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SAP BW4HANA vs SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP NetWeaver Business Ware...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is 2.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BW4HANA3.2%
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse2.2%
Other94.6%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Support and pricing challenges overshadow user expertise
In SAP BW4HANA, I have worked in modeling, extraction, and reporting. I have experience with different tools including Power BI, BEx tools, Web Intelligence reports, and SSC. The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects. It directly maps to target fields and source fields. There is no info cube concept, only ODS concept. We can create BEx queries in HANA itself, not as a separate tool. The modeling and reporting processes are easier to accomplish.
AK
Project Manager - Analytics at Mindsprint
Can transform data per clients' needs and can easily distribute reports to end users
I would recommend looking at all of the solutions currently available and then decide. I would not immediately suggest going for SAP NetWeaver. Being able to transform the data according to my requirements is a crucial feature; the phasing layers are helpful to distinguish data with respect to a specific project; analytics and reporting are very feasible; and the distribution of reports to the end users is also very easy. However, connectors need to be simplified, and technical support needs to be improved. Thus, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse at eight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the speed of reporting and the HANA database."
"Overall, it's hard to compare with other products on the market, but I think it has improved quite significantly."
"The processes are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"It provides the functions in a way that even a less technical person can do the modeling."
"The solution is easier to maintain than traditional SAP products."
"The most valuable feature is that we can transform a huge amount of data and apply business logic as per the requirements."
"For customers who use SAP ERP, SAP BW4HANA is a good choice for their DW implementation."
"You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."
"This is a very robust and efficient product, and it's very powerful, in particular when it comes to data management in the SAP system."
"Queries based on the Data warehouse have enabled the Service department of the organization analyze data deeply and get insights into daily inflow and revenue as well as analyze data over time periods, various models, model years, by customer segment, etc."
"We are an airline and use the system for data modeling and data warehousing, and we implement it for time performance and feedback analysis."
"Data cleansed and harmonization. It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users."
"With SAP BW, the organization can start to deploy a data warehouse and deliver data to business people."
"Transformation is a valuable feature of SAP NetWeaver. I can transform the data as per my needs or my client's needs. For example, flat tables can be transformed with respect to our requirements to combine multiple modules into one single table, and we can derive analytics."
"It's an excellent over-all tool for managers to analyze their business."
"It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users."
 

Cons

"I would like to be able to design new reports in a future release."
"Not a ten because it's expensive and its ecosystem is not very open."
"The solution does occasionally get a few bugs, but this is typical for any product."
"The monitoring for the remodeling feature is very difficult to understand."
"BW/4HANA could improve query optimization."
"SAP BW/4HANA can generally be less flexible than other tools, depending on how it is set up."
"From a technical perspective, it could be even more related to legacy systems. The connectivity requirement is quite high and requires systems that are up-to-date."
"The tool is not cloud-compatible."
"People using SAP BW have to undergo some training to be able to use the product. Complexity can be reduced and could be made a bit more user-friendly."
"I think more integration with other applications would be perfect."
"There are performance issues in terms of scalability and availability."
"I think more integration with other applications would be perfect."
"There are performance issues in terms of scalability and availability."
"The complexity of this data warehouse application is huge and makes it tough to manage and deploy it. In general, it requires a lot of know-how and time which makes it expensive to deliver fast answers."
"Connectors are complex, and it is difficult to understand or know which connector should be used. For instance, if I want to connect APIs, I will not be able to do it directly. I would have to go to the portal integration to get the data. Therefore, having simplified connectors will make things much easier."
"It is difficult when your native language is not English. It is difficult for us to explain our issue and also difficult for the technical team to explain a resolution to us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is free if we have the ECC license."
"It is an expensive product."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."
"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
"We started as early birds from the SAP side. We got this entire suite for free. I cannot really talk about the price because we didn't have to pay anything."
"For the on-premises version of the product, the solution offers a perpetual-based licensing model to its users. In general, SAP offers a monthly subscription-based licensing model to its users."
"All SAP products are expensive."
"The licensing cost is high for SAP NetWeaver compared to that for other products."
"Pricing is based on the number of user IDs and tyhe user ID works across a suite of products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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 needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
The integration with AI/ML in SAP BW4HANA is currently very limited, which is definitely an area that needs improvement. The second area for improvement is integration with third-party systems, whi...
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Also Known As

SAP BW/4HANA
NetWeaver Business Warehouse, NetWeaver BusinessObjects Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
EMC Corporation, Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Eldorado, Mozzart, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, Hilti Group, Nissha Printing Company Ltd., Asian Paints, Aareal Bank Group, Magazine zum Globus (Migros Group)
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BW4HANA vs. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.