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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs TIBCO Spotfire comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
TIBCO Spotfire
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 TIBCO Spotfire is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mohsin Pathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, offers a single pane of glass, and is highly customizable
There's one area I see that specifically needs improvement. That is when you do the data loading. It is slow. For historical data, when you talk about gigabytes of data, terabytes of data, then it becomes prolonged. Loading could be improved. That's one part. That is actually there with every tool. I would not say that this is a specific problem with Spotfire. However, it is a problem with all the BI tools. That is one area which can be improved. When you are doing analytics, you see that the value has to come perfect. There was a missing feature of alerting out of the box within Spotfire. However, they have released this in version 12.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important feature of BusinessObjects is its integration with the SAP ERP system. If an organization is using SAP as its ERP system, and they want to do business intelligence, reporting, or analysis, SAP BusinessObjects is the only tool that I see doing that quite efficiently. That's because of the fact it is tightly integrated, and it gives a good user experience in terms of faster reporting. Its integration is the feature that I have found most valuable, but there are also other factors."
"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."
"This reporting and broadcasting solution has a lot of flexibilities and can connect to multiple source systems."
"The most valuable feature we have found to be the SAP BW, which is a warehouse tool. Additionally, it is an easy tool to use."
"We find the product to be very stable."
"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."
"Ease of report development is a key feature."
"BusinessObject's most useful feature is the semantic layer, which offers us the flexibility to go for ad hoc reporting."
"One of the main features is integrated statistical analysis."
"I appreciate Spotfire's range of visualization options, advanced analytics features, and seamless integration with other TIBCO products."
"I find the power of the information links valuable in Spotfire, as it allows complex queries to be handled efficiently."
"We used it pretty heavily in gathering data, which goes to our VPs. They are able to base their next revenue planning based on this metric. So, it has been invaluable."
"The solution is an affordable one."
"TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. While they assisted with the setup, we conducted the POC ourselves."
"The flexibility, data preparation, and data wrangling abilities of the platform are exceptional."
"This solution allows us to integrate data from across all client departments, for effective reporting via a single dashboard."
 

Cons

"It is not simple to use."
"It needs to be more flexible for the end-user."
"The user interface should be easier to use and navigate."
"The cost of this product, so every company is not suitable to use it. Because of the very huge amount of integrations, every organization can not use it."
"Most of the Apps right now are into dashboarding. This tool, for the Crystal Reports in the phase I'm primarily working on, does not have those dashboarding capabilities, like in the other advanced tools like Power BI or ClickView, and compared to them the dashboard generation is not that great."
"The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The solution is not good for self-services, they can improve in this area."
"Technical support may not always be timely or effective."
"We would like an easier way to get the product to the cloud. Right now, we have the on-premise version, and we would like to find a way to make it easier to migrate it over to the cloud."
"The data compression has room for improvement."
"The handling and consumption of realtime data could be improved."
"Print capability and trigger-based events."
"The initial setup of TIBCO Spotfire is in the middle range of difficulty. The initial setup of Power BI is easier."
"The way TIBCO Spotfire is designed, in my opinion, is the reason why it lags a bit, especially compared to other BI tools like Qlik."
"We would like to see some development in the visualization aspect of this solution, as they can currently only be configured in the cloud, which limits us to one endpoint. It would be helpful if this could be integrated with other tools."
"One aspect where Spotfire could improve is its global recognition, especially in terms of support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
"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."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"The price-point for this solution is negotiable depending on usage levels."
"In comparison to other solutions such as IBM Cognos, TIBCO Spotfire is more affordable."
"The cost is a few hundred dollars per user per year."
"This product carries a monthly licensing charge, with the amount depending on the features that are to be included. This costs also covers the use of technical support."
"The cost of TIBCO Spotfire could improve. It should be less expensive. It's the most expensive visualization tool in our company."
"The solution is affordable one."
"The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost."
"The Tibco sales teams have been very difficult to work with - ignoring requests, misrepresenting level of demand, etc."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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...
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.
What do you like most about TIBCO Spotfire?
TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. While they assisted with the setup, we conducted the POC ourselves.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Spotfire?
Compared to other tools, Spotfire's pricing is competitive, especially with its enterprise licensing.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Spotfire?
Spotfire requires better documentation. Unlike competitors like Power BI and Tableau, Spotfire lacks comprehensive metadata dictionaries. This makes it difficult to generate usage metrics, which ar...
 

Also Known As

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
Spotfire
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. TIBCO Spotfire and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.