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Anaplan vs SAP S/4HANA 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Anaplan delivers ROI through personnel and cost savings, efficiency, and improved decision-making, contingent on proper implementation and strategy.
Sentiment score
5.1
SAP S/4HANA offers high long-term ROI by enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and providing innovation despite initial investments.
It's not a matter of the solution; it's a matter of the clients and the approach that we follow.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
If we can maximize that, we can get the full price benefit of the solution.
Principal Instrument and Control at PETRONAS
We have observed a good return on investment, with calculations based on a five-year ROI plan.
Account executive at Cisco
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.4
Anaplan's customer service is praised for its responsiveness, efficient support, and high satisfaction ratings, with helpful resources available.
Sentiment score
6.2
SAP S/4HANA support is mostly satisfactory, with varying experiences influenced by response times, partnership levels, and team efficiency.
The technical support from Anaplan is amazing, with a dedicated team to assist in case of any issues.
Lead Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
A traditional challenge with SAP support is that SAP teams only support the standard functions, which are part of the product.
Delivery Head- IT Shared Services at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Establishing the right channels was a challenge, as BTP was new to everyone, including our SAP contacts.
Chief Executive Officer at LogicalDNA Solutions
I would rate the support a ten because there are a lot of knowledge-based articles published, and most of them are available online.
Program Director at KloudData Inc.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Anaplan is praised for ease of scalability and performance, accommodating large user bases despite cost considerations.
Sentiment score
7.7
SAP S/4HANA offers flexible scaling in cloud environments, praised for adaptability but can be costly for smaller firms.
Anaplan had issues before, but the new Polaris engine solves them.
Lead Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
SAP S/4HANA scales exceptionally well.
Enterprise Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It is very easy to scale within businesses, especially when a new business falls within the range.
Project accountant at Montego Upstream Services Limited
Scalability is a key strength of SAP, especially for HANA, compared to all the other ERPs.
Delivery Head- IT Shared Services at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Anaplan is praised for stability and efficiency, with minimal downtime and reduced manual work despite occasional model complexity issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
SAP S/4HANA is stable and reliable with some challenges in data handling, customizations, and infrastructure-dependent performance variations.
The SAP HANA system is not very easy to unlock, and it's something strange as, compared to other databases, when transaction logs are full, you stop the system, run the transaction log backups, and then restart.
Associate Partner - SAP Solution Architect and MDG expert at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Not very often, but it can happen, especially with user load; if many people use the system at the same time, there might be issues depending on various factors.
Enterprise Architect at E.ON
I rate the stability of SAP S_4HANA as fairly stable because we have never experienced any downtime from SAP, and the performance is good.
Head of IT at Genix Pharma (Private) Limited
 

Room For Improvement

Anaplan needs better model sizing, flexible reporting, user-friendly interfaces, enhanced integrations, and automation to improve user satisfaction.
SAP S/4HANA requires better integration, usability, and cost adjustment, alongside improved migration, support, and predictive analytics features.
Anaplan cannot perform some tasks handled by Planning Analytics due to their different foundations, Anaplan on Hyperblock technology and TM1 on OLAP.
IBM Planning Analytics SME and Developer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Advanced planning with AI, machine learning, and related plugins would be great to see in the future.
Lead Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Anaplan could have a dashboard where you can see the flow of your numbers displayed on pictorials rather than just saying this is the number.
Associate Manager, Accounting at BIC
Organizations face challenges like adapting to new technologies rapidly, and whether customers are early or late adopters influences their experience.
Managing Director at a recruiting/HR firm with 501-1,000 employees
I can perform a lot of data manipulation directly on SAP using S-One, without having to resort to Excel, unlike with View ID.
Project accountant at Montego Upstream Services Limited
The performance of the SAP interface could be improved.
Associate Partner - SAP Solution Architect and MDG expert at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Anaplan offers premium pricing with tiered licenses based on user count and features, appreciated for its robust capabilities.
SAP S/4HANA is costly, with various licensing models and high pricing, often challenging for smaller businesses compared to competitors.
Currently, Anaplan is more expensive compared to other tools.
Product Support Engineer at JSW
The pricing is slightly on the premium side, but I do not have detailed knowledge about the exact licensing structure.
Lead Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It's higher compared to similar peer solutions.
Account executive at Cisco
Most users or IT professionals typically criticize the high price of SAP license costs.
Enterprise Architect at E.ON
It's not easy to have a clear understanding of the price and the value, especially if I talk about the business transaction platform.
Associate Partner - SAP Solution Architect and MDG expert at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Anaplan offers user-friendly, no-code tools with real-time integration, flexibility, collaboration, and machine learning for diverse planning needs.
SAP S/4HANA enhances business operations with integrated features, real-time analytics, user-friendly interfaces, and cloud-based scalability.
Anaplan's connected planning feature is its most valuable aspect, allowing for seamless financial planning, HR planning, and updates.
Lead Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I like about Anaplan the simplicity and the way it makes reporting easier and planning is broken down well.
Associate Manager, Accounting at BIC
IBM Planning Analytics offers stronger capabilities in base-level data and detailed calculations.
IBM Planning Analytics SME and Developer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
It enables the posting of transactions and allows us to see the impact across various application scenarios, providing significant benefits for business.
Enterprise Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
The way SAP has helped our customers is by establishing a discipline where industry-specific operations and SAP's standard processes work hand in hand, improving resource utilization, material movement control, and cost control.
Chief Executive Officer at LogicalDNA Solutions
The insights given help us make strategic decisions.
Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (2nd), Production Planning (4th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
SAP S/4HANA
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
ERP (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Anaplan and SAP S/4HANA aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Anaplan is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 8.0%, down 13.5% compared to last year.
SAP S/4HANA, on the other hand, focuses on ERP, holds 7.3% mindshare, down 15.6% since last year.
Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Anaplan8.0%
Oracle Hyperion6.2%
CCH Tagetik5.9%
Other79.9%
Business Performance Management
ERP Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP S/4HANA7.3%
SAP ERP13.3%
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central5.3%
Other74.1%
ERP
 

Featured Reviews

Segun Oladele - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Manager, Accounting at BIC
Reporting and forecasting have become more automated through intuitive data organization and flexible number calendarization
I do not have any improvements from my own end at this time.There are some specific features or functionality that I would like to see included in Anaplan in the future. From what we have been using, I do not think there is any specific one because we import and export numbers. Importing and exporting with CSV files is already available in Anaplan. I do not have any special requests from Anaplan. I still decided to give Anaplan an eight because I have not seen a specific dashboard on Anaplan. Anaplan could have a dashboard where you can see the flow of your numbers displayed on pictorials rather than just saying this is the number. Simple dashboards should be implemented.
Deepak Madhavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivery Head- IT Shared Services at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Implementation simplifies ERP management with comprehensive data integration and visibility
A lot of people would say the pricing. SAP is seen as quite expensive even now. It doesn't work for smaller or medium optimizations. The licensing and pricing could be looked at. In Brownfield migration, the trade-off between greenfield and brownfield means you either keep it clean or match the business requirements. Sometimes, it's not possible to do both. While ValixAPI provides significant support in making those decisions and the SAP consultant is very useful, we are still dependent on past history and how it was originally set up. I wouldn't call that a real disadvantage, yet more accessible consulting would be beneficial. Incorporating all other cloud products, like APO or IPP, into the S/4 house might also help.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise53
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
Are there any advantages of SAP S4 HANA over SAP Business One (SAP B1) apart from the cost?
SaP Business One is a complete solution for business management. The software applications are broad, ranging from accounting to project management and human resources. It is very versatile and com...
What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA?
In my opinion, areas of SAP S/4HANA that have room for improvement would be in AI and insights generation, which would be a good enhancement for the future. Currently, this analytics is still drive...
What is your primary use case for SAP S4HANA?
My experience with SAP S_4HANA involves working on several projects helping customers prepare their transition from ECC to SAP S_4HANA. My role was to study the gap and technical feasibility by exe...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP S4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
Nestle, O.C. Tanner, Sabre, New York Life Insurance Co., MEMEBOX, Siemens AG.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Anaplan, Domo and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.