Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (19th)
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 (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP IQ is 2.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 8.5%, up from 8.6% 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

"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
"The initial setup is easy."
"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."
"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."
"Valuable features for us include the compression, speed, fast response time, and easy object maintenance."
"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."
"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."
"The performance is very good and the aggregate records are fast."
"I don't need any special hardware. I can use commodity hardware, which is nice to have in a commercial solution."
"We are also opening new areas of business and potential new revenue streams using Vertica's analytic functions, most notably geospatial, where we are able to run billions of comparisons of lat/long point locations against polygon and point/radius locations in seconds. ​"
"DBAs don’t need to add a partition every month/quarter like with other DBs."
"Partition and join back to node are easy and simple for DBAs."
"I like the projection feature, which increases query performance."
"Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability."
"Its analytics has enabled Pythian's clients to get the business insights as quick as they wanted. Its lower maintenance has also improved the ROI."
 

Cons

"The tool gets stuck sometimes."
"The solution works best when combined with other SAP solutions. If the environment has other systems other options might be better."
"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 primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."
"Concurrency and functional error messaging."
"Monitoring tools need to be lightweight. They should not take up heavy resources of the main server."
"Whatever's out, the core is not always as great as the engine, especially their first version."
"In my opinion, Vertica's documentation could be improved. Currently, there is not enough documentation available to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platform."
"Very bad support, I would rate it two out of 10."
"We faced some challenges when trying to use the temporary tables feature."
"Vertica seems to scale well, except for one use case where you are on a multi-node cluster. For example, if you had a nine-node cluster, one node goes down, then the eight nodes don't scale, because the absence of the node is very apparent, which is a problem. If you have nine nodes or multiple nodes, the whole idea is that if one of those nodes goes down, then you should not see an impact on the system if you have enough capacity. Even though we have enough capacity, you can still see the impact of the one node going down."
"Vertica's native cloud support could be improved, and its installation could be made easier."
"It's hard to make it slow for a small data volume. For large volumes, it's hard to make it work. It's also hard to make it faster, and to make it scale."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Negotiation is very important."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"I am aware that we have licensed it, but I have no knowledge of its cost."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"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."
"The price could be cheaper and it is best to negotiate the price."
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"It's an expensive product"
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
839,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
46%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
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 do you like most about SAP IQ?
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 mo...
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 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.
839,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.