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Oracle Database Appliance vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Oracle Database Appliance provides strong ROI through efficient deployment, quality support, and long-term value, despite higher initial costs.
Sentiment score
7.7
SAP BW4HANA centralizes data, enhances productivity and insights, with ROI expected in three to five years.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Users appreciate Oracle Database Appliance's support for expertise and responsiveness, but report issues with response time and costs.
Sentiment score
5.6
SAP BW4HANA support receives mixed reviews, praised for technical assistance but criticized for variable response times and delays.
I would rate Oracle support nine or ten out of ten because you can always open a ticket and describe any problems, and the feedback is very quick.
In the meantime, I found solutions independently and provided two solutions to my client.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Oracle Database Appliance is scalable and well-suited for small to medium setups, but has mixed reviews for larger enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAP BW4HANA provides strong scalability through horizontal and vertical scaling, with positive user feedback despite budgeting challenges.
All enterprise-grade analytics tools allow rapid scaling, making our business more competitive.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Oracle Database Appliance is stable, with minor setup issues, improved reliability in recent versions, and scalability limitations.
Sentiment score
7.6
SAP BW4HANA is stable and reliable but faces scalability challenges with large datasets and needs more cloud-orientation.
 

Room For Improvement

Oracle Database Appliance needs faster implementation, scalability improvements, unified admin commands, better support, and increased affordability and integration.
SAP BW4HANA struggles with complexity, integration issues, high costs, a steep learning curve, and limited customization and support.
There is room for improvement in better integration with third-party tools, such as Power BI or Redshift.
For the cloud version, there could be better storage options or more storage for lower prices.
Integration needs improvement.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Oracle Database Appliance costly, but its stability, fast implementation, and included support justify the price.
SAP BW4HANA is costly, with high migration and certification fees, affordable for large enterprises but expensive for smaller ones.
Oracle is on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, along with SAP.
The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
 

Valuable Features

Oracle Database Appliance ensures easy deployment, scalability, and high performance with seamless Oracle Cloud integration and flexible licensing.
SAP BW4HANA offers flexible, efficient data management and real-time analytics, featuring user-friendly interfaces and strong integration with SAP ERP.
The most valuable feature is the ease of dashboarding and ease of reporting.
The automated provisioning feature helps speed up the database deployment process because you can use one command or option to resize all the disks or increase memory, depending on the occasion.
The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects.
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Database Appliance
Ranking in Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Oracle Database Appliance is 5.7%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 4.2%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Rubens Oliveira - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated provisioning simplifies deployment and integration
The Oracle Database Appliance is customizable and has excellent features.I don't have any problems with Oracle Database Appliance because this product is very automated, with scheduler and automatic processes throughout. You can make small inferences and changes for creating all the specific modifications. The automated provisioning feature helps speed up the database deployment process because you can use one command or option to resize all the disks or increase memory, depending on the occasion. The Oracle Database Appliance has integration in OCI Cloud. The same services simplify all the manager work regarding backups, configuration, resizing disks, and other services. Deploying the Oracle Database Appliance both on-premises and in the cloud offers the same simplification. You simply input your database name and specify memory quantity, CPU quantity, and database size. The process is identical for both on-premises and cloud deployments. The flexibility of Oracle Database Appliance has helped grow business needs for many customers. Using the Oracle Database Appliance has positively impacted my organization because I can deliver it much more comfortably. Creating a database involves many processes, but with this solution, you just input the name and configure the network and other parameters. It is very similar to RDS in AWS services, where you specify the name, choose the engine, indicate parameter groups, VPC, subnet groups, and proceed. Both Oracle Database Appliance and RDS have greatly simplified the work.
Csaba Grünblatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities
SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Oracle Database Appliance?
Oracle Database Appliance provides high stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Database Appliance?
While I'm somewhat familiar with standard licensing, pricing isn't really my area of expertise. However, Oracle is on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, along with SAP.
What needs improvement with Oracle Database Appliance?
For the cloud version, there could be better storage options or more storage for lower prices. However, for on-premises, this is not possible because you have physical disks. In the cloud, more opt...
What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?
One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?
The certification cost is extremely high. I completed certification for $40,000. The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
Integration needs improvement. In reporting, I am not comfortable with the creation of variables, and some calculations need improvement in BW queries.
 

Also Known As

X5-2
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LifeLock, Incarlopsa, Al Yusur Industrial Contracting
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Database Appliance vs. SAP BW4HANA and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.