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SAP HANA pros and cons

Vendor: SAP
4.2 out of 5
Badge Leader

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

PT
SAP Enterprise Solution Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Mar 20, 2018
Provides us with predictive capabilities for asset maintenance, and real-time forecasts.
AA
Technical manager at SAFE-SAS
Jul 28, 2019
It has a very huge bandwidth and data transfer.
it_user993582 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Consultant at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Jul 29, 2019
This solution is very fast.
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user1018257 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager (global) at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Aug 26, 2019
If you want to scale with new processes and new reports, that's fairly easy.
George Mukira - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Consultant at Spring Training & Consulting
Sep 22, 2019
The most value for us was in terms of using it to issue tenders online. We host our server, but it is open to the public, so clients who want to buy those tenders were able to go online, put their tender documents up, and we could evaluate them using SAP.
RS
Section Head at a energy/utilities company
Sep 23, 2019
Integration is the most valuable feature we use SAP HANA for.
Natra Vijaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Solution Manager Consultant at Sfource AG
Oct 3, 2019
One feature I find very valuable, is the response time of the application on the database memory.
reviewer910095 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a mining and metals company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 13, 2019
The functionality is of the solution is very good.
reviewer1155018 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant Application Manager at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 16, 2019
The data storage requirement is reduced from the original database to the HANA database.
Vinayak Shenoy Katarsal - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Nov 27, 2019
The user interface is very good. You can do any kind of reporting analytics from the platform.
 

SAP HANA Cons review quotes

PT
SAP Enterprise Solution Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Mar 20, 2018
Needs graphical programming without coding.
AA
Technical manager at SAFE-SAS
Jul 28, 2019
The solution is very expensive, however. The pricing depends on the number of users and many other factors that affect licensing.
it_user993582 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Consultant at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Jul 29, 2019
The inclusion of a well-performing Time Machine is vital.
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user1018257 - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager (global) at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Aug 26, 2019
In terms of improvement, the speed is not as good as we thought it would be. That is why we are trying different solutions that will be built with different technologies.
George Mukira - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Consultant at Spring Training & Consulting
Sep 22, 2019
The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it.
RS
Section Head at a energy/utilities company
Sep 23, 2019
FI, or the financial module of SAP, has room for improvement. It has to have some better localization for the Middle East, especially in regards to taxes and the letter of credit cycle. I would like to see better localization from the HCM.
Natra Vijaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Solution Manager Consultant at Sfource AG
Oct 3, 2019
If the developers were to enhance or improve the application logic while processing the transactions, that would be great.
reviewer910095 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a mining and metals company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 13, 2019
The challenge right now is all databases are on S4 HANA architecture. You're running it for HANA, but not all the functionalities are available. If they can speed up getting all the databases on S4 HANA that would help.
reviewer1155018 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant Application Manager at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 16, 2019
I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement.
Vinayak Shenoy Katarsal - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Nov 27, 2019
When you do a report on a non-SAP platform, you face some compatibility problems.