SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Sigma comparison

SAP and Sigma Computing are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. SAP is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0, while Sigma Computing is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.0. SAP holds a 3.7% mindshare in BIT, compared to Sigma Computing’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of SAP users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sigma Computing users who would recommend it.

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Read 103 SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform reviews

4,884 Views
3,780 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Sigma

Read 6 Sigma reviews

1,348 Views
647 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Sigma

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Sigma compete in the business intelligence space. While SAP BusinessObjects is advantageous for enterprises needing deep integration, Sigma offers a more user-friendly, cloud-based solution appealing to agile teams.

Features: SAP BusinessObjects provides extensive analytics, integration with SAP applications, and robust enterprise-level capabilities. Sigma offers cloud-native data exploration, collaboration features, and seamless accessibility. The difference is SAP's integration complexity versus Sigma's ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP BusinessObjects requires significant IT resources for deployment and offers enterprise-focused support. Sigma, being cloud-based, enables quick deployment and offers more immediate, hands-on assistance. SAP's approach is more complex, while Sigma provides simplicity and efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: SAP BusinessObjects typically involves higher initial costs with ROI benefiting long-term deployments. Sigma's pricing is more accessible, encouraging faster adoption and decision-making, offering immediate value especially for growing businesses. SAP's cost is linked to its extensive capabilities, while Sigma provides cost-effectiveness and a quicker ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. Sigma

April 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

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

Sigma

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 3.7%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

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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Russell Rothstein

Founder and CEO at PeerSpot

Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations

I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

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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

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

"Provides autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports."

"BusinessObjects can handle a lot of usage on the front end, and many users can view these reports. It's a relatively stable and secure tool."

"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."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves."

"The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries."

"What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process."

"It has been extremely valuable, to combine data from various data sources."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform pros

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."

"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."

"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."

"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."

Cons

"The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not user friendly."

"The user interface should be easier to use and navigate."

"The solution can improve by having more analytical features."

"The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint."

"We would like to see a native version of BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence created for the cloud."

"The initial setup could be simplified."

"The integration could be improved. The SAP suite has some integration problems and it has some huge development needs. For example, when you use Power BI, if you publish a dataset to the web, there is no issue in seeing the data with the report. The data and report are integrated automatically. Or when you use QlikView, when you publish the QVD file, the report is integrated with QVD. Also, with Tableau, when you publish the data, it's in the hyper database, in the memory, and the dashboard with data is integrated seamlessly. In the SAP side, it's not easy. There are lots of business layers. There are also some performance issues in the SAP BusinessObjects suite. They should focus on the technologies. We are partners and every step of the way, SAP asks us for money. If you want to see the products, the PDFs, if you want to learn the product, online training, etc., everything has a cost on the SAP site. Because of this, partners try to get to know the products on their own. SAP only focuses on the sales side—only money is important for SAP, not the quality. In that way, the operation is not easy on the SAP side. As a suggestion, they should focus on customers first instead of money."

"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has always struggled with dashboarding."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform cons

"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."

"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."

"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."

"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."

"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."

"Sigma could have better reports."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."

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

"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."

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

"Its price is fair."

"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."

"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."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform pricing and cost advice

"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."

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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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Sigma?

The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?

The pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses. Most users have view...

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What needs improvement with Sigma?

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Analytics Cloud vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Cognos vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 9% of the time

MicroStrategy vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Competitors

Hex vs Sigma

Compared 37% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sigma

Compared 17% of the time

Tableau vs Sigma

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Sigma

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Sigma

Compared 8% of the time

More Sigma Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

March 2025

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform report

Download SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Sigma

March 2025

Download Sigma product report

Also Known As

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects

No data available

Overview

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.

SAP

Sigma is the next-generation of analytics for cloud data warehouses with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface that gives business experts the power to ask any question of their data no matter the query.

Sigma Computing

Sample Customers

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

Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela

Buyer's Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. Sigma

April 2025

Free Report: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. Sigma

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