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SAP Business ByDesign vs SAP S/4HANA Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 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

SAP Business ByDesign
Ranking in Cloud ERP
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Ranking in Cloud ERP
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud ERP category, the mindshare of SAP Business ByDesign is 4.2%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is 10.9%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud ERP Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP S/4HANA Cloud10.9%
SAP Business ByDesign4.2%
Other84.9%
Cloud ERP
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Divisional Manager IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Valuable features enhance sales and service capabilities while performance improvements are needed
We received a few complaints about the slowness in SAP Business ByDesign last year, so I think SAP can focus on improving performance, particularly when it becomes slow during data saving and handling. My feedback about the modular architecture and customized features of SAP Business ByDesign is that it is only good, but we have not explored much on this one. The initial setup for SAP Business ByDesign was complex. One disadvantage was that we had the legacy system, SAP Business One, and we could not migrate our data to SAP Business ByDesign. They should have provided a migration path.
Ramesh Pampana - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, SAP Practice at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Extensive real-time analytics and superior support enhance decision making but continued product evolution impacts existing investments
Improvement is needed, and they need to slow down. When I say slow down, they need to do more validation. Things are going rapidly and changing fast. For example, they moved from SAP SRM product to SAP CLM. They bought IBM CLM and marketed it as SAP CLM. Shortly after, they bought SAP Ariba and discontinued the SAP CLM product. Now they state that SAP SRM is outdated and has reached sunset. The challenge is that if a customer has already deployed the entire solution on-premises, it becomes difficult to immediately convert to the new product and manage new license costs. From a consulting perspective, it appears that SAP's biggest competitor is itself, as they sometimes discontinue their own products to promote new ones.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Now we can know our available stock; this visibility enables us to make better resource and supply chain operations decisions as well as better financial decisions."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business ByDesign is it has a streamlined design."
"The stability has been great, and compared to other products that I have used before, they have been doing really well with stability."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business ByDesign is it has a streamlined design."
"When we were using it, we did see an immediate benefit, especially in the inventory on consignment issue. We were a biotech pre-revenue company and most of our manufacturing was outsourced. So being able to track inventory within the system without creating a financial impact was very key for us."
"The most valuable features of SAP Business ByDesign are customer invoicing and cost and revenue, from which I get the data for my project reports."
"SAP Business ByDesign is connected to our S/4 HANA system, and we have developed some APIs which help us integrate the system with S/4 HANA."
"ByDesign's best features are its speed, real-time data, and reporting."
"Managing the server and taking advantage of the services provided by SAP itself is the most valuable feature."
"I like that it saves every transaction, so anything is traceable."
"It is stable and scalable, and in the S4HANA plain version, they have new dashboards and things like that."
"For supply chain management, we are using WMS. When you go to public cloud, you get a full-fledged EWM."
"SAP S/4HANA Cloud has improved our data management and user and stakeholder experiences, and it has also enhanced our business partners, supplier and customer experiences."
"At least from my point-of-view, SAP is leaps and bounds ahead of anybody else in that space by far."
"Performs well and can be used with a wide range of devices."
"The integration between SAP EWM and S4HANA Cloud is seamless."
 

Cons

"Scalability can be an issue. That is why SAP Business ByDesign needs to be more customizable and more flexible."
"SAP Business ByDesign is a very vast product, but it has to be a bit more centralized. All the models need to be more centralized for a better experience."
"With SAP S/4HANA, you can design your release strategy and modify it to include as many people as possible, which is missing in SAP Business ByDesign."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting capability. To use it properly, you need intensive IT support. You cannot write your own reports."
"There might be some hurdles when integrating with SAP ECC, but integration with SAP S/4HANA Cloud is smooth."
"The Purchase to Pay process could benefit from further sophistication and additional functionality. It would be helpful for the user community to receive clearer information about the future roadmap of the business. Unfortunately, there were some confusing articles in the German press towards the end of last year about the future of SAP Business ByDesign. Therefore, more clarity is needed in the support function to address this."
"The database needs to be more customizable."
"The Arabic localization is neglected. It should have an Arabic interface."
"The solution’s reporting could be improved."
"It's really difficult to install Hana. It's really difficult to reach any testing environment."
"The proposition by SAP does not match the value realization."
"The solution is expensive. That can be an issue for clients."
"A challenge with SAP S/4HANA is that the proposition by SAP does not match the value realization."
"The only thing I would improve is the overall user experience, particularly the mobile app."
"Their revolving AI should should be better improved."
"It's a huge software, and they need to make it look less complex and more user friendly. They need to work on user stories and user experiences."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of SAP Business ByDesign is less expensive than SAP S/4HANA. However, the price is on par with other similar competitors, such as Microsoft."
"The tool’s subscription is yearly. There is no flat pricing involved and everything has a range. Pricing depends on the functionality that you would use. You need to also pay for the additional hosting and maintenance costs."
"I rate the price of SAP Business ByDesign a seven out of ten."
"The tool’s pricing is expensive."
"We have to pay yearly."
"The cost starts anywhere between fifty thousand dollars and up depending on the number of licenses."
"The price of the solution could be better. They have to come up with a new strategy."
"Everything is included in the licensing cost of the solution. However, they use a per-user model for additional charges."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"I don't remember the specifics about the licensing, but it's scaled and modular. You pay for what you use. It's not a one-size-fits-all license. You have a license for every single module. It's similar to Oracle."
"The pricing of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is on the higher side."
"S/4HANA is an enterprise solution that many can't afford. You must invest a lot to get the most out of it. It isn't cheap. I rate the price seven out of 10."
"The solution’s pricing is very high."
"The pricing is competitive with other products at that level in that category."
"SAP S/4 Hana isn't cheap, but its value depends on how much you can leverage from it. It's not just about the system but how well your people are trained to use it and adapt to derive benefits."
"I'm not directly involved in the pricing discussions; it's more of a concern for the finance team."
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Answers from the Community

RB
SAP Practice Manager at Data-core systems
Jun 30, 2021
Jun 30, 2021
The main difference is RISE is associated with S/4 Product Range on Cloud while By Design is modeled after SAP Business One also on Cloud. So both are SaaS but the difference is in enterprise size and also application complexities. Also, RISE offers a bundle of pre-configured modules while By Design is similar to B1 with a lot more flexibility and high scalability. License wise both are per us...
See 2 answers
EB
Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Jun 28, 2021
Hello @Terry Jones ​, @Sanath Premachandra ​, @Ben Melchionno ​and @ASalman. Can you please assist in answering this question?
PB
Project Delivery Head - MENA at WMS Middle East LLC
Jun 30, 2021
The main difference is RISE is associated with S/4 Product Range on Cloud while By Design is modeled after SAP Business One also on Cloud.  So both are SaaS but the difference is in enterprise size and also application complexities. Also, RISE offers a bundle of pre-configured modules while By Design is similar to B1 with a lot more flexibility and high scalability. License wise both are per user on the cloud.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Healthcare Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business ByDesign?
The price is high, as every year SAP increases the price by 3.5%.
What needs improvement with SAP Business ByDesign?
We received a few complaints about the slowness in SAP Business ByDesign last year, so I think SAP can focus on improving performance, particularly when it becomes slow during data saving and handl...
What is your primary use case for SAP Business ByDesign?
Our use case for SAP Business ByDesign is our dealer team accessing their system to perform sales and service; these two functionalities are done through SAP Business ByDesign. SAP Business ByDesig...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
SAP S/4HANA Cloud is very expensive, both to purchase and maintain. It's important to evaluate the costs of recruiting and maintaining trained personnel as it's not just a one-time payment yet requ...
What needs improvement with SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
A lot of my clients are complaining about the SAP license policy. I think that is quite intransparent and obviously quite expensive. I think that is a usual complaint. And also the flexibility to s...
What is your primary use case for SAP S/4HANA Cloud?
SAP S_4HANA Cloud is still used for ERP, so enterprise resource planning, and I would say the true core of SAP S_4HANA Cloud is truly the financial planning, the financial transactional accounting....
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP S4HANA Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Standard Bank of South Africa, AOK Bundesverband, PT XL Axiata Tbk, Tvoy Dom, Schaidt Innovations GmbH & Co. KG, DeLaval International AB, EMC Corporation, Lenovo, Castle Importing Inc., Unilever, Rifle Paper Co., RAK Ceramics, Rough Country, B&G Manufacturing, Life is good Inc., Joy Global Inc., City of Cape Town
La Trobe University, Carrefour Comércio e Indústria Ltda, Delaware Consulting and Corning Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Business ByDesign vs. SAP S/4HANA Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.