With a view towards applications in nuclear physics, the boson and fermion realization of the compact sp(4) and noncompact sp(4,R) and their q-deformed versions are investigated and compared. The deformed realizations are based on distinct deformations of the boson and fermion creation and annihilation operators. In the boson case there is a simple transformation of the "classical" bosons to q-deformed ones. In the fermion case an additional index is introduced in order to satisfy the Pauli principle and in this case a simple transformation function between the "classical" and q-deformed operators is not known. Three important reduction chains of these algebras are explored in both the classical and deformed cases. For the primary reduction, the su(2) substrusture can be interpreted in both cases as a pseudospin algebra. The other two reductions in the fermion case are su(2) algebras, associated with pairing between identical fermions or coupling of two fermions of different kinds. In the boson case the infinite deformed ladder series u_q⁰(1,1) and two infinite deformed discrete series u_q^±(1,1) are obtained. Each reduction provides for a complete classification of the basis states. In the boson case the initial as well as the deformed representations act in the same Fock space, but the deformation in the fermion case leads to basis state whose content is very different from the classical one. In a Hamiltonian theory this implies a dependance of the matrix elements on the deformation parameter, leading to the possibility of greater flexibility and richer structures within the framework of q-deformed algebraic descriptions.