Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SAP Business One vs SAP S/4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
2.3
SAP Business One offers quick ROI through operational efficiency, resource savings, and cost-effectiveness, reducing costs by 20%-30%.
Sentiment score
6.1
SAP S/4HANA offers significant ROI and efficiency, appealing to large organizations despite initial costs, due to cloud-based savings.
It's not a matter of the solution; it's a matter of the clients and the approach that we follow.
We have observed a good return on investment, with calculations based on a five-year ROI plan.
There is an ROI, otherwise I would not buy it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.7
SAP Business One support quality varies by partner, with users praising technical help but reliant on partner effectiveness.
Sentiment score
6.4
SAP S/4HANA's customer service is knowledgeable but varies in response speed, with room for process and speed improvement.
The previous user left the company without sharing their password, so at that time I need to log those particular issues or reset the password; the facility is not available in the current system, and I have to raise tickets, waiting for updated passwords, which is very critical.
When the system or solution has a failure unrelated to the database, they become lost.
Through the SAP portal, we can access direct support, which includes notes and a massive community for resources.
A traditional challenge with SAP support is that SAP teams only support the standard functions, which are part of the product.
Establishing the right channels was a challenge, as BTP was new to everyone, including our SAP contacts.
I would rate the support a ten because there are a lot of knowledge-based articles published, and most of them are available online.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
SAP Business One is scalable and flexible, suitable for SMEs, but has integration and complexity limitations.
Sentiment score
7.9
SAP S/4HANA is scalable and flexible, suitable for medium to large businesses, adaptable across various sectors and global locations.
SAP Business One is not very scalable, as it is aimed at medium to small-scale industries.
If your company is looking for an ERP to run end-to-end business, this is the solution.
The scalability of SAP Business One is very high.
SAP S/4HANA scales exceptionally well.
It is very easy to scale within businesses, especially when a new business falls within the range.
Scalability is a key strength of SAP, especially for HANA, compared to all the other ERPs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
SAP Business One is a stable, reliable platform with minimal bugs, consistently updated despite occasional regional and version-related issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
SAP S/4HANA is praised for stability and reliability, especially in the private cloud, with up to 10/10 user ratings.
I rate the stability of SAP Business One an eight out of ten.
The SAP HANA system is not very easy to unlock, and it's something strange as, compared to other databases, when transaction logs are full, you stop the system, run the transaction log backups, and then restart.
Not very often, but it can happen, especially with user load; if many people use the system at the same time, there might be issues depending on various factors.
I rate the stability of SAP S_4HANA as fairly stable because we have never experienced any downtime from SAP, and the performance is good.
 

Room For Improvement

SAP Business One faces challenges with outdated design, limited scalability, complex integration, insufficient features, and cost efficiency issues.
SAP S/4HANA needs enhancements in pricing, customization, usability, support, integration, AI, cloud capabilities, and regional compliance.
The solution lacks scalability as it targets medium to small-scale industries.
They also need to plan for integrating a small HR or payroll module.
Costing audits are required, but this is not available in SAP Business One.
Organizations face challenges like adapting to new technologies rapidly, and whether customers are early or late adopters influences their experience.
I can perform a lot of data manipulation directly on SAP using S-One, without having to resort to Excel, unlike with View ID.
The performance of the SAP interface could be improved.
 

Setup Cost

SAP Business One offers moderate pricing with reasonable license costs, but high maintenance fees may impact smaller businesses.
SAP S/4HANA pricing is complex, varying by user, deployment, and functionality, with high costs for small businesses.
It is expensive compared to other modules or ERPs.
It's higher compared to similar peer solutions.
Most users or IT professionals typically criticize the high price of SAP license costs.
It's not easy to have a clear understanding of the price and the value, especially if I talk about the business transaction platform.
 

Valuable Features

SAP Business One excels in financial management, customization, and integration, offering flexibility, automation, and comprehensive module handling for SMEs.
SAP S/4HANA offers efficient management, fast reporting, real-time analytics, and scalability with AI and IoT for diverse industries.
The general ledger, balance sheet, trial balance, cash flow statement, and all other reports are updated simultaneously.
Regarding reporting capabilities, SAP Business One provides in-built reports and allows us to use crystal reports, which we can customize and develop our own reports alongside running SQL queries with the query generator to create SQL reports.
One of the biggest advantages of SAP Business One, especially in the public cloud, is that many features are standardized, which reduces the need for customization.
It enables the posting of transactions and allows us to see the impact across various application scenarios, providing significant benefits for business.
The way SAP has helped our customers is by establishing a discipline where industry-specific operations and SAP's standard processes work hand in hand, improving resource utilization, material movement control, and cost control.
The insights given help us make strategic decisions.
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP Business One
Ranking in ERP
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP S/4HANA
Ranking in ERP
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the ERP category, the mindshare of SAP Business One is 3.4%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP S/4HANA is 10.6%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ERP
 

Featured Reviews

Hatem Mohamed Nageeb Salama - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficiency for small businesses, but requires costly add-ons for broader capabilities
I am currently using SAP products but not primarily selling SAP. Regarding real-time data processing capabilities, it is partially helpful for decision-making. It has built-in capability for real-time data, but it's not interactive data analytics. People need another solution such as Power BI to be integrated to get real-time data with interactive analytics. When it comes to customizing reporting in SAP Business One, it has the capability to customize reports via SAP Crystal Reports. It has a good amount of reports, but for each business, you need to understand exactly what the customer needs to customize their reports. The solution includes a mobile app to access key business information, though it is a very weak mobile app. The main benefit SAP Business One provides to users is ease of access. It's very good to present to customers, both from the interface and capabilities perspective. It's suitable for small to medium companies, making the buy-in for the solution very good. The pricing for SAP Business One is very competitive. Overall, SAP Business One is a very good solution for small to medium businesses. If your company is looking for an ERP to run end-to-end business, this is the solution. You need specific add-ons to run in specific industries, but it's approximately 70% good for most small to medium companies. My overall rating for SAP Business One is 7 out of 10.
Deepak Madhavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Implementation simplifies ERP management with comprehensive data integration and visibility
A lot of people would say the pricing. SAP is seen as quite expensive even now. It doesn't work for smaller or medium optimizations. The licensing and pricing could be looked at. In Brownfield migration, the trade-off between greenfield and brownfield means you either keep it clean or match the business requirements. Sometimes, it's not possible to do both. While ValixAPI provides significant support in making those decisions and the SAP consultant is very useful, we are still dependent on past history and how it was originally set up. I wouldn't call that a real disadvantage, yet more accessible consulting would be beneficial. Incorporating all other cloud products, like APO or IPP, into the S/4 house might also help.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which ERP solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

Shibu  Ms - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 6, 2023
Sep 6, 2023
Hi Shibu, Here is a brief comparison between SAPB1 and SAP S/4 Hana. SAP B1 was not originally a SAP product it was a product developed by an Israel founder in 195 built only for MAC OS SAP bought it over in 2003, Whereas SAP S/4 Hana is natively built by SAP. Scope and Complexity: SAP B1: SAP Business One is designed for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and covers a broad range of b...
See 2 answers
AH
Jul 10, 2023
Hello Shibu, I am writing this answer on behalf of a Director at a small tech services company: The key difference is about 2 and a half million dollars - jokingly - we’ve had some clients go with B1 and the projects were smallish - $70k - $120k. We’ve also had clients spending nearly $3m on S/4HANA projects. I’d say B1 is more for mid-market, and S/4HANA is a tier one large company, Fortune 1000 size project. Now of course that’s super generalized from a small sample size - for what it’s worth.
Mohammed Shakir Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 6, 2023
Hi Shibu, Here is a brief comparison between SAPB1 and SAP S/4 Hana. SAP B1 was not originally a SAP product it was a product developed by an Israel founder in 195 built only for MAC OS SAP bought it over in 2003, Whereas SAP S/4 Hana is natively built by SAP. Scope and Complexity: SAP B1: SAP Business One is designed for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and covers a broad range of business processes, including accounting, inventory management, and sales. SAP S/4HANA: SAP S/4HANA is an enterprise-level solution designed for larger organizations, offering a more comprehensive suite of applications that include advanced analytics, industry-specific features, and support for complex business processes. It's strong in manufacturing, Service industry, government, and Oil & Gas industries. Database Technology: SAP B1: SAP B1 typically uses Microsoft SQL Server as its underlying database management system, but there is a new variant where you can use the HANA database with Business One. SAP S/4HANA: SAP S/4HANA uses in-memory computing and the SAP HANA database, which enables real-time data processing, faster reporting, and advanced analytics capabilities. This technology shift is a major differentiator and provides significant performance advantages. Scalability: SAP B1: SAP B1 is not scalable for large organizations due to the complexity of the processes. SAP S/4HANA: SAP S/4HANA is made for larger organizations which can cater to any complicated business processes. If you need further information you can reach me at shakir52268@gmail.com
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Are there any advantages of SAP S4 HANA over SAP Business One (SAP B1) apart from the cost?
SaP Business One is a complete solution for business management. The software applications are broad, ranging from accounting to project management and human resources. It is very versatile and com...
What do you like most about SAP Business One?
It's user-friendly and comes with comprehensive manuals. So, it is easy to learn to use SAP Business One
What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA?
SAP S/4HANA has room for improvement because we are still exploring functionality, and while most modules are implemented or supported by the partner, we are still in the process of exploring. Righ...
What is your primary use case for SAP S4HANA?
I use SAP S/4HANA because most of the manufacturers in pharmaceuticals are using it. We migrated from Microsoft Dynamics to SAP S/4HANA. My relationship is with solutions in retail as we are custom...
What do you like most about SAP S4HANA?
It's helped with business aspects and improved material planning and RMA processes.
 

Also Known As

Business One
SAP S4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ego Pharmaceuticals Pty. Ltd
Nestle, O.C. Tanner, Sabre, New York Life Insurance Co., MEMEBOX, Siemens AG.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Business One vs. SAP S/4HANA and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.