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SAP BW4HANA vs SAP Business Warehouse 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

SAP Business Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)
SAP BW4HANA
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution enables seamless connection, but it is expensive, and the information is one day old
Out-of-the-box reports are very useful. The product provides a seamless connection between the SAP operation system and the data warehouse. It also moves the data from the operating system to the data warehouse in a 3D format. The report generation is easy. It’s a drag-and-drop process. People who want to do a project need not reinvent the wheel. Everything is designed, built, and delivered out of the box. All we have to do is interact with the customers to understand the kind of reports they need and check whether they are already available in the out-of-the-box report. If they are available, we just have to enable them and give the URLs to the customers. The Integration between the SAP operating system and data warehouse is excellent. The UI is good.
AjayKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive modeling and reporting capabilities and supports both vertical and horizontal scaling
I like the modeling and reporting capabilities. Real-time processing isn't BW/4HANA's strongest point. We typically run batch jobs for this purpose. So, it's not good for real-time reporting. BW/4HANA's modeling is quite intuitive because even those without technical database knowledge can model data from a business perspective. The tool can still be done without knowing the database functionalities of the data warehouse. Even if someone doesn't understand the database functionalities, you can still model. It provides the functions in a way that even a less technical person can do the modeling. The tool facilitates modeling for non-technical users, ensuring good modeling results.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is its ability to feed data into new, multiple systems in various formats. It can open its data to any system over gateway services or a portal or application that needs to consume and analyze data."
"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The product is very stable."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the advanced structuring of data capabilities. You can get different structures of data to suit your needs."
"With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"The real-time information is great."
"Its direct approach is the most valuable. You get more real time and capabilities than BW."
"We like that it is an SAP product, so we can easily connect with the SAP ERP system."
"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 integration. We don't need to rely on historical data alone; we can provide reporting and features based on real-time information."
"The solution saves time and cost."
"The most valuable feature is that it's robust."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup was easy."
"Technology-wise, it is a very robust tool."
"It can calculate data in detail. Before we could not calculate financial documents and accountant documents in detail, we could not do it at a document level but now we can. This is the most important feature. It also has predictive analysis memory."
 

Cons

"The solution should be more open to the cloud."
"We are very unhappy with technical support. First of all, they send their sales agents or pre-sales agents and most of them who don't know the solution as a properly trained tech would. We have an on-site SAP representative who is supposed to help us with our high priority and production issues, and they're not satisfactory to say the least."
"A few things which are missing include the visualization of reports. That's where your costs and licensing become heavy. When it comes to this database compared Microsoft Warehouse, it's an expensive solution."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
"SAP Business Warehouse could integrate better with other ETL tools."
"The solution could offer better connectivity with other databases."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"There is room for improvement from a technical perspective."
"Support could be more reliable."
"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."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"The tool is not easy to use for an end user."
"We cannot integrate with third-party tools like Python or advanced integration options. You can't fine-tune tables within BW or generate specific views or reports."
"If I want to have good reporting, then I have to buy a separate license."
"The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done."
"Real-time processing isn't BW/4HANA's strongest point."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"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."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the background job ODS. Eventually, we moved away from SAP Business Warehouse and bo...
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?
The certification cost is extremely high. I completed certification for $40,000. The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
Integration needs improvement. In reporting, I am not comfortable with the creation of variables, and some calculations need improvement in BW queries.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BW4HANA vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.