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Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs SAP Data Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
29th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (17th)
SAP Data Services
Ranking in Data Integration
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is 1.1%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Data Services is 1.5%, down from 2.3% 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 System1.1%
Other97.4%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2777331 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Metadata-driven lineage has transformed our data governance and delivers flexible integration
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 with each other. If I'm using two separate import feeds for running my codes and they contain the same code inside, they experience conflicts, which creates difficulties. I believe this should not occur because it requires me to clear the work queue to run my import feed. I don't believe there are any missing features in Ab Initio Co>Operating System so far, but I would appreciate a better search feature. The global search is excellent, but a more in-depth search feature that allows me to search within the feeds or assets would be beneficial.
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 Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System excels at providing data lineage regardless of the type of data I have."
"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"The most valuable features of SAP Data Services lie in its ability to effectively observe and interpret the information within data related to people or facts, stands out."
"The maintenance of data services is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the scheduling part."
"Customer Service: 100% as no manual intervention is required once the solution is implemented."
"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 BA reporting tools, such as Data Services, and ETL tool in SAP Data Services are the most valuable."
"Data Services is extremely stable and stability information steward is considerably higher in version 4.2 than it was at the initial version 4.0."
"SAP works well for the financial side of the business, but for anybody who is researching solutions for incident management, I suggest that they use another product."
 

Cons

"While Ab Initio Co>Operating System has positive attributes, I find that certain features can sometimes be difficult to understand."
"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System is a very expensive product."
"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"The execution engines and processing engines have shortcomings and need improvements."
"Technical Support: Needs improvement as far as responsiveness."
"The initial setup is complex. It takes time to get used to."
"We would like the different tools offered within this solution to be available as standalone entities, rather than having to purchase the entire package when we only require a few features."
"The description of error messages isn't extensive, although they point to the problem. With other solutions, like Talend, I was able to use the debugger to get directly to the problem, but with SAP Data Services the debugger is not working. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the version specifically, but I'm using it in an enterprise environment and I can't do an upgrade."
"There are a lot of version improvements in the years and makes it hard to sync up with older versions of the same tool."
"Sudden crashing of DS making unsaved changes lost, happens usually when logged in for a long amount of time."
"The solution lacks user-friendly features; compared to other integration tools I've used before, it's less user-friendly and the built-in features just aren't sufficient."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"Speaking about prices, Oracle and SAP are market leaders. So, the prices are more."
"I rate the product price as one or two on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"It's relatively expensive compared to other vendors, but it is competitive."
"The product’s on-premise version is expensive for a medium-sized company."
"The enterprise version of SAP Data Services is free."
"The price is very reasonable."
"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 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
26%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.