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SAP IQ vs Vertica

SAP IQ: Sybase's pioneering columnar warehouse, now SAP IQ and the engine behind HANA Cloud's data lake. Vertica: Veteran MPP columnar analytics database from the C-Store lineage, now owned by Rocket Software.

key differences

  • Vertica is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than SAP IQ (≤ 1 PB).
  • Only SAP IQ has secondary indexes.
  • Only Vertica has geospatial, json, materialized views, time travel, online schema changes.

choose sap-iq for

  • +Warm and near-line storage for SAP BW and HANA
  • +Existing Sybase IQ warehouses
  • +SAP HANA Cloud data lake

best at · Warehouse, OLAP

choose vertica for

  • +Large on-prem or hybrid enterprise warehouses
  • +Telecom and IoT analytics
  • +Time-series analytics with SQL
  • +Embedded analytics in software products

best at · Warehouse, OLAP, Real-time analytics

SAP IQSybase's pioneering columnar warehouse, now SAP IQ and the engine behind HANA Cloud's data lake.
VerticaVeteran MPP columnar analytics database from the C-Store lineage, now owned by Rocket Software.
overview
Primary model
Columnar / OLAP
Columnar / OLAP
Also supports
Relational
Relational, Time-Series, Spatial, Document
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
SAP
Rocket Software
First release
1995
2005
Latest version
–
26.3 (2026)
License
ProprietaryProprietary
ProprietaryProprietary (free Community Edition up to 1 TB)
Free tier
—
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
11.9
33.1
Rank
#276
#67
GitHub stars
–
–
Stack Overflow questions
288
1.5K
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Shared storage, Client server
Distributed, Shared storage
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
✓
✓
Secondary indexes
✓
—
Full-text search
✓
✓
Vector search
—
—
Geospatial
—
✓
JSON
—
✓
Change data capture
—
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
—
✓
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
✓
✓
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
✓
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
—
✓
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
—
✓
Streaming ingest
—
✓
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
SQL (Transact-SQL and Watcom SQL dialects)
SQL, PL/vSQL
Client languages
Java, C, .NET, Python
Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, .NET, C
Best for
Warehouse, OLAP
Warehouse, OLAP, Real-time analytics, Time-series
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

SAP IQ vs Vertica: FAQ

What is the difference between SAP IQ and Vertica?

SAP IQ: Sybase's pioneering columnar warehouse, now SAP IQ and the engine behind HANA Cloud's data lake. Vertica: Veteran MPP columnar analytics database from the C-Store lineage, now owned by Rocket Software. Vertica is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than SAP IQ (≤ 1 PB). Only SAP IQ has secondary indexes. Only Vertica has geospatial, json, materialized views, time travel, online schema changes.

When should I choose SAP IQ over Vertica?

Choose SAP IQ for warm and near-line storage for SAP BW and HANA; existing Sybase IQ warehouses; and SAP HANA Cloud data lake. Choose Vertica for large on-prem or hybrid enterprise warehouses; telecom and IoT analytics; and time-series analytics with SQL.

Is SAP IQ or Vertica more popular?

Vertica ranks #67 on the WhichDB Score (33.1/100) and SAP IQ ranks #276 (11.9/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are SAP IQ and Vertica open source?

No. SAP IQ is proprietary, closed-source software. No. Vertica is proprietary, closed-source software.