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Apache Superset vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 15, 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

Apache Superset
Ranking in Data Visualization
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in Data Visualization
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Apache Superset is 3.4%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Superset3.4%
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence3.1%
Other93.5%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

MP
Founder & CEO at Lanzar
Have saved significant operational costs and streamlined alert-driven analytics with customizable dashboards
I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Based Access Control feature in the product. I assess this feature as good; they have permissions which are in more plain English, but there is a little bit of convenience missed out because if I have to create a super user apart from admin, I need to add all the permissions manually.
TarunKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
Data insights have driven faster financial forecasts and improved role-based decision making
The best features SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform offers include cross-enterprise sharing, where sharing insights is easier and seamless across my organization, and creating role-based dashboards. The role-based dashboards help my team and organization by providing information to specific users, allowing them to make decisions more easily, anytime, anywhere, across any device. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to perform financial reporting to make decisions faster. Since we started using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we have been able to make faster, data-driven business decisions based on actual data insights and data analysis, which has accelerated our ability to make better decisions for our business productivity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate most about Apache Superset is its text search feature, including searching with small and capital letters."
"Apache Superset allows us to set up alerts; for instance, if the failure rate exceeds 1.5%, we receive an alert to address the issue with our integration partners."
"Being able to quickly build standard dashboards around relational data in Apache Superset provides tremendous visibility for everyone on the team."
"The main benefit I have seen from working with Apache Superset so far is the speed from discovery and SQL to making charts and dashboards, along with its customizability."
"When you click on any chart, you can apply the filter without any effort."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Superset is the easy way to configure dashboards as reports or analyses and it's easy to use and intuitive. Users do not need a lot of training to use the solution."
"I see savings from using Apache Superset in both time and money, particularly with the cost reduced by roughly 99% compared to Tableau where we previously paid almost 50k annually."
"Being able to quickly build standard dashboards around relational data in Apache Superset provides tremendous visibility for everyone on the team."
"We use it to identify critical KPIs to senior management."
"It has got great flexibility. As a reporting tool, it has a great deal of flexibility for numerous data resources that you can bring into it. It allows you to write your SQL query directly within the product. So, it allows you to do server-side joins instead of pulling all the data into Crystal Report to aggregate that data. It has great visualization. For the most part, it operates quite efficiently."
"During the first of the 10 years we used it, it was a very valuable reporting product."
"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."
"It's a reliable, stable, secure, and mature tool for business intelligence and other functions, like standard reports."
"The nicest part of BOE remains the semantic layer (Designer), giving developers a powerful way to encapsulate business logic and push it out to users through Webi or WRC."
"It integrates well with BW and HANA, which demonstrates strong data integration capabilities."
 

Cons

"Building a full-fledged product or software as a service might be cumbersome due to performance limitations."
"Building a full-fledged product or software as a service might be cumbersome due to performance limitations."
"One potential area for improvement in Apache Superset is that it must be installed in a dedicated Docker image, which could be a limitation since the goal is to embed Apache Superset in a product offering."
"When comparing Apache Superset with Elasticsearch and Solar Search, it lacks some features that come with Elasticsearch, such as Kibana."
"The platform's reporting feature needs enhancement."
"Apache Superset could be improved by enhancing its interactivity and engagement capabilities."
"Automation in terms of APIs for creating roles, and giving privileges to the user can be improved."
"I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators."
"I can't recommend BusinessObjects because its usage is limited, and it can't provide a new solution for end-users."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution."
"The dashboard tool is called Lumira and it is very uncomfortable for developers to use. They should improve this in the future."
"Over the years, the product tends to rename and rebrand itself and change its direction. This is a deficit of the solution."
"We'd like to have SAP notes better incorporated. There is a lot of patching. It could be a lighter solution."
"The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features are not included to allow you to do that."
"Recently, it's become less stable if I am working on Citrix."
"We feel that the tool is very complex in terms of implementing the dashboard; lots of coding and performance issues, and we require particular skillsets and resources as regular users cannot understand it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Apache Superset is less than some of its competitors."
"Apache Superset is open-source and free."
"Apache Superset is an open-source solution."
"Apache Superset has a three-year licensing model."
"Its price is fair."
"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"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.​"
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
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
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise67
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Apache Superset?
I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Ba...
What is your primary use case for Apache Superset?
My major use case for Apache Superset is anything related to analytical dashboards.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Superset vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
896,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.