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Infobright DB vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Infobright DB
Ranking in Data Warehouse
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (37th)
SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Infobright DB is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 4.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

SD
If you need a real big data solution, look for a distributed solution that actually has a proven track record.
This version of Infobright has zero support for distributed scalability. The internal smart grid employed for each table has a major flaw in that the data size cannot be expunged until 2GB of data is reached at the column-level. This is a major flaw, making usage in a big-data scenario impossible. This means that you can delete as many records from a database table as you want. However, unless the 2GB aggregate size threshold was reached for some of the columns in the table, no reduction in disk space usage will occur. Only the data from the columns that reached 2GB will actually decrease. Other columns below 2GB in size do not leave the disk. I spent countless hours trying to find some workaround for this. I have nightmares of my e-mail inbox full of unsolvable questions about data size reduction from our field engineers.
Csaba Grünblatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities
SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has very amazing smart grid query feature for very fast aggregate queries across millions of rows"
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution is based on SAP ERP, so there's some business content already included. For customers who use SAP ERP, SAP BW4HANA is a good choice for their DW implementation."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard."
"The product has efficient performance."
"You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."
"The most valuable features are the speed of reporting and the HANA database."
"From an ERP point of view and a functionality point of view, it works very well. The benefits are in that of financial costing and material management."
"We benefited from BW/4HANA's ability to utilize predefined content inside. We didn't need to start from scratch."
 

Cons

"Only the data from the columns that reached 2GB will actually decrease. Other columns below 2GB in size do not leave the disk."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"The solution is not easy to implement. It requires a lot of learning at the beginning."
"The product's initial setup phase is a bit complex."
"The cost of the product might be an area that might introduce some restrictions or limitations to customers, making it one of the aspects where improvements are required."
"The licensing cost could be made better."
"It's complicated to use. You need to spend a lot of time learning about it. The interface could be improved. It's not intuitive to build a data model and use their ETL tools."
"I would like to be able to design new reports in a future release."
"The dashboard should be simplified and made easier for exploration and decision making."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our pricing was based on server instances and it was actually very cheap compared to Oracle. I guess you get what you pay for."
"The price is high and currently only affordable for large organizations."
"We started as early birds from the SAP side. We got this entire suite for free. I cannot really talk about the price because we didn't have to pay anything."
"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."
"The product is free if we have the ECC license."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The solution is expensive."
"As an investment, the solution is very expensive."
"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?
One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?
We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Infobright
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

REZ-1, SonicWALL, IntegriChain, Fuseforward International Inc., Polystar, Live Rail, Mavenir Systems, JDSU Partners, Bango
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Find out what your peers are saying about Infobright DB vs. SAP BW4HANA and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.