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Alteryx vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Alteryx
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (4th), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Alteryx is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 23.1%, down 26.2% compared to last year.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 4.0% mindshare, down 5.5% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Theresa McLaughlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick development enables seamless data processing despite occasional support issues
There were times when the product would fail during development without an apparent reason. The support structure changed; initially, we received great support, however, it later became less reliable due to licensing issues and a tiered support system. Licensing negotiations were problematic, affecting our product usage. For instance, our licenses were temporarily lost during negotiations when an agreement couldn't be reached.
Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Fully integrated enterprise-level tool
The initial setup was not straightforward. Since it is a complete enterprise tool, it needs a certain level of expertise to set up the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. There are a lot of steps involved. You need to get the user accepted and you need to validate the data. So you need to understand the architecture of the application. I would rate the initial setup as moderate since it's not very easy or much difficult. For a small enterprise, the installation would take one day. You must ensure you are on a supported platform like Windows or Linux and if your database is not on the server but in a different zone of the network, you need to ensure connectivity. You must also ensure the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform supports your organization's browser. These are the major things that must be taken care of before the installation. Around 500 users are using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in my company. We are a team of around eight technical people involved in the deployment and maintenance of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you run a SAP shop with ECC, the best solution is the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform because it's tightly integrated. You'll get lots of offers from SAP when it comes to licensing. So there's an advantage. But if you are not a SAP shop, the licensing becomes a hindrance. So if you have SAP as a source, then I recommend people to go with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as it's a tool that works wonders. I have been working on POCs where we use SAP data for BI, which was a nightmare. So if you have ECC and SAP in the back end, go with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you have any other tools in the back end, then try to negotiate and see the use case.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has excellent drag and drop functionality. There's no need for coding."
"I believe that the ability to leverage the gallery for scalability, as well as the general data blending functionality, is most beneficial to our core-based users."
"Alteryx significantly reduces the time spent searching for specific information."
"The product's most valuable features include its ease of use for non-technical users and machine learning capabilities."
"The drag and drop and layout is simple to understand, with intuitive names of features."
"There are a lot of good customization capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is user-friendliness, as Alteryx can be used by those without any coding experience or experienced data scientists as it has the functionality to embed R and Python scripts."
"The modeling features are very good."
"The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries."
"We find the product to be very stable."
"The platform is a complete enterprise-level tool where everything is integrated to suffice your requirement."
"It is more user-friendly and easier to work with the report creation part, creating reports out of an established universe. Maybe a business person could liberate the existing universe and create a report on top of it, as well. So that's one cool feature."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
"The reports are most valuable. If it is a single-source universe, based on only one database, the performance, and the reporting tool is user-friendly, and users are very familiar with the tool and are comfortable using it."
"The planning and dashboarding features have been useful. Additionally, the fixed-format reports are good."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is definitely scalable."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if they can provide Alteryx with more options for In-DB connectivity. That functionality is there, but it doesn't include all software we are connecting."
"The server is too expensive for what you get and it really a designer desktop on a server."
"The interface could be improved."
"Sometimes, there are performance constraints. Especially when a large file has to be ingested, the system slows down a bit. Its performance is the only thing that can be improved."
"Alteryx could be improved in the area of analytics and central governance."
"We are hoping that the NLP features will also support Chinese characters."
"The solution is improving continuously. They have, for example, just added automatic insights. If they continue to improve on their overall service offering, that would be ideal."
"It's a technical product and those that don't have proper training will have to deal with a steep learning curve."
"​This product could be improved with Cloud Integrations and Predictive Analytics functions integration."
"The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now."
"The cost of this product, so every company is not suitable to use it. Because of the very huge amount of integrations, every organization can not use it."
"I really want SAP to focus on the dashboarding side. Based on what I have seen in the past 10 years, dashboarding has captured a lot of markets. Executives at the top-level want data that is summarized, looks good, and tells you a story. That's where Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI have an upper edge. It doesn't mean SAP doesn't give you dashboarding. They do have a dashboarding solution, but Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are more intuitive and more attractive. I would like SAP to capture the dashboarding market as well, wherein they give at least some competition to other competitors. Presently, Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are leading the market."
"The interface could be slicker and more user-friendly."
"We would like to see a native version of BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence created for the cloud."
"The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not user friendly."
"It needs to be more flexible for the end-user."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the solution could be reduced."
"The seat is too expensive."
"ROI is huge. There are some secondary benefits, like analysts getting their post 5 PM time back or the ability to shorten all closing processes to a half or less."
"Alteryx is generally more suited for medium—to large companies due to its potentially high licensing costs."
"It's very expensive. I'd rate it a four out of ten in terms of the price. It's great for big companies but not for small companies."
"It can be a bit pricey, especially after the first year."
"The designer license costs 5000 euros. The server edition is 1000 euros."
"The designer has a list price of $5,995 USD."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
"We purchase licenses through Epic. So, we get an Epic price as opposed to the SAP price. If we were going to use other products like Webby that they offer or exclusively use BI Launch Pad, it would cost a lot because half of our employees would touch it in some fashion. So, we use Epic-Crystal integration to keep the licensing cost down. I believe the BI Launch Pad licensing is something like $800 for each, and the Crystal Report licensing is something like $500 for each, but that's not what we pay."
"Its price is fair."
report
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
One of the differences is that with Alteryx you can use it as an ETL and analytics tool. Please connect with me directly if you want to know more.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
Alteryx is an extremely easy and flexible data tool, flexible in terms of drag and drop toolset and also has python, R integrations if your team requires this. It can handle over 2 billion rows of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
I am not familiar with IBM SPSS Modeler, therefore, I cannot compare these two products. Regarding Alteryx I can say the following: - An excellent desktop tool for Data Prep and analytics. - Featu...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AnalyticsIq Inc., belk, BloominBrands Inc., Cardinalhealth, Cineplex, Dairy Queen
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about Alteryx vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2020.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.