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SAP HANA pros and cons

Vendor: SAP
4.2 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

SAP HANA provides predictive capabilities for asset maintenance and real-time forecasts, enhancing data analytics and decision-making.
Its in-memory processing capability ensures unmatched performance and speed, making it ideal for handling large data volumes.
SAP HANA offers seamless integration with third-party systems, providing flexibility and ease in managing enterprise resources.
It's highly scalable both vertically and horizontally, supporting company growth and compressing documentation significantly.
The cost-saving and time-efficient features of SAP HANA offer significant financial benefits to organizations.

CONS

SAP HANA is reported to be very expensive, with high licensing, implementation, and hosting costs.
Graphical programming without coding is needed in SAP HANA.
The speed and integration with other products are areas in need of improvement in SAP HANA.
Customization and initial setup of SAP HANA is complex and costly, requiring great expertise.
The high RAM requirements and the complex migration process are noted drawbacks of SAP HANA.
 

SAP HANA Pros review quotes

HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Jun 11, 2025
The benefits include high database loading performance, superior reporting performance, and ease of use.
Dhiraj Jankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Jun 16, 2025
The most valuable SAP HANA features are that, compared to Oracle, there is less administrative work and less complex work to handle, making it very straightforward.
Bassem Mohammed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Application Manager at TBTD
Jan 20, 2026
Implementing SAP HANA offers financial benefits to the organization.
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Joe Lau - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at PwC
Sep 10, 2025
SAP HANA is a cost-saving solution that helps save money and serves as a time-saving solution that helps save time.
VM
Program manger at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
May 28, 2025
I would rate the stability a 10 out of 10, and it absolutely deserves that mark.
AA
Executive Manager & CO. Founder at Phoenix Consulting
Sep 15, 2025
SAP HANA is very flexible and supports many different scenarios as it can work with analytics, GenAI use cases, and also supports transactional applications.
AA
Owner at Logos Informatik GmbH
Jul 3, 2025
SAP HANA has everything, and that is the advantage of SAP because you can get everything in one suite, whatever you need for your company.
AK
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 11, 2024
The data in HANA is stored in columns rather than rows, which speeds up searches and aggregations.
Hisham Ismail - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations of Support / co CEO at Snag Free
Apr 2, 2024
The tool is an in-memory database that stores and retrieves data very quickly. This speed makes it faster to use and maintain data, as no additional processes move data between memory and disk.
RS
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Apr 25, 2025
Probably the main feature is its in-memory database.
 

SAP HANA Cons review quotes

HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Jun 11, 2025
Licensing costs with SAP HANA are very high. Due to high pricing, many clients are moving from BW on SAP HANA and S/4HANA to Azure SQL.
Dhiraj Jankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior SAP Basis Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Jun 16, 2025
I cannot recommend this product to users. I feel that SAP's approach of mandating customers to go with SAP HANA is not a good point; they should make SAP HANA so good that customers willingly choose it.
Bassem Mohammed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Application Manager at TBTD
Jan 20, 2026
There is room for improvement in the deployment process as it takes much time and is time-consuming and complex.
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Joe Lau - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at PwC
Sep 10, 2025
The initial setup of SAP HANA is quite difficult as it has a steep learning curve.
VM
Program manger at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
May 28, 2025
The setup process and deployment process for SAP HANA is complex.
AA
Executive Manager & CO. Founder at Phoenix Consulting
Sep 15, 2025
However, for the pricing part, this is the main issue. SAP has to do much more on SAP HANA pricing because it is quite expensive.
AA
Owner at Logos Informatik GmbH
Jul 3, 2025
The deployment of SAP HANA is far too complicated and takes far too long. The typical implementation time is between six months and two years.
AK
Director of Infrastructure at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Nov 11, 2024
The main issue is the ecosystem, which lacks the widespread support that SQL enjoys.
Hisham Ismail - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations of Support / co CEO at Snag Free
Apr 2, 2024
One notable issue is the difficulty in finding consultants with experience in the SuccessFactors product, a human resource management tool part of SAP's cloud-based solutions. For example, learning the Oracle database is straightforward. You can easily go to the Oracle website, download the database, install it on your laptop, and access technical resources and books.
RS
Sup-basis consultant at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Apr 25, 2025
Customer service can be improved. While issues are resolved eventually, the first level of support is not as good as we would like. Getting assistance from skilled support takes time.