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Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs SAP Data Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Ranking in Data Integration
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (18th)
SAP Data Services
Ranking in Data Integration
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Data Services is 1.5%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP Data Services1.5%
Ab Initio Co>Operating System1.2%
Other97.3%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Senior Solutions Architect at IDS Comercial
Enables creation of sophisticated applications with powerful parallelism and quick, effective support
The most valuable features of Ab Initio Co>Operating System are its performance and the ability to implement parallelism. There are three kinds of parallelism in Ab Initio Co>Operating System, which allow us to create very sophisticated solutions for almost any kind of application. This parallelism is one of the strongest features. Additionally, its scalability offers a unique way to escalate applications that differs from other technologies. In terms of data processing, the emphasis is on understanding the data. Data profiling is fundamental, and Ab Initio Co>Operating System integrates tools to perform this within the GDE, as well as specialized products for this purpose. Data profiling graphs can be implemented when necessary to understand the data sources.
Ramesh Pampana - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, SAP Practice at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has consistently provided impressive data handling capabilities and robust security features
Some of the most valuable features of SAP Data Services include data extraction where SAP is the best in that perspective, but when it comes to analytics or the reporting tool, I prefer to connect with Microsoft Power BI, which is a fantastic tool. Typically, from an end-user perspective, SAP has a huge amount of data, in terms of terabytes of data, but when you analyze that, the best form of visualization is always through Microsoft Power BI. SAP Data Services provides a best-in-class return on investment, as SAP's vision and forecast are absolutely amazing. They are ahead of technology, building an ecosystem that meets the standards of the fast-changing digital economy. SAP is indeed good at all this now, with so many components such as SAP Signavio, SAP EINS, SAP Work Zone, SAP ALM, Cloud ALM, SAP public cloud, SAP private cloud, and BTP, all of which are essential to meet the latest cutting-edge technologies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphical interface of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is very easy to understand and allows me to visualize the data flow effectively."
"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System excels at providing data lineage regardless of the type of data I have."
"It's easy to understand and deploy. It's easy to create new applications, and depending on the complexity of the application, it is easy to deploy the new requirements."
"From my point of view, Dataservices is a good ETL choice if there are SAP systems in the sources or the targets (it can help to make BW transformations much easier)."
"The user interface is ok."
"The basic functionality is quite good as is the basic logic and data information."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Data Services is the integration with data sources."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the scheduling part."
"It helps our organization and our clients achieve its goals and objectives by having the right information at the right time and at the right people."
"The initial setup is not complex."
 

Cons

"While Ab Initio Co>Operating System has positive attributes, I find that certain features can sometimes be difficult to understand."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System is a very expensive product."
"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"There are a lot of version improvements in the years and makes it hard to sync up with older versions of the same tool."
"Data Services SAP is lacking in sources and target databases compared to Informatica. SAP Data Services should have more connectivity."
"Sometimes when upgrading the product, the program corrupts and needs to be completely removed. It wastes a lot of time."
"SAP Data Services should be made a web-based solution."
"An area for improvement in SAP Data Services could involve making the product more accessible to non-technical end-users."
"It would be nice if this solution was a bit easier to move from development to production."
"There should be some kind of enhancement that can be done on the admin side of certain sites where we can assign the roles and responsibilities. We should be able to control who is using the tool and how."
"The pricing of the solution should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"At the entry level, if you're using it only for data integration, it is a little bit cheap. However, for large organizations it can be expensive. There are additional costs apart from the license."
"The price is very reasonable."
"The license price is expensive but medium to large-scale companies, should be able to afford it. Other solutions, such as Talend are easier to afford for smaller companies. Depending on the sources of the data where you are receiving your data you could be paying for more than one license."
"The product’s on-premise version is expensive for a medium-sized company."
"Pricing is good, there is no problem."
"Speaking about prices, Oracle and SAP are market leaders. So, the prices are more."
"It's relatively expensive compared to other vendors, but it is competitive."
"The pricing is a little high to make the product more competetive in the marketplace."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise36
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
While Ab Initio Co>Operating System has positive attributes, I find that certain features can sometimes be difficult to understand. When I have too many import feeds opened, they can conflict wi...
What is your primary use case for Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
The flexibility of data type and source integration for my IT ecosystem is excellent because Ab Initio Co>Operating System uses metadata, so it doesn't actually access the data; it takes the dat...
What advice do you have for others considering Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
I have not been involved in the security access of the platform's data security features, but I know that Ab Initio Co>Operating System is very careful because it doesn't access any customer dat...
How do you evaluate the ratio of price to quality for SAP Data Services?
I believe the license for the product is fair, even though some competitors offer similar services at lower prices. The difference between the Edge edition and the next one up is significant in pr...
Would you recommend SAP Data Services to complete beginners?
I think after some preparation, a beginner will be able to use SAP Data Services, however, if you are completely unprepared, you may have some issues. I think that in particular you will need a mo...
How has SAP Data Services helped your organization?
SAP Data Services has helped our whole staff understand the data across various sources and systems within the company. Not everyone who works at my organization is an IT expert - most just have av...
 

Also Known As

Co>Operating System
SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator, BusinessObjects Data Integrator
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

A multinational transportation company
EMC Corporation, LivePerson, Eldorado, Mozzart, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, Hilti Group, Nissha Printing Company Ltd., Asian Paints, Aareal Bank Group, Migros Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs. SAP Data Services and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.