Google Cloud Datalab vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Google and SAP are both solutions in the Data Visualization category. Google is ranked #25, while SAP is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1. Google holds a 1.4% mindshare in DV, compared to SAP’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud Datalab

Read 6 Google Cloud Datalab reviews

3,192 Views
1,436 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Read 114 SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence reviews

17,068 Views
6,486 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Google Cloud Datalab

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence and Google Cloud Datalab compete in the business intelligence domain. Google Cloud Datalab has the upper hand due to its advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities, justifying its price despite SAP's competitive pricing and support.

Features: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence provides powerful reporting and analytics tools, advanced data integration capabilities, and access to extensive data processing features. It supports multiple data sources and environments, making it versatile for various business needs. Google Cloud Datalab offers strong cloud-based analytics with seamless integration into other Google services, adaptable to big data environments, and providing robust machine learning integration.

Room for Improvement: SAP BusinessObjects could enhance its machine learning integration to compete more effectively with modern tools like Google Cloud Datalab. User interface improvements and streamlined cloud integration might make the platform more appealing to cloud-centric businesses. Additionally, SAP could provide more cost-effective solutions for startups and smaller enterprises. Google Cloud Datalab could benefit from improved support and training resources. It may also enhance its deployment options for organizations preferring hybrid solutions. Further optimization of the AI capabilities would solidify its lead in advanced analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence offers both on-premise and cloud deployment models backed by extensive customer support and training materials. It facilitates full-service support with detailed documentation and professional assistance. Google Cloud Datalab focuses primarily on cloud deployment, leveraging the Google ecosystem to provide scalability and modern integration capabilities, though it might lack the traditional on-premise deployment options.

Pricing and ROI: SAP BusinessObjects typically involves higher initial setup costs tailored to enterprise needs, offering a detailed ROI through comprehensive data processing abilities. Its structured pricing can be beneficial for long-term enterprise projects. Google Cloud Datalab operates with a usage-based pricing model, which can lead to lower upfront costs and favorable ROI through rapid insights and analytics, suitable for organizations prioritizing quick analytical returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud Datalab vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Datalab vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

September 2026

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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

Google Cloud Datalab

Ranking in Data Visualization

25th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Science Platforms (22nd)

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...

Ranking in Data Visualization

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

114

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Datalab is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence	4.0%
Google Cloud Datalab	1.4%
Other	94.6%

Data Visualization

Featured Reviews

LijomonJose

System Architect at UST Global EspaÃ±a

dashboards are good and data visualization is more meaningful for the end-user

Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcing your database with over a billion records, it can be tough for the end-user to manage the data. You need to have a single entity system in each environment. It's not because of GCP, but it would be great to have options like MongoDB or other similar tools in GCP. Then, we wouldn't always need to connect to the cloud and execute SQL queries. Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated. Once the data is collected, it should be easily sorted.

Read full review

TarunKumar7

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The APIs are valuable."

"Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable."

"In MLOps, when we are designing the data pipeline, the designing of the data pipeline is easy in Google Cloud."

"For me, it has been a stable product."

"All of the features of this product are quite good."

"The infrastructure is highly reliable and efficient, contributing to a positive experience."

"It's improved decision making process."

"We have been very pleased."

"I think it is the best product on the market as it has good integration with ERP."

"There are two tools inside BusinessObjects' schematic layout called the Universal Design Tool and Information Design Tool. These are the most powerful tools that set BusinessObjects' reporting from other solutions. If my organization has 300 or 400 tables, I can combine all of them into one universe, and everyone can use that. It is just a schematic layout that does not hold any data but the table relationships."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves."

"Business users manual data-entry load has decreased, and data between different systems are consistent in almost-real time."

"Go ahead with it -- it’s a good product."

"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."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence pros

Cons

"Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated."

"Connectivity challenges for end-users, particularly when loading data, environments, and libraries, need to be addressed for an enhanced user experience."

"The interface should be more user-friendly."

"The product must be made more user-friendly."

"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface. So that the initial user would use it properly, that would be a good option."

"We have also encountered challenges during our transition period in terms of data control and segmentation. The management of each channel and data structure as it has its own unique characteristics requires very detailed and precise control. The allocation should be appropriate and the complexity increases due to the different time zones and geographic locations of our clients. The process usually involves migrating the existing database sets to gcp and ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the only challenge that we faced while navigating the integers of the solution and honestly it was an interesting and unique experience."

"Lot of issues, because it is a huge product."

"It should have a better integration with Excel."

"Its price should be better. It is expensive and not cost-effective."

"The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features and not included to allow you to do that. I don't believe that is in the latest version of the product either."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an outdated solution that is missing many features."

"On the minus side, there is still a lot to be done on the mobile side to make Web Intelligence truly seamless between the desktop and mobile versions and I would like to see SAP pay a lot more attention to this."

"When we implemented BusinessObjects, the setup was straightforward. After SAP bought BusinessObjects, it gradually became more and more stepwise. There are too many steps, and they take too much time."

"I don't like the fact that I have to use two tools. Web Intelligence is good for reporting and all kinds of stuff, but I would rather have one product. All the reporting features of Web Intelligence should be developed within Lumira. A lot of predictive abilities have been brought into the cloud version of SAP Analytics. It would be nice to see a lot of newer technologies and AI. Predictive capabilities are becoming a little more standard. Instead of having to get another model, we are just looking for one solution to deal with analytics including predictive."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is affordable for us because we have a limited number of users."

"The product is cheap."

"The pricing is quite reasonable, and I would give it a rating of four out of ten."

"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."

"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."

"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."

"We purchase licenses through Epic. So, we get an Epic price as opposed to the SAP price. If we were going to use other products like Webby that they offer or exclusively use BI Launch Pad, it would cost a lot because half of our employees would touch it in some fashion. So, we use Epic-Crystal integration to keep the licensing cost down. I believe the BI Launch Pad licensing is something like $800 for each, and the Crystal Report licensing is something like $500 for each, but that's not what we pay."

"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."

"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."

"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."

"The platform's pricing needs to be revised."

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6663

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	67

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?

SAP BTP is an expensive solution.

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Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs Google Cloud Datalab

Compared 6% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Google Cloud Datalab

Compared 6% of the time

Anaconda Platform vs Google Cloud Datalab

Compared 6% of the time

Altair RapidMiner vs Google Cloud Datalab

Compared 5% of the time

More Google Cloud Datalab Competitors

SAP Business Data Cloud vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Compared 6% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Cognos vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Compared 3% of the time

More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Datalab

October 2026

Download Google Cloud Datalab product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

October 2026

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence report

Download SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence product report

Also Known As

No data available

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

Overview

Google Cloud Datalab offers an integrated environment for seamless data processing and analysis. It combines robust infrastructure with free call-up features to enhance user experience, making it a go-to choice for data-driven tasks.

Google Cloud Datalab is geared towards users seeking efficient data handling solutions. It provides a seamless setup with robust infrastructure, focusing on enhancing APIs and offering meaningful data visualization through its dashboards. Notable AI capabilities include auto-completion and data logging, although some minor configuration challenges exist. While transitioning from AWS can be complex, the platform supports dynamic data pipeline design that suits Python development, offering an end-user friendly environment.

What are the key features of Google Cloud Datalab?

Robust Infrastructure: Provides seamless setup with strong backend support.
Free Call-Up: Allows use without extra costs, enhancing accessibility.
Data Visualization: Dashboards offer meaningful insights into data trends.
AI Capabilities: Features auto-completion and data logging for efficiency.
Customizable Architecture: Adapts to different data handling needs effectively.

What benefits should users expect from Google Cloud Datalab?

Efficient Data Analysis: Streamlines exploratory data analysis in machine learning.
Enhanced API Value: API integrations add significant value to data handling.
Friendly Python Environment: Suitable for end-users looking for ease in Python development.
Adaptive Pipeline Design: Supports complex data transitions from AWS.
Global Availability: Helps overcome time lag issues with server location selection.

In specific industries, Google Cloud Datalab is instrumental in managing data analysis, machine learning exploration, and dataset preprocessing. It facilitates the transfer of workloads from AWS and ensures efficient daily data processing. Organizations benefit from its capability to provision machine learning models into Vertex AI, bolstering research and development efforts. The global availability feature plays a significant role in selecting optimal server locations, addressing time lag and connectivity challenges.

Google

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform offers powerful tools for enterprise reporting and data visualization, enhancing strategic decision-making through robust integration and secure analytics capabilities.

Designed for comprehensive enterprise reporting, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform integrates seamlessly with SAP ERP, supporting organizations in creating detailed financial, operational, and academic reports. The platform allows data manipulation across multiple sources using a semantic layer and provides intuitive tools like Web Intelligence and Lumira for user-driven report creation. It features centralized management, versatile connectors, and supports large-scale data analytics critical for business forecasting.

What are the key features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?

Integration Capabilities: Seamless connection with SAP ERP and various data sources.
Dynamic Scheduling: Automate report generation for timely insights.
Robust Security: Protects data with stringent security measures.
Semantic Layer: Simplifies data manipulation across sources.
Intuitive Tools: Facilitates user-driven report creation with Web Intelligence and Lumira.

What benefits should be considered in reviews?

Comprehensive Reporting: Enables detailed and accurate enterprise reports.
Decision-Making Support: Enhances strategic decisions with reliable data.
Scalability: Efficiently manages large-scale and complex data analytics.
Versatility in Analysis: Offers flexibility for ad hoc analysis and KPI monitoring.

Organizations across sectors like healthcare, education, insurance, and retail leverage SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for its capability in facilitating detailed reports and integrating dashboards for key performance indicators. Its extensive reporting features support in-depth analytics vital for business prediction and decision-making processes.

SAP

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud Datalab vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

September 2026

Free Report: Google Cloud Datalab vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

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