SAP Business Warehouse vs Snowflake comparison

SAP and Snowflake Computing are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. SAP is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. SAP holds a 2.4% mindshare in CDW, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 15.1% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of SAP users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Snowflake Computing users who would recommend it.

SAP Business Warehouse

Read 26 SAP Business Warehouse reviews

1,866 Views
1,064 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 105 Snowflake reviews

13,655 Views
6,964 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

SAP Business Warehouse

Snowflake

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Snowflake and SAP Business Warehouse are significant players in the data warehousing market. Among the two, Snowflake appears to have a competitive edge due to its scalability and ease of use, although SAP Business Warehouse offers strong integration capabilities with SAP ERP.

Features: Snowflake provides robust scalability, allowing efficient handling of petabytes of data. Its distributed architecture enhances performance by processing large datasets quickly, and it offers flexibility through dynamic node adjustments, supporting multiple file formats for accessibility. SAP Business Warehouse is known for advanced data structuring and seamless integration with SAP ERP, excelling in environments where SAP systems are prevalent.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could benefit from stronger geo-spatial capabilities and a simpler Snowpipe auto-ingest feature. Users desire a more intuitive command-line tool and greater cost transparency, along with integrated basic analytics for better data visualization. SAP Business Warehouse could enhance its user interfaces, provide more advanced analytics options, and improve integration with additional ETL tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake predominantly serves public and hybrid cloud environments, offering easy deployment and responsive customer support, despite the potential for better SLAs. SAP Business Warehouse is typically used in on-premises and private cloud setups, providing robust support but sometimes lacking in responsiveness and transparency compared to Snowflake.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake's pricing model is flexible and perceived as cost-effective through pay-as-you-go, though costs can be unpredictable, especially with enterprise features. SAP Business Warehouse generally involves higher initial costs tied to company revenue, making it less attractive to smaller businesses. Snowflake users find potential ROI with efficient usage, while SAP offers value by integrating with existing SAP infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed SAP Business Warehouse vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: May 2026).

Buyer's Guide

SAP Business Warehouse vs. Snowflake

May 2026

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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

SAP Business Warehouse

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Snowflake

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 2.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 15.1%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Snowflake	15.1%
SAP Business Warehouse	2.4%
Other	82.5%

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

VishnuReddy2

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.

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SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

Have prioritized security while managing multi-agent data migration and cloud adoption

We utilize Time Travel with Snowflake because this is a very useful feature. Everyone finds it crucial because in conventional data platforms, it's very difficult to handle these kinds of things. This feature is essential, though I don't have the use cases currently; it is just there for implementation. Regarding Snowflake's automated scaling and suspension features, this auto-scaling is very significant. We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We switched to SAP because the solution is more comfortable to work with."

"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is its hybrid functionality, allowing users to leverage both SQL-based data warehouse capabilities from HANA and feature-based data warehousing from BW."

"My advice would be if you have a data block and if you really want a big solution on the reporting side of it with slicing and dicing, definitely go ahead with BW when it comes to SAP related data."

"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."

"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."

"SAP Business Warehouse is a scalable solution."

"BW is our bread and butter."

"The most valuable feature is the new version of Business Explorer Analyzer, which is a very good version because there are a lot of analytical features of Excel also."

More SAP Business Warehouse pros

"The solution is very stable."

"As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."

"The ETL and data ingestion capabilities are better in this solution as compared to SQL Server. SQL Server doesn't do much data ingestion, but Snowflake can do it quite conveniently."

"It helped us to build MVP (minimum viable product) for our idea of building a data warehouse model for small businesses."

"Its performance is a big advantage, and when you run a query, its performance is very good."

"The solution speeds up the process of onboarding."

"It is very fast and the performance is great."

"The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power."

More Snowflake pros

Cons

"In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed."

"The solution should be more open to the cloud."

"I would for sure like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."

"Integration with SAP Business Warehouse's ETL tools is not straightforward."

"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."

"The advanced structuring can be complicated and the interface is not very intuitive."

"When some things go wrong, it becomes extremely unreliable."

"It takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed when using SAP Business Warehouse."

More SAP Business Warehouse cons

"Sizing seems to be a bit of trial and error."

"They have a new console, but I couldn't figure out anything in the new console. So, if I shift to the old console, I can figure out where to create the database schema and other things, but I have no idea where to go in the new console. That's one thing they can improve. I don't know why they created a new console to confuse. The old, classic console is much better."

"We've come to realize that for many customers, pricing of this solution is an issue."

"From an improvement perspective, Snowflake can evolve in terms of writing costly, expensive queries with less cost and try to see if pipeline development can be made a little easier."

"Room for improvement would be writebacks. It doesn't support extensively writing back to the database, and it doesn't support web applications effectively. Ultimately, it's a database call, so if we are building web applications using Snowflake, it isn't that effective because there is some turnaround time from the database."

"If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial."

"Users considering adding the solution should understand that Snowflake can be used only for transactional processing, not for analytical processing."

"I would like to see a client version of the GUI."

More Snowflake cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."

"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."

"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."

"The solution is quite expensive."

"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."

"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 moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."

"There is a license needed to use this solution. There are a few licensing options available. They have a pay-as-you-go option, but it is recommended to pay upfront."

"The pricing is economical as compared to traditional solutions like Oracle and competitive pricing."

"It's expensive."

"Snowflake is expensive, but when I consider what we get for that price, it's fair. I rate the solution three out of five for affordability, right in the middle."

"Snowflake’s pricing is transparent. It is one of the cheapest cloud database warehouse providers. The tool follows a credit cost model. Everything on Snowflake is charged on the basis of credits. The credits depend on the cloud region and the public cloud provider that we use. Hence, the cost per credit will be different for AWS in Frankfurt and AWS in India. I think North Virginia is the cheapest region in terms of cost per credit. You will be consuming around 16 credits for large data warehouses."

"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."

"Comparing Snowflake to on-prem options such as Oracle or SAP, it seemed more cost-effective."

"It is hard to say because we're usually engaged in the transition as opposed to the long term. Their storage costs are easily within pennies of what AWS S3 would normally cost. Most of the clients I've been working with are in the financial sector, and they're relatively small. I would put them in an SMB connection. The first thing we have to bring up for people is that they're going to build this. They shouldn't store their data in S3. They should pipeline directly into Snowflake and use it on their storage. So, the cost is a big issue because these are small to medium size companies, and that is the biggest thing we had to price point for them."

More Snowflake pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	60

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?

See all answers

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

I am not the person who manages pricing, setup cost, and licensing. Our team is not limited in pricing. The only experience we have had in terms of running and reprocessing a large number of histor...

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What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Snowflake can be improved in terms of its recent switch to a new user interface, which feels less intuitive compared to the old one. Moving to this new interface is something that I would like to s...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Snowflake?

My main use case for Snowflake is building ETL pipelines and ad-hoc analytics on data that we have. A specific example of a pipeline and ad-hoc analytics task I have worked on using Snowflake invol...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 11% of the time

BigQuery vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 11% of the time

Databricks vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 9% of the time

SAP Business Data Cloud vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 9% of the time

SAP BW4HANA vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 7% of the time

More SAP Business Warehouse Competitors

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Databricks vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 4% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SAP Business Warehouse

May 2026

Download SAP Business Warehouse product report

Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

May 2026

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

Overview

SAP Business Warehouse integrates real-time data access via HANA, with Microsoft Excel and SAP ERP for enhanced data transformation and reporting. Known for its speed and hybrid features, it meets diverse data governance needs.

SAP Business Warehouse is designed to streamline data access and transformation with its integration capabilities. Its speed and efficiency are complemented by advanced reporting features and a robust authorization model. Users benefit from drag-and-drop reporting and alert systems that enhance operational efficiency. Despite its strengths, improvements are necessary in user friendliness, data integration, and reporting speed. Users require better trend analysis tools, increased visualization capabilities, and a more flexible configuration to optimize use. Real-time data access remains an area for development.

What features define SAP Business Warehouse?

HANA Integration: Enables real-time data access
Excel and ERP Integration: Seamless interaction with popular tools
Advanced Reporting: Delivers high-quality reporting capabilities
Hybrid Functionality: Offers versatile use cases
Drag-and-Drop: Simplifies reporting and analysis tasks
Authorization Model: Ensures secure data handling

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Operational Efficiency: Enhanced by alert and monitoring tools
Data Governance: Robust models meet diverse needs
Centralized Data: Comprehensive data storage and access
Decision-Making Support: BI tools inform strategic planning

SAP Business Warehouse plays a crucial role in industries like finance and supply chain, leveraging data warehousing, ETL processes, and powerful BI applications to enhance decision-making with tools like Business Objects, Tableau, and Power BI. It serves as a central data repository, facilitating extensive reporting and analysis capabilities.

SAP

Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.

Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.

What are Snowflake's Key Features?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to handle growing data volumes.
Seamless Integration: Works with a wide range of platforms.
Consumption-Based Costs: Pay only for what you use.
Time Travel: Access historical data effortlessly.
Data Sharing: Secure and efficient sharing of datasets.
Time Zone Conversion: Built-in feature for global operations.
Security: Robust measures to protect sensitive information.
Compute and Storage Separation: Independent scaling for optimal performance.

What Benefits Should You Look for?

Cost Efficiency: Optimized pricing models for minimal waste.
Enhanced Performance: Fast queries and processing times.
Flexibility: Handles both structured and semi-structured data.
Analytics Capabilities: Supports advanced data analysis and reporting.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.

Snowflake Computing

Sample Customers

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops

Buyer's Guide

SAP Business Warehouse vs. Snowflake

May 2026

Free Report: SAP Business Warehouse vs. Snowflake

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