforce management.
The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.
The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.
Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high.
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.
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.
When we consider the price for replication in another site, the pricing becomes prohibitive.
It's a recurring subscription model, which is expensive compared to legacy systems with just a maintenance fee.
SAP is not a cheap company, and its licenses are expensive.
I would rate the price for SAP HANA as high.
Cost savings on human resources for Windows plus SQL Server versus other solutions.
This architecture allows for faster data processing and real-time analytics that were not possible with traditional databases.
The concept enhances speed, allowing the database to serve and move data quickly.
One of our dashboards using Excelsius was previously developed on normal BW on Oracle data, which took 10 minutes to open. After developing the same calculation views using those tables and replacing them with calculation views in Excelsius, the dashboard opened in seconds.
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.
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.
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| SQL Server | 13.2% |
| SAP HANA | 8.3% |
| Other | 78.5% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 26 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 11 |
| Large Enterprise | 61 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 119 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 59 |
| Large Enterprise | 115 |
SAP HANA, also known as SAP High-performance Analytics Appliance, is a multi-model database that stores data in its memory, allowing users to avoid disk storage. The product combines its robust database with services for creating applications. SAP HANA is faster than other database management systems (DBMS) because it stores data in column-based tables in main memory and brings online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transaction processing (OLTP) together.
The column-oriented in-memory database design allows users to run high-speed transactions alongside advanced analytics, all in a single system. This provides companies with the ability to process very large amounts of data with low latency and query data in an instant. By combining multiple data management capabilities, the solution simplifies IT, helps businesses with innovations, and facilitates digital transformation.
The solution is structured into five groups of capabilities, categorized as:
There are three more SAP products that work alongside SAP HANA and complete the experience for users together. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a ready-to-run cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). SAP BW/4HANA is a packaged data warehouse, based on SAP HANA, which allows users to consolidate data across the enterprise to get a consistent view of their data. Finally, SAP Cloud is a single database as a service (DBaaS) foundation for modern applications and analytics across all enterprise data. All three products can combine with SAP HANA to deliver to users an optimized experience regarding their data.
SAP HANA Features
Each architectural group of capabilities of SAP HANA has various features that users can benefit from. These include:
SAP HANA Benefits
SAP HANA provides many benefits for its users. These include:
Reviews from Real Users
According to a database consultant at a pharma/biotech company, SAP HANA is a very robust solution with good data access.
Bruno V., owner at LAVORO AUTOM INF E COM LTDA, likes SAP HANA because the product offers advanced features, helps reduce hours, and makes it easy to find what you need.
SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. The product's main purposes are to store data and retrieve it as requested by other software applications - on the same computer or on another computer across a shared network. The solution is built on top of Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standardized programming language used for relational database management.
The product is tied to Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which is an implementation of SQL from Microsoft that adds several proprietary programming extensions to the standard language. SQL Server is built similarly to other RDBMS products, as its structure is a row-based table that connects related data elements in different tables to one another. One of its most important components is the SQL Server Database Engine, as it controls data processing, storage, and security. Beneath the Database Engine is the SQL Server Operating System, which is used for memory and I/O management, locking data to avoid unneeded upgrades, and job scheduling.
The solution has four editions with different sets of services and tools. They include:
The first two are available for free and are typically utilized by smaller companies, as they work with fewer functions and storage. The second two editions are generally used by bigger organizations and enterprises and offer more features.
The solution has several functions through which users can facilitate different data-related processes. These include:
SQL Server Services
SQL Server has a wide range of add-on services that provide additional benefits beyond database management. These services include:
SQL Server Benefits
The solution has many benefits for users. These include the following:
Reviews from Real Users
A president at a consultancy evaluates SQL Server as a veteran solution with critical log shipping feature.
Harkamal S., a user at a manufacturing company, rates SQL Server with a high mark because it is a stable, scalable, and easy-to-deploy solution that pretty much covers everything.
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