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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 1.6% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP Business Warehouse2.3%
Snowflake15.8%
Databricks10.4%
Other71.5%
Cloud Data Warehouse
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud1.4%
Amazon AWS17.4%
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)10.2%
Other71.0%
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

"Out-of-the-box reports are very useful."
"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 most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily."
"SAP Business Warehouse is a scalable solution."
"Now, because of the HANA integration, the hard disk and RAM are together, and because of that, the output is very quick and very fast actually."
"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 most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"Predominantly, our company uses SAP Business Warehouse for reporting purposes across various departments, especially for managers to gain a quick understanding of their current standing and make informed decisions."
"The BTP module is important for digital transformations."
"One of the features that I've found most useful is that It's very simple. They take care of the technical aspects of the data, installations, patches."
"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."
"The solution does provide quite a lot of support, upgrades, automated batch updates, etc."
"The scalability is good because we have some cloud resources to support the ERP."
"The real-time data processing and the ability to track all leasing processes and contracts are particularly valuable."
"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."
"Ensuring data integrity across finance, supply chain, and other critical areas is paramount for real-time decision-making. Access to accurate and up-to-date information is essential for data protection. While the digital solution primarily serves basic maintenance, the ability to handle these core aspects efficiently is invaluable for your needs."
 

Cons

"What I'd like to improve in SAP Business Warehouse is its data structure, that's a little bit rigid. It could be a bit more flexible, so you can design your data structure and improve performance when creating a solution. Currently, the way data is stored in SAP Business Warehouse is rigid."
"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 advanced structuring can be complicated and the interface is not very intuitive."
"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."
"I would like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."
"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."
"SAP Business Warehouse could integrate better with other ETL tools."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The SAP products are complicated to deploy anywhere."
"The only thing that could be improved is the cost."
"SAP should adopt more rapid changes in market processes and customer needs to deliver solutions that meet new industry requirements swiftly."
"I would rate the stability a four out of ten. It's an area that could use improvement"
"It needs improvement in terms of stability and performance."
"One thing which we face, not as a problem, is the pricing. SAP pricing is a bit higher day by day."
"The stability needs to be improved to be able to handle large amounts of data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"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."
"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."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The licensing of the solution is on a yearly basis. The normal price of the solution is quite high, but I received a special discount by making a purchase near the end of the year."
"The pricing is reasonable when compared to other vendors like Oracle who offer technology enterprise resource software."
"The product itself is relatively expensive."
"It's very, very expensive."
"I rate the product's price a five out of ten."
"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 price is expensive compared to the competition."
"The price is on little bit higher. For SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, we see roughly five crores per annum."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
University
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 is your primary use case for SAP Business Warehouse?
I am using SAP Business Warehouse in my organization for data warehousing as well as an ETL tool. Integration with SAP Business Warehouse's ETL tools is not straightforward. Integration with SAP ER...
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: February 2026.
883,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.