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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

"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."
"Valuable features for us include the compression, speed, fast response time, and easy object maintenance."
"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."
"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
"The product is easy to learn."
"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."
"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."
"The initial setup is easy."
"For me, It's performance, scalability, low cost, and it's integrated into enterprise and big data environments."
"Vertica has a few features that I like. From an architecture standpoint, they have separated compute and storage. So you have low-cost object storage for primary storage and the ability to have several sub-clusters working off the same ObjectStore. So it provides workload isolation."
"Vertica is a columnar database, this support our developments in analytics, advanced analytics, and ETL process with large sets of data."
"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."
"The solution is quick, has good compression data, and is not expensive."
"Initiate on one node, and the RPM propagates automatically to all other nodes. ​"
"Vertica enabled us to close large deals. Customers with large data sets had to be migrated from PostgreSQL to Vertica due to performance."
"Vertica is a great product because customers can compress and code data. The infrastructure that data warehouse solutions need is a commodity server so that customers don't have to invest in infrastructure."
 

Cons

"The solution works best when combined with other SAP solutions. If the environment has other systems other options might be better."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"The tool gets stuck sometimes."
"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."
"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."
"The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru."
"Concurrency and functional error messaging."
"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."
"Very bad support, I would rate it two out of 10."
"The integration with AI has room for improvement."
"The integration of this solution with ODI could be improved."
"They could improve on customer service."
"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."
"Support is an area where it could get better."
"I would personally like to see extended developer tooling suited to Vertica – think published PowerDesigner SQL dialect support."
"We are looking for a cheaper deployment for the solution. Although we did a lot of benchmarks, like Redshift. We tried Redshift, it didn't work. It didn't work out for us as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Negotiation is very important."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"Vertica has a perpetual license, but they are currently trying to convert all those licenses to subscription-based licenses on a yearly basis."
"From a cost perspective, the software is less than most of its competitors."
"The solution is free and we pay for the storage."
"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."
"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 could be cheaper and it is best to negotiate the price."
"It's free up to three nodes and 1TB, and then get in contact with their sales guys."
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
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: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.