We performed a comparison between SAP BW4HANA and SAP HANA based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Oracle, Teradata and others in Data Warehouse."SAP BW4HANA aids in managing data from ER to front-end analysis, contributes to ROI, and fosters business growth understanding. I like that the solution breaks down components to a very granular level, allowing for customization and implementation based on specific requirements. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable."
"The ability to instantly pull data is the most valuable feature."
"It can calculate data in detail. Before we could not calculate financial documents and accountant documents in detail, we could not do it at a document level but now we can. This is the most important feature. It also has predictive analysis memory."
"Some of the main features of this solution are that it uses HANA and it has good performance."
"The solution is useful for connecting with external systems."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is that we can transform a huge amount of data and apply business logic as per the requirements."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup was easy."
"This solution is very fast."
"Its in-memory capabilities are good, which is why many companies still use it."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It usually takes around eight months but it depends on a customer's requirements. We can spend a month or two customizing."
"In comparison with other DMS solutions, it offers good performance."
"It is very stable and very innovative. You can integrate many applications with it."
"It is difficult for me to narrow down what the best features are in SAP HANA because they work together to provide the overall functionality of the solution. However, the Fiori application is very good."
"The feature that I like the most is that we can transport the data to our web data application. SAP HANA's performance is really perfect. We're working on big data, and SAP HANA is really working on high performance. We are happy working with it."
"SAP HANA is vertically and horizontally scalable."
"Challenges arise with real-time client requirements when clients are accustomed to Microsoft Excel's extensive features for data analysis. They expect similar flexibility and customization in the solution, particularly regarding headers displaying keys and descriptions or just keys. Achieving this level of customization can be challenging, and it's an area that may need improvement."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"There's the complexity in migration from BW to BW/4HANA, especially with data migration."
"They have taken out a few BW functionalities when they redesigned this. The way of multi-dimensional thinking and star schema got a little bit lost. It may be because of the cost, but certain functionalities that were previously implemented from the BW side should come back again in the whole product. It is a young product. It is version 2.0. In time, I'm pretty sure they will come back again because otherwise, it limits the potential of the product, and I have to do a lot of modeling towards that direction. For me, the analytics focus is too much. It is not cube-oriented in that way, so its functionality is limited. It is not really technically limited in the back end; it is more limited in the front end. It has a data-mining mindset for SQL developers. The navigational attributes should be easy. It needs to be built in models. I see the data mark cube or understanding that the composite provider needs to be models in a cube coming back. The multi-dimensional star schema approach and the reporting need to be done as well as possible to leverage the star scheme below. This is definitely not understood by many consultants and even composite providers for star schema. They always think in terms of flat tables, which is limiting. You need to build the right dimensions, objects, and so on. If you can build this in BW4HANA, then you have this understanding that BW4HANA is not forcing you in this direction, but it should force you a bit better in this direction. Maybe a few elements which were in use in BW should come back again. It would help the community to determine the direction to build on the cube. You can have maybe 50 elements, and then you can expand it to what you need by leveraging navigation. So far, this functionality is a little bit limited in the tool, and it is not thought through, but I think it will come. They should also be adding more capabilities for the transformation between different objects. In BW, this is currently limited, especially towards composite providers. It is a bit complex basically in the building. You have to have a lot of knowledge as well as know how to do it better because it is a bit different from BW. There is not too much expertise currently in the consulting markets. Many are trying to build something, but it may be based on their knowledge of what they have from the BW and HANA side. You have to find the right mix from both of them at this time. We also have HANA Native. These are our two different sync sources basically, and we have approaches to connect nicely, but it is hard to manage your team because a lot of coaching is required."
"I don't see SAP actively supporting the solution now...a better support from SAP would be appreciated."
"The cost of the product might be an area that might introduce some restrictions or limitations to customers, making it one of the aspects where improvements are required."
"I would like to be able to design new reports in a future release."
"Pricing would be a good improvement. A lot of customers think that it's very expensive and especially support is very expensive."
"I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement."
"It's a complex initial setup."
"SAP HANA is not perfect and they could improve by having more options and more integration."
"The pricing could be better."
"Needs graphical programming without coding."
"The openness of the system could be more developed. The solution should go into the cloud. The cloud mechanism should be more invested."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution's development platform should be more flexible and scalable to adapt to other solutions."
SAP BW4HANA is ranked 7th in Data Warehouse with 36 reviews while SAP HANA is ranked 1st in Embedded Database with 81 reviews. SAP BW4HANA is rated 7.4, while SAP HANA is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SAP BW4HANA writes "An easy-to-operate and administer tool that needs to consider revising its existing licensing cost". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP HANA writes "Excellent compatibility between modules and the control". SAP BW4HANA is most compared with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, SQL Server and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, whereas SAP HANA is most compared with Oracle Database, SQL Server, MySQL, IBM Db2 Database and Denodo.
We monitor all Data Warehouse reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.