SAP BW4HANA vs Snowflake vs Teradata comparison

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SAP BW4HANA

Snowflake

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SAP BW4HANA, Snowflake, and Teradata based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse.

To learn more, read our detailed Data Warehouse Report (Updated: April 2025).

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Data Warehouse

April 2025

Helped 848,989 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 4.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 15.2%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 16.3%, up from 15.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Csaba Grünblatt

Senior Data, Data warehouse and BI/Analytics Architect at Techwave.

Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities

SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.

Transformation in data querying speed with good migration capabilities

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses. One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations. It also has tools for migrating data from legacy databases like Oracle. Its stability and efficiency enhance performance greatly. Tools in the AI/ML marketplace are readily available without needing development.

Offers seamless integration capabilities and performance optimization features, including extensive indexing and advanced tuning capabilities

SurjitChoudhury

Data engineer at Cocos pt

We created and constructed the warehouse. We used multiple loading processes like MultiLoad, FastLoad, and Teradata Pump. But those are loading processes, and Teradata is a powerful tool because if we consider older technologies, its architecture with nodes, virtual processes, and nodes is a unique concept. Later, other technologies like Informatica also adopted the concept of nodes from Informatica PowerCenter version 7.x. Previously, it was a client-server architecture, but later, it changed to the nodes concept. Like, we can have the database available 24/7, 365 days. If one node fails, other nodes can take care of it. Informatica adopted all those concepts when it changed its architecture. Even Oracle databases have since adapted their architecture to them. However, this particular Teradata company initially started with its own different type of architecture, which major companies later adopted. It has grown now, but initially, whatever query we sent it would be mapped into a particular component. After that, it goes to the virtual processor and down to the disk, where the actual physical data is loaded. So, in between, there's a map, which acts like a data dictionary. It also holds information about each piece of data, where it's loaded, and on which particular virtual processor or node the data resides. Because Teradata comes with a four-node architecture, or however many nodes we choose, the cost is determined by that initially. So, what type of data does each and every node hold? It's a shared-no architecture. So, whatever task is given to a virtual processor it will be processed. If there's a failure, then it will be taken care of by another virtual processor. Moreover, this solution has impacted the query time and data performance. In Teradata, there's a lot of joining, partitioning, and indexing of records. There are primary and secondary indexes, hash indexing, and other indexing processes. To improve query performance, we first analyze the query and tune it. If a join needs a secondary index, which plays a major role in filtering records, we might reconstruct that particular table with the secondary index. This tuning involves partitioning and indexing. We use these tools and technologies to fine-tune performance. When it comes to integration, tools like Informatica seamlessly connect with Teradata. We ensure the Teradata database is configured correctly in Informatica, including the proper hostname and properties for the load process. We didn't find any major complexity or issues with integration. But, these technologies are quite old now. With newer big data technologies, we've worked with a four-layer architecture, pulling data from Hadoop Lake to Teradata. We configure Teradata with the appropriate hostname and credentials, and use BTEQ queries to load data. Previously, we converted the data warehouse to a CLD model as per Teradata's standardized procedures, moving from an ETL to an EMT process. This allowed us to perform gap analysis on missing entities based on the model and retrieve them from the source system again. We found Teradata integration straightforward and compatible with other tools.

More SAP BW4HANA pricing and cost advice

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to instantly pull data is the most valuable feature."

"You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."

"We can get good visualization and less redundant data."

"Its direct approach is the most valuable. You get more real time and capabilities than BW."

"The solution is useful for connecting with external systems."

"The product is stable."

"I like the tool's robustness and security."

"We like that it is an SAP product, so we can easily connect with the SAP ERP system."

More SAP BW4HANA pros

"Everything is automatic, and I don't have to do any maintenance."

"Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake."

"Very easy to use and easy to query."

"It is a cloud solution with many useful features. It has the data science capability. It can transform data and prepare data for a data science project with scalability."

"It has great flexibility whenever we are loading data and performs ELT (extract, load, transform) techniques instead of ETL."

"They separate compute and storage. You can scale storage independently of the computer, or you can scale computing independently of storage. If you need to buy more computer parts you can add new virtual warehouses in Snowflake. Similarly, if you need more storage, you take more storage. It's most scalable in the database essentially; typically you don't have this scalability independence on-premises."

"Snowflake is scalable both in terms of the amount of data that you can run through it and the number of users that engage with it."

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

More Snowflake pros

"It is quick, secure, and has less hassles because we don't have to involve our networking team, infrastructure, etc. It is very easy to deploy and make market ready."

"Teradata can be deployed on-premise, on the cloud, or in a virtual machine, which means customers can move without having to create their architecture all over again."

"A conventional and easily defined way to build a data warehouse or a layer of data marts."

"It effectively has allowed us to remove over 20 portion copies of the data sets on other DB platforms for real-time operational reporting purposes."

"I found all parts --loading, transformation, processing & querying work in parallel, and end-to-end-- to be valuable."

"The solution's banking model, called FSLDM (Financial Services Logical Data Model), is sophisticated and good."

"The data processing, clustering, and distributed computing are impressive."

"Teradata effectively uses parallelism to the granular level, performing better than other databases."

More Teradata pros

Cons

"The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done."

"There's one area where the other vendors have an upper edge, which is the data lake. I think SAP is trying to figure out whether to stick with IQ, their own data lake solution, or push customers toward customer-preferred vendors, like Azure Data Lake, AWS, or any other provider."

"The UI is not user-friendly."

"We cannot integrate with third-party tools like Python or advanced integration options. You can't fine-tune tables within BW or generate specific views or reports."

"SAP BW/4HANA can generally be less flexible than other tools, depending on how it is set up."

"The solution is not easy to implement. It requires a lot of learning at the beginning."

"Other competitors provide better solutions that are more up to date with current technology."

"It takes too long to escalate problems from the first level of support."

More SAP BW4HANA cons

"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."

"The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it."

"The complexity of the initial setup of Snowflake depends on the use case. However, Snowflake itself, we don't set it up. The difficulty comes from the ingestion patterns, depending on what data I'm putting in, what kind of enrichment, and what additional value we have to add. However, it does tend to get complex because we have a lot of semi-structured data which we need to handle in Snowflake. There have been some challenges."

"We would like to be able to do modeling with Snowflake. It should support statistical modeling."

"The solution could improve by allowing non-structured data, such as PDFs, images, or videos. We cannot see the data."

"Maybe there could be some more connectors to other systems, but this is what they are constantly developing anyway."

"If you go with one cloud provider, you can't switch."

"I am still in the learning stage. It has good security, but it can always be more secure."

More Snowflake cons

"Needs compatibility with more Big Data platforms."

"I've been using the same UI for 20 years in Teradata. It could use some updating. Adding more stability around Teradata Studio would be outstanding. Teradata Studio is a Java-based version of their tool. It's much better now, but it still has some room for improvement."

"Stability-wise, we have had some issues with automation and the ability to handle large datasets."

"The only issue our company has with Teradata IntelliFlex is that it is not cost-effective because of the way the product has been designed."

"The user interface needs to be improved."

"The increasing volumes of data demand more and more performance."

"There are some ways that the handling of unstructured data could be improved."

"I would like to see more integration with many different types of data."

More Teradata cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."

"As an investment, the solution is very expensive."

"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."

"For some, the rates offered by SAP can be costly while for others it may seem cheap. The price ultimately depends on how you have negotiated your contract with SAP."

"For the on-premises version of the product, the solution offers a perpetual-based licensing model to its users. In general, SAP offers a monthly subscription-based licensing model to its users."

"The product is free if we have the ECC license."

"The solution is expensive."

"The price is high and currently only affordable for large organizations."

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

"The price of Snowflake is very reasonable."

"They give a different price for every single company. I don't know if I negotiated that well, but we got the enterprise tier for $3 a credit, and the other two were a dollar-ninety a credit. I suspect we don't have almost zero compute usage, but I know that our annual contract packages are below all of their minimums."

"The pricing part is based on the computing and storage. The costs are different and then there are services costs as well."

"Snowflake is a cost-effective solution."

"Users have to pay a licensing fee for the solution, which is expensive."

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of queries you want on your database. The cost is small. To get the tool's pricing, you can do the math based on the cost per query, which is $0.002. If you're running your queries frequently, your charges will be higher than running fewer queries."

"On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month."

More Snowflake pricing and cost advice

"In this day and age, we want to get things done quickly. So, we go to the AWS Marketplace."

"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"Price is quite high, so if it is really possible to use other solutions (e.g. you do not have strict requirements for performance and huge data volumes), it might be better to look at alternatives from the RDBMS world."

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Teradata IntelliFlex, which is very expensive."

"The tool costs about 30,000 euros a month, while Azure Synapse SQL only costs 10,000."

"When looking into implementing this product, pricing is the main issue followed by technical expertise."

"The cost of running Teradata is quite high, but you get a good return on investment."

"It is still a very expensive solution. While I very much like the pure technological supremacy of the software itself, I believe Teradata as a company needs to become more affordable. They are already losing the market to more flexible or cheaper competitors."

More Teradata pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user232068

Senior Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 5, 2015

Netezza vs. Teradata

Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…

What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Educational Organization

37%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless ac...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?

We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses.

What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?

The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done.

What do you like most about Snowflake?

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side, rated as eight out of ten. If there were ways to reduce costs, it would be...

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve. The product is not very cheap, and a reduction in costs...

Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?

I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may d...

Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?

Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if ...

Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?

Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if ...

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP BW4HANA

Comparisons

Compared 27% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 9% of the time

SQL Server vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 8% of the time

SAP HANA vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 8% of the time

SAP IQ vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 4% of the time

More SAP BW4HANA Competitors

Azure Data Factory vs Snowflake

Compared 16% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Lake Formation vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs Snowflake

Compared 6% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Oracle Exadata vs Teradata

Compared 14% of the time

SQL Server vs Teradata

Compared 10% of the time

MySQL vs Teradata

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs Teradata

Compared 6% of the time

Vertica vs Teradata

Compared 6% of the time

More Teradata Competitors

Product Reports

Download SAP BW4HANA product report

SAP BW4HANA

March 2025

Download Snowflake product report

Snowflake

March 2025

Download Teradata product report

March 2025

Also Known As

SAP BW/4HANA

Snowflake Computing

IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture

Overview

SAP BW4HANA is a data warehouse solution developed by SAP for businesses looking to analyze big data in real time. It is designed to run on the SAP HANA database, offering improved performance and optimized processing of large data sets. SAP BW/4HANA provides an array of advanced analytics capabilities, including predictive analytics, text analytics, and spatial data processing. It also offers a modern, intuitive user interface and streamlined data modeling and administration tools, making it easier for businesses to access, manage, and utilize their data.

SAP BW4HANA Features

SAP BW4HANA has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

In-memory data processing: The solution runs on the SAP HANA database, providing fast and efficient data processing.

Advanced analytics: SAP BW4HANA includes capabilities for predictive analytics, text analytics, and spatial data processing.

Data modeling and administration: The solution provides streamlined data modeling and administration tools for efficient data management.

Modern user interface: SAP BW4HAN is designed with a modern, intuitive user interface for easier data access and analysis.

Data warehousing optimization: The solution is optimized for big data warehousing, offering improved performance and scalability.

Integration with SAP ecosystem: SAP BW4HAN integrates with the SAP ecosystem, including SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform, for seamless data exchange.

Real-time data processing: It supports real-time data processing and analysis, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions.

Data governance and security: With its robust data governance and security features, SAP BW4HAN can be used for secure data management and compliance.

Automated data loading: SAP BW4HAN supports automated data loading from various sources, including SAP and non-SAP systems.

Advanced data visualization: With its advanced data visualization capabilities, users can generate better data insights and make more informed business decisions.

SAP BW4HANA Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing SAP BW4HANA. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Improved data processing speed: Running on the SAP HANA database, SAP BW/4HANA provides fast and efficient data processing, resulting in improved performance and reduced downtime.

Streamlined data management: The solution's streamlined data modeling and administration tools make it easier for organizations to manage their data, improving overall efficiency and reducing the risk of errors.

Improved data governance: SAP BW/4HANA includes robust data governance and security features, helping organizations meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive data.

Cost savings: By optimizing data warehousing processes, SAP BW/4HANA helps organizations reduce costs and improve their bottom line.

Reviews from Real Users

SAP BW4HANA is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are its hierarchical alert slicing, real-time insights, and its ability to transform large amounts of data.

PeerSpot reviewer, Srivatsav A., SAP BW/4HANA Specialist at a government, is very happy with the solution. He explains, "You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."

“It has got wonderful features in terms of analyzing your production data, and it gives you real-time insight into productive maintenance. You can plan your budget, and you can map them against actuals. It gives you good insights on overall performance and processes,” says Amrit J., ERP Application Manager at an energy/utilities company.

In addition, a Technology Analyst at a tech services company mentions, "The most valuable feature is that we can transform a huge amount of data and apply business logic as per the requirements."

SAP

Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing solution for storing and processing data, generating reports and dashboards, and as a BI reporting source. It is used for optimizing costs and using financial data, as well as for migrating data from on-premises to the cloud. The solution is often used as a centralized data warehouse, combining data from multiple sources.

Snowflake has helped organizations improve query performance, store and process JSON and XML, consolidate multiple databases into one unified table, power company-wide dashboards, increase productivity, reduce processing time, and have easy maintenance with good technical support.

Its platform is made up of three components:

Cloud services - Snowflake uses ANSI SQL to empower users to optimize their data and manage their infrastructure, while Snowflake handles the security and encryption of stored data.
Query processing - Snowflake's compute layer is made up of virtual cloud data warehouses that let you analyze data through requests. Each of the warehouses does not compete for computing resources, nor do they affect the performance of each other.
Database storage - Snowflake automatically manages all parts of the data storage process, including file size, compression, organization, structure, metadata, and statistics.

Snowflake has many valuable vital features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Snowflake architecture provides nearly unlimited scalability and high speed because it uses a single elastic performance engine. The solution also supports unlimited concurrent users and workloads, from interactive to batch.
Snowflake makes automation easy and enables enterprises to automate data management, security, governance, availability, and data resiliency.
With seamless cross-cloud and cross-region connections, Snowflake eliminates ETL and data silos. Anyone who needs access to shared secure data can get a single copy via the data cloud. In addition, Snowflake makes remote collaboration and decision-making fast and easy via a single shared data source.
Snowflake’s Data Marketplace offers third-party data, which allows you to connect with Snowflake customers to extend workflows with data services and third-party applications.

There are many benefits to implementing Snowflake. It helps optimize costs, reduce downtime, improve operational efficiency, and automate data replication for fast recovery, and it is built for high reliability and availability.

Below are quotes from interviews we conducted with users currently using the Snowflake solution:

Sreenivasan R., Director of Data Architecture and Engineering at Decision Minds, says, "Data sharing is a good feature. It is a majorly used feature. The elastic computing is another big feature. Separating computing and storage gives you flexibility. It doesn't require much DBA involvement because it doesn't need any performance tuning. We are not doing any performance tuning, and the entire burden of performance and SQL tuning is on Snowflake. Its usability is very good. I don't need to ramp up any user, and its onboarding is easier. You just onboard the user, and you are done with it. There are simple SQL and UI, and people are able to use this solution easily. Ease of use is a big thing in Snowflake."

A director of business operations at a logistics company mentions, "It requires no maintenance on our part. They handle all that. The speed is phenomenal. The pricing isn't really anything more than what you would be paying for a SQL server license or another tool to execute the same thing. We have zero maintenance on our side to do anything and the speed at which it performs queries and loads the data is amazing. It handles unstructured data extremely well, too. So, if the data is in a JSON array or an XML, it handles that super well."

A Solution Architect at a wholesaler/distributor comments, "The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business."

Snowflake Computing

Teradata is a scalable data analytics platform designed to meet enterprise demands for large-scale data management and processing, focusing on performance, scalability, and security for complex query executions.

As a leading data warehousing solution, Teradata integrates advanced analytics enabling organizations to derive insights from massive datasets. It supports high-volume data workloads with its architecture optimized for analytical queries. Users benefit from its robust scalability, allowing seamless expansion as data grows. Teradata's SQL engine is compatible with a wide range of data types, ensuring flexibility in data analysis. With advanced security measures, it protects sensitive data across various environments, providing peace of mind to users handling critical information.

What are the most important features of Teradata?

Linear Scalability: Easily expands data processing capabilities to handle increasing data loads without performance degradation.
Advanced Analytics: Supports complex analytical operations integrating machine learning and AI for predictive insights.
SQL Compatibility: Offers a comprehensive SQL interface that supports complex queries across diverse data types.
Data Security: Implements rigorous security protocols to protect data integrity and confidentiality.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Decision-Making: Derive actionable insights quickly for strategic business decisions.
Cost Efficiency: Optimized resource usage reduces operational costs associated with data processing.
Increased Productivity: Streamlined data operations save time, allowing teams to focus on analysis.
Enhanced Scalability: Seamless growth without significant additional investment as data volumes increase.

Teradata is widely used in industries like finance, telecommunications, and healthcare, where data-driven decisions are critical. Companies leverage its robust analytics capabilities to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. In these sectors, quick access to data insights can significantly impact competitive advantage.