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SAP Business Warehouse vs SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud 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
6.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

SAP Business Warehouse and SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SAP Business Warehouse is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 2.3%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS), holds 1.4% mindshare, down 1.7% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP Business Warehouse2.3%
Snowflake16.1%
Databricks9.2%
Other72.4%
Cloud Data Warehouse
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud1.4%
Amazon AWS17.2%
Microsoft Azure10.8%
Other70.6%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

VishnuReddy2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Enterprise Architect at R2V2.ai
Have encountered complexity with programming language while working on large-scale data integration and have experienced improved governance and reporting
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehouse, I would to see added features that simplify the product very well now. They are coming up with a terminology called SAP BDC where they are consolidating their tools, SAP Data Sphere for integration and SAP BW for the ETL and warehousing parts, and SAP Analytics Cloud. They are packaging these three features and calling it Business Data Cloud; they are fully coming on the cloud. We have to wait and watch; they have been speaking about BW/4HANA for quite some time now, but the customers or clients I work with are not finding great interest and it was seen as a candidate for evaluation. I have seen people looking at the latest technologies who are already on cloud who started building from scratch on cloud, such as Snowflake or Databricks, which can process very huge amounts of data and also address unstructured data, where SAP lags behind in cases where there is a need to bring in unstructured data. I have worked with SAP Data Intelligence, which earlier used to be called SAP Data Hub. The unstructured data is not greatly handled in SAP at this point in time.
Salman Mukhtar Baig - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Technical Manager at VS Furniture Middle East
Cloud access has improved reporting and sales operations across global locations
I cannot say anything about what areas of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud could be improved or enhanced because so far, we are happy with this implementation. We are not facing any problem, or I cannot say that this can be improved. Although SAP keeps improving themselves day by day, we cannot say that SAP needs to improve anything. One thing which we face, not as a problem, is the pricing. SAP pricing is a bit higher day by day. Before, it was not too much higher, but I don't know why they are increasing their price. They should see this thing, so other customers, such as SMBs customers or small and mid-sized customers, can also avail this thing. Otherwise, we don't have any problem. First, there is the limitation. If you are a SAP user, you don't feel any problem with the limitation because if you know how to use the product, you can easily implement this thing. Otherwise, if you don't know the business process or how to integrate and implement, it could be a problem. We have a limitation, but we developed some add-ons for this. So we fulfilled these requirements.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is that it's a seamless integration platform. A valuable feature in the tool is the monitoring alert that makes you aware of what process chain has failed. There's no manual monitoring required if you have configured an alert system, so the process chain can run in the background, and you can get alerts about it. The functionalities I find good in SAP Business Warehouse are alerting and monitoring. If you have configured the tool and have integrated it with SAP Solution Manager, then it's a good product to use."
"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."
"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
"The best features of SAP Business Warehouse that I am fond of are how this technology handles navigational attributes and the hierarchy; these are two interesting features."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"We are currently in a basic stage of analytics and the first goal we have is to make sure the numbers are correct. BW has some features that help you to build factors and ETL in such a way that it's easy to get to correct responses. That's the number one condition that you have to have in an analytic solution."
"The interface is easy to manage."
"I am impressed with how the solution integrates with the ME system and ALE IDocs."
"We have a wide range of use cases for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. These include production planning, materials management, sales management, treasury, finance, appliance maintenance, real estate, and warehouse management."
"My company has not had any problems with the product's initial setup phase."
"This solution is as good as any other S/4HANA SAP solution. The continuous support we get is very valuable."
"What I like the most is that we can convert databases into a proper multi-dimensional model, and then we can project with the integration with Power BI."
"Companies have gained more productivity because users take less time to finalize tasks as the data is correct, eliminating the need to double-check information constantly."
"Now, with the cloud, we can move anywhere in the world and we can easily access it from SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, and even the client can also see the stock availability which they need to order."
 

Cons

"More integration with Microsoft Office products (not just Excel) would be helpful."
"The solution should be more open to the cloud."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
"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."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"Areas for improvement in SAP Business Warehouse include enhancing scheduling and monitoring tools, as well as improving communication about hidden features to make them more accessible to users."
"The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance."
"The solution is scalable from an infrastructure point of view. However, it becomes more complex over time because technology is changing so fast."
"The customer has a lot of dependencies on SAP which means they don't have much flexibility to go and update the system when or if they need to. They will need to wait for the quarterly updates. It's possible to maybe raise a special request with SAP if it is absolutely necessary."
"The main thing is that SAP needs to give better response times for support tickets."
"The licensing model for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud has changed, and it is not entirely clear for final customers. Instead of named users, they now have to calculate FUEs."
"This product is not mature enough at this point in time."
"Our data centers are in Europe and come under GDPR regulations, and this doesn't apply to the Middle East yet. It causes a lot of confusion."
"Customization is an area of concern in SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, where improvements are required."
"The SAP products are complicated to deploy anywhere."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"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 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."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"The price is high compared to other databases, which is why HANA is still not widely used. Some enterprises prefer Sybase, Oracle, or other traditional databases because HANA is a little pricey. Cost is one factor SAP needs to work on to make it more competitive with other databases. Otherwise, they'll never be able to develop a mass customer base."
"The price is on little bit higher. For SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, we see roughly five crores per annum."
"It's very, very expensive."
"If you choose the minimum, it will probably cost around $1,000 USD per month if you take a contract for a year or two."
"The solution's cost is reasonable."
"SAP may not be the most cost-effective option, but it does offer a comprehensive set of tools and features. When you have the right information, structure, and dashboard in place, it can provide excellent value. Additionally, competition with Oracle might be a factor to consider."
"The solution could be less expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable when compared to other vendors like Oracle who offer technology enterprise resource software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Healthcare Company
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The pricing for SAP Business Warehouse is on the expensive side. I am not sure about the current costing model as such. In my experience on cloud, I did not use BW HANA Cloud. I used the cloud prod...
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehou...
What do you like most about SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud?
It has significantly streamlined our operations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud?
SAP HANA Cloud can be quite costly compared to other solutions. The high licensing costs make it an expensive option, particularly for smaller customers. However, they offer solutions for mid-sized...
What needs improvement with SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud?
I cannot say anything about what areas of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud could be improved or enhanced because so far, we are happy with this implementation. We are not facing any problem, or I cannot s...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
FC Bayern Munich, Reuters News Agency, MEMEBOX
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Teradata and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: December 2025.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.