Knowage vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

Knowage and SAP are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Knowage is ranked #32, while SAP is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.9. Knowage holds a 0.5% mindshare in BIT, compared to SAP’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Knowage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Knowage

Read 18 Knowage reviews

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475 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Read 103 SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform reviews

5,814 Views
4,607 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Knowage

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Knowage compete in the Business Intelligence category. SAP BusinessObjects often has the upper hand due to its scalability and integration strengths, making it ideal for larger enterprises. Knowage is preferred for its open-source flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Features: SAP BusinessObjects offers enterprise scalability with components like Live Office, Crystal Reports, and Web Intelligence. Its semantic layer ensures consistent data connections across environments, which is crucial for complex data integration. Knowage, focused on cost efficiency, provides essential BI functionalities, including flexibility in using multiple report engines and integration with open-source tools.

Room for Improvement: SAP BusinessObjects is criticized for complex deployments and necessary integration improvements among its suite, along with stability issues and outdated visualization tools. Knowage users note a need for technical expertise in Java-based integrations and improvement in user interface design and dashboard capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP BusinessObjects supports diverse deployment options, from on-premises to hybrid cloud solutions, though its customer service can be hampered by internal complexities. Knowage's setup is straightforward for on-premises deployment but lacks cloud flexibility. Customer service is considered fair, with opportunities for better user support.

Pricing and ROI: SAP BusinessObjects is expensive, with high licensing costs suited for larger businesses that can capitalize on extensive data handling. In contrast, Knowage provides a cost-effective open-source alternative that benefits smaller entities or projects seeking affordable BI solutions, though trade-offs in features and support are noted.

To learn more, read our detailed Knowage vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

January 2025

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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

Knowage

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

32nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (24th)

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 4.1%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

AbdulshukoorMohammed

General Manager Information Technology & Enterprise Applications Manager at OXFORD HOLDING

Easy to customize, cross-platform capable, and very stable

The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills. When we come to the integration with the single sign-on facilities, that part is very challenging. In Power BI and other tools, it's very easy to integrate with active directory and single sign-on, and identity management is very easy in other business intelligence tools. However, when it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports. The solution could be cheaper.

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Sumeet Zalpuri

Data engineer at ASR Nederland N.V.

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can easily do our own customizations."

"The concept of engines is quite powerful allowing the user to work with report authoring/provisioning tools of their choice."

"The embedding feature is great."

"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."

"The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good."

"If I were to compare it with Power BI and I wanted to build proper well-formatted reports, BusinessObjects Business Intelligence does that much better. Power BI is just getting into that space. They've concentrated more on visualization, which is what the SAP Lumira does. With Web Intelligence, you are able to build reports that users can interact with. They can also do a lot of querying themselves. It is robust in terms of security and integration. It is also quite scalable."

"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools."

"First of all, visualization tools, productivity, and predictive forecasting are mature."

"I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution."

"It is stable and robust. It has pretty direct integration with SAP ERP. It is easy to use."

"It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities."

"The solution's user security is extremely effective. You can profile very well. All the users and all the functionality is protected and that includes information and data segregation."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform pros

Cons

"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."

"The dashboard components could be better."

"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."

"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."

"The solution is not good for self-services, they can improve in this area."

"Technical support may not always be timely or effective."

"Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved."

"Its price should be better. It is expensive and not cost-effective. It should also be improved in terms of end-user experience. It requires further improvements for usability and ease of use. It should have more dashboarding metrics and much faster integration with ERP so that when you double click, you can instantly see the scenario-based result."

"The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features and not included to allow you to do that. I don't believe that is in the latest version of the product either."

"Factoring in total implementation and maintenance costs, SAP BusinessObjects is too expensive. If you deal with a huge amount of data, you can go with BusinessObjects. However, if you are a medium-sized company with a modest amount of data, you can opt for another solution."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an outdated solution that is missing many features."

"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."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."

"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."

"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."

"I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."

"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."

"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."

"It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6663

BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

15%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Hospitality Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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...

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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.

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Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs Knowage

Compared 83% of the time

Pentaho Business Analytics vs Knowage

Compared 17% of the time

More Knowage Competitors

SAP Analytics Cloud vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Cognos vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Essbase vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Knowage

January 2025

Download Knowage product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

December 2024

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform report

Download SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform product report

Also Known As

SpagoBI

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects

Learn More

Knowage

SAP

Overview

Knowage (formerly SpagoBI) has a 14-years history. The actual release is the 6.3.

Knowage offers FULL ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES, with a special focus on big data analytics and comprehensive support to rich and multi-source data analysis. Knowage provides different modules, each one focused on a specific domain but mutually combinable (Big Data, Smart Intelligence, Enterprise Reporting, Location Intelligence, Performance Management, Predictive Analysis). Moreover, Knowage is an OPEN SOURCE solution: the source code is freely accessible, everyone is allowed to join the community and build the own business solution to ensure strategic decision-making and improved productivity.

Knowage suite is supported by Engineering Group, the leading Italian software and services company, with about 10,000 people and more than 50 offices worldwide. Maintenance and support services (such as trainings, migration support, proof-of-concepts, etc) are provided by Engineering Group (KNOWAGE Labs) under subscription.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a versatile and flexible solution for reporting and dashboards, focusing on analytics and ad hoc reporting. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The solution includes tools such as Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud and is primarily used for comprehensive business intelligence reporting.

The most valuable features include excellent reporting features, good technical support, scalability, and the ability to translate database data into business language. The solution has helped organizations by providing analytics, monitoring KPIs, and making important decisions as a financial business.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Key Features

Central management: Access all your BI from a single, central launchpad that can be customized to meet user-specific needs. The launchpad provides business users with access to all their BI tools, reports, notifications, and applications in a single place. This includes the ability to launch SAP Analytics Cloud.
Data visualization and analytics: Create powerful visualizations, dashboards, and applications to assess risk, improve efficiency, identify opportunities, and enable users to analyze developments and data. Business insights can be shared with colleagues across enterprises.
Integration with Microsoft Office: Integrate with SAP Business Warehouse and SAP HANA to power real-time analytics. For large-scale data analysis, you can integrate with Microsoft Excel to discover in-depth business insights and forecasts. Data analytics information can also be embedded into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
Cloud support: Extend and expand your BI on the cloud. SAP Analytics Cloud connects your BI to the cloud and offers enterprise planning and advanced analytics from a single online solution.

Reviews from Real Users

SAP BusinessObjects BI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its user-friendly dashboard, its impressive reporting and analytic features, and its ability to integrate with multiple solutions.

A managing partner at a tech services company writes, "One of the most valuable features of SAP BusinessObjects is that it's not a dashboarding solution. It's a real product. You can create operational reports and publish it to anyone. You can create schedules. You can create a Universe, semantic layers. There's also a security configuration. It's a huge product, so if there is a business need, SAP BusinessObjects can cover it."

An associate manager at a consultancy notes, "It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools. Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA."

A manager of data analytics and interfaces at a healthcare company says, "It has got great flexibility. As a reporting tool, it has a great deal of flexibility for numerous data resources that you can bring into it. It allows you to write your SQL query directly within the product. It has great visualization.

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital

SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

January 2025

Free Report: Knowage vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

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