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33,485 views|25,100 comparisons
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5,818 views|4,861 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Oct 30, 2022

We performed a comparison between SQL Server and Teradata based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: SQL Server users feel its initial setup is mostly straightforward with some complexity. Teradata users mostly note the difficulty and complexity in its initial setup.
  • Features: Users of both products are generally happy with their stability and scalability, with a few mentioning that Teradata has issues with scalability when dealing with their on-premises solution.

    SQL Server users note being particularly satisfied with its ease of use, ability to connect with any language, and reporting services. Some note that they would like the solution to improve their backups and datatypes.

    Teradata users say they’re impressed with the solution's data warehousing, functionality, and flexibility. Some users mention that the product should be improved to allow for easier configurations.
  • Pricing: Most SQL Server users mention the price as being reasonable (and less expensive than Oracle). Some Teradata users note that the solution is high-end and therefore expensive. Some mention that the high price is a turn-off while others note that the price is reasonable given its functionality.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions mention significant ROI.
  • Service and Support: SQL Server users report excellent, responsive support from Microsoft support. Teradata users report their support as good to excellent.

Comparison Results: Because Teradata is more expensive, has harder initial setup, harder scalability, and fewer features, SQL Server ultimately wins out in this comparison.

To learn more, read our detailed SQL Server vs. Teradata Report (Updated: March 2024).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"SQL Server is a very mature solution.""I like that it's a cloud solution, is simple to set up, and is simple to use.""It helps with moving the design of the database into reality.""One of the things I most like about SQL Server is the log shipping piece. This is a great feature.""I use the menu on the management view credit section to get information from the database.""SSAS is the most interesting feature to organize the data and let the users play with it.""What I like most is the management, as it is very easy compared with other products.""I have contacted technical support, and overall my experience with technical support was okay."

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"The most valuable features are the Shared-nothing architecture and data protection functionality.""The most valuable features of Teradata are that it is a massively parallel platform and I can receive a lot of data and get the queries out correctly, especially if it's been appropriately designed. The native features make it very suitable for multiple large data tasks in a structured data environment. Additionally, the automation is very good.""There are several features of Teradata that I like. One of the most basic is the indexes. I also like that it provides lower TCO. It also has the optimizer feature which is a good feature and isn't found in other legacy systems. Parallelism is also another feature I like in Teradata because when you are running or hosting on multiple systems, you have this shared-nothing architecture that helps. Loading and unloading in Teradata are also really helpful compared to other systems.""Designing the database is easy.""Teradata's capabilities enhance data management efficiency, support scalability, and contribute to faster query performance.""Cuts time to process huge amounts of data with efficient analytical queries.""The most valuable feature of Teradata is security. It runs on Unix and Linux platforms which provide better security.""It effectively has allowed us to remove over 20 portion copies of the data sets on other DB platforms for real-time operational reporting purposes."

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Cons
"The Task Scheduler has a lot of shortcomings. This could be improved quite a bit.""When we are talking about event space architecture, scalability generally comes into play. For example, I might have a hundred thousand transactions a second, and then all of a sudden, I build something that everybody in the world wants. The next thing I know is that I have a million transactions a second. So, to be able to process the throughput, I'd have to scale up, and then when the holidays are over, I'm again down to a hundred thousand transactions, and I want to scale back down. SQL Server is not going to do that. In this way, it is not very scalable. One of the reasons why they want us to use Kafka is so that if we need to, we can do that, but our base program is on SQL Server. So, this is where we would use a Kafka event stack so that if I need more servers, I can just write a command, and I can have more consumers, more brokers, and more producers, and when the holiday season is over, it scales right back down again. SQL Server is not going to do that.""Due to the fact that I'm dealing with the product more as a data analyst, the SQL Server management studio is really relatively primitive compared to other more advanced tools.""The solution could use better governance on the management side, especially around data governance.""You do need to have technical knowledge in order to install the solution. It's not something a layperson can do.""The agility of the non-SQL-based features is relevant on the market.""Additional interfaces would be an improvement.""More things in SQL Server need to be automated."

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"I would like to see more integration with many different types of data.""The capability to implement it with comparable performance across various private cloud environments, ensuring adaptability to different infrastructure setups would be beneficial.""The solution could improve by having a cloud version or a cloud component. We have to use other solutions, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Snowflake for the cloud.""Teradata can improve the way it handles big data and unstructured data.""We tried to use case Teradata for a data warehouse system, but we had some problems in relation to the Teradata system, CDC tools, and source databases. We were unable to transfer data from HPE Integrity mainframe to Teradata.""An additional feature I would you like to see included in the next release, is that it needs to be more cloud-friendly.""Query language and its functionality are rather limited, compared to Oracle or even SQL Server. However, it is possible to perform any kind of logic in it (though some workarounds may be required).""Sometimes the large injestion takes days to load data, and some of our stored procedures take two to three days."

More Teradata Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The free version is cumbersome to use and maintain. But $5000 for a licence is more expense than the benefit I would get from a licensed version. A licence might be worth the price to simplify management and speed up searches."
  • "​We are a Microsoft shop, so we use Active Directory. That integrates well with this product, but we did look at Oracle. We also looked at IBM. This was the best price point for us for what we were getting.​"
  • "​It has the easiest licensing."
  • "This is a downside of enterprise Microsoft products."
  • "Currently, almost all of my machines are in Azure and I think it is the best way of licensing now (VM+software)."
  • "The price has been going higher and higher. The market is quite price sensitive."
  • "My advice is quite straightforward. If you know the number of users who really and truly need access to the Server then it is a no-brainer. If you do not know, then get the basic package and minimum licenses and start from there. Needless to say, users can develop/use data structures outside and then deploy onto the Server."
  • "The setup cost is high, but it will return every penny."
  • More SQL Server Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Teradata is not cheap, but you get what you pay for."
  • "Make sure you have the in-house skills to design and support the solution, as relying on external sources is extremely costly and tends to lock you into specific platforms, tools, and paradigms."
  • "In the past, it turned out that other solutions, in order to provide the full range of abilities that the Teradata platform provides plus the migration costs, would end up costing more than Teradata does."
  • "The initial cost may seem high, but the TCO is low."
  • "Teradata is currently making improvements in this area."
  • "It is still a very expensive solution. While I very much like the pure technological supremacy of the software itself, I believe Teradata as a company needs to become more affordable. They are already losing the market to more flexible or cheaper competitors."
  • "Teradata is expensive but gives value for money, especially if you don't want to move your data to the cloud."
  • "Price is quite high, so if it is really possible to use other solutions (e.g. you do not have strict requirements for performance and huge data volumes), it might be better to look at alternatives from the RDBMS world."
  • More Teradata Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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 prices… more »
    Top Answer: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 high… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite… more »
    Top Answer: Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the… more »
    Top Answer:Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    33,485
    Comparisons
    25,100
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    361
    Rating
    8.6
    Views
    5,818
    Comparisons
    4,861
    Reviews
    19
    Average Words per Review
    451
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
    Learn More
    Overview

    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:

    • SQL Server Developer
    • SQL Server Expression
    • SQL Server Standard 
    • SQL Server Enterprise

    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:

    • Aggregate functions: These functions are used to calculate one or more values and return a single value.

    • Window functions: Window functions calculate an aggregate value based on a group of rows and return multiple rows for each involved group.

    • Date functions: These functions allow clients to handle data and time data efficiently.

    • String functions: Through the string functions, SQL Server processes an input string and returns a string or numeric value.

    • System functions: The system functions of the product return objects, values, and settings.

    SQL Server Services

    SQL Server has a wide range of add-on services that provide additional benefits beyond database management. These services include:

    • Machine learning: SQL Server machine learning services allow users to do machine learning and data analytics within the product.
       
    • Service broker: This feature is a part of the database engine and offers messaging and message queuing for applications on the platform.

    • Replication: This feature consists of transaction replication, merge replication, and snapshot replication. 

    • Analysis: SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) adds online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining capabilities to SQL Server databases.

    • Reporting: This feature supports the development of custom reporting applications.

    • Notifications: This feature generates data-driven notifications which are sent to subscribers of Notification Services.

    • Integration: This SQL Server feature provides capabilities for data integration, data import, and data warehousing.

    • Full-text search: Through this feature, users can utilize specialized indexing and query for unstructured text stored in the solution.

    • Visual studio: This feature supports data programming with SQL Server.

    • Azure Data Studio: This is a cross-platform query editor that can be downloaded and used alongside SQL Server.

    SQL Server Benefits

    The solution has many benefits for users. These include the following:

    • The platform ensures a consistent experience across other platforms while being fast and agile.

    • Through the built-in intelligence features, users can understand their data better.

    • The solution has enterprise-level security, which ensures the smooth and safe performance of users' data.

    • SQL Server offers the ability to retrieve large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.

    • The product installation process is fairly easy, and it offers a user-friendly interface.

    • SQL Server offers improved data storage and retrieval functions through frequent upgrades.

    • The solution reduces the risk of database server attacks, since it is not an open-source database.

    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.

    Teradata is a multi-cloud data platform company that provides data warehouse and relational database tools. The brand has an extensive portfolio of big data analytic solutions, integrated marketing applications, and services. The products that Teradata offers can be categorized in the following ways:

    • Software: The products in this category include Teradata Vantage, an advanced SQL engine and Teradata database.

    • Cloud: The solutions can work with popular cloud services such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and VMware. Teradata Cloud and customer cloud are also included in this product category.

    • Ecosystem management: The products in this section include IntelliSphere, business continuity manager, data lab, data mover, data stream, QueryGrid, and viewpoint.

    • Hardware: This category includes backup, archive, and restore (BAR) and IntelliFlex.

    • Applications: Master data management (MDM) and Teradata analytics for enterprise applications are the two products in this category.

    One of the most popular and commonly used products by Teradata is Teradata Vantage. This is a connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics. The product unifies data lakes, analytics, and data warehouses, as well as data sources and types. The solution offers its customers scalability, which allows them to scale dimensions to handle massive workloads of data. Teradata Vantage utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to power more models and enhance quality.

    Through Vantage Console, businesses can benefit from role-based, no-code software to organize and manage their data. The product offers deployment on many popular public clouds, on premises, and on commodity hardware. Teradata Vantage unifies and integrates all data types from sources and provides companies with a single source of information. It achieves this by supporting all common data types and formats. The product also provides organizations with tools for monitoring, analyzing, and connecting data throughout the organizations.

    Part of this product is also VantageCloud, which offers a modern cloud-native architecture as well as hybrid and multi-cloud deployment options. This solution offers new ways for clients to deploy their platforms. These include the next-generation, cloud-native architecture of Teradata VantageCloud Lake.

    Teradata Features

    The different products that Teradata offers have various features which facilitate data management for customers. Some of the key capabilities of the solutions offered by Teradata include:

    • Connectivity: Users can benefit from connections to the mainframe or network-attached systems. The product provides its own extension for interaction with data stored in the tables. It also supports SQL.

    • Linear scalability: Teradata solutions are highly scalable and linear. The solution can handle large volumes of data effectively while also supporting the ability to scale up to 2048 nodes.

    • Load and unload utilities: The product offers features to move data in and out of the product's system effectively.

    • Mature optimizer: Part of this feature is Teradata Optimizer, which is an advanced product that can handle up to 64 joins in a single query.

    • Robust utilities: The solution includes multiple robust utilities in this category of features that facilitate data handling in and out of the product's systems. The tools include MultiLoad, FastLoad, and FastExport.

    • Shared nothing architecture: This set of features, connected to the architecture of Teradata, is known as “shared nothing architecture” because the nodes, processors, and disks all work independently. These capacities ensure better value for a given task.

    • Unlimited parallelism: These features divide large volumes of data into smaller processes that are executed in parallel. This contributes to the execution of complex tasks in a timely manner.

    Teradata Benefits

    Through its multiple solutions, Teradata offers various benefits for its clients. Some of these include:

    • The solution facilitates prototype creation and offers faster times for completion.

    • Through Teradata, users are able to use faster, simpler, and easier solutions for data-related tasks.

    • The product eliminates the need for unnecessary data movement, which contributes to performance improvements.

    • Teradata offers developers the ability to decide where in the architecture different parts of an application run.

    • Teradata allows database administrators to manage databases from a single point of control.

    • The solution provides the option to get the same data on multiple deployment options.

    • The product supports Online Analytical Programming (OLAP) functions, which allows it to perform a complex analytical process of data.

    • Teradata uses the Service Workstation to provide a single operation view for the multi-node system of the product.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Martin P., a services manager at Bytes Systems Integration, describes Teradata as a product that is very fast with good database control and excellent support.

    Blaine V., principal at Insight Data Consulting, rates Teradata highly because of its excellent native features, highly stable, and impressive automation.

    Sample Customers
    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.
    Netflix
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization41%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider26%
    Computer Software Company22%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm26%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Healthcare Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise47%
    Large Enterprise39%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise77%
    Buyer's Guide
    SQL Server vs. Teradata
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about SQL Server vs. Teradata and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    SQL Server is ranked 1st in Relational Databases Tools with 22 reviews while Teradata is ranked 7th in Relational Databases Tools with 21 reviews. SQL Server is rated 8.4, while Teradata is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SQL Server writes "Stores all of our data, and there is nothing that it can't do". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Teradata writes "Very fast with good database control and excellent support". SQL Server is most compared with MariaDB, SAP HANA, Oracle Database, IBM Db2 Database and Amazon Aurora, whereas Teradata is most compared with Snowflake, MySQL, Oracle Exadata, BigQuery and Amazon Redshift. See our SQL Server vs. Teradata report.

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    We monitor all Relational Databases Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.