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Apache Superset vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 15, 2026

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

Apache Superset
Ranking in Data Visualization
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in Data Visualization
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Apache Superset is 3.4%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 3.1%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Superset3.4%
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence3.1%
Other93.5%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

MP
Founder & CEO at Lanzar
Have saved significant operational costs and streamlined alert-driven analytics with customizable dashboards
I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Based Access Control feature in the product. I assess this feature as good; they have permissions which are in more plain English, but there is a little bit of convenience missed out because if I have to create a super user apart from admin, I need to add all the permissions manually.
TarunKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
Data insights have driven faster financial forecasts and improved role-based decision making
The best features SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform offers include cross-enterprise sharing, where sharing insights is easier and seamless across my organization, and creating role-based dashboards. The role-based dashboards help my team and organization by providing information to specific users, allowing them to make decisions more easily, anytime, anywhere, across any device. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to perform financial reporting to make decisions faster. Since we started using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we have been able to make faster, data-driven business decisions based on actual data insights and data analysis, which has accelerated our ability to make better decisions for our business productivity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Being able to quickly build standard dashboards around relational data in Apache Superset provides tremendous visibility for everyone on the team."
"What I appreciate most about Apache Superset is its text search feature, including searching with small and capital letters."
"The main benefit I have seen from working with Apache Superset so far is the speed from discovery and SQL to making charts and dashboards, along with its customizability."
"Being able to quickly build standard dashboards around relational data in Apache Superset provides tremendous visibility for everyone on the team."
"The no-code interface is the most valuable as it allows us to operate without constant support from the data engineering team, fostering a self-service environment."
"What I appreciate the most about Apache Superset is that it's free and easy to set up."
"The solution supports a rich set of charts and enables users to create their own dashboards."
"Apache Superset is a lightweight reporting tool with a lot of functions and flexibility, where you can build the dataset, build charts, and dashboards from the user interface."
"It is the best product for business analysis and help to grow the business."
"It has got great flexibility. As a reporting tool, it has a great deal of flexibility for numerous data resources that you can bring into it. It allows you to write your SQL query directly within the product. So, it allows you to do server-side joins instead of pulling all the data into Crystal Report to aggregate that data. It has great visualization. For the most part, it operates quite efficiently."
"Tableau offers excellent visualization and fast data discovery with quick turnaround time."
"The most valuable function of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is the universe, so customers can build their own reports without programming skills."
"It provides every feature you're looking for to perform OLAP and OLTP-based transactional and analytical reporting."
"A very creative tool to present the data in graphical and pictorial form, so as to make better decision for the growth of the organization."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."
"It allows the analysis of business data and enables decisions based on the analysis."
 

Cons

"Automation in terms of APIs for creating roles, and giving privileges to the user can be improved."
"Building a full-fledged product or software as a service might be cumbersome due to performance limitations."
"I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators."
"Building a full-fledged product or software as a service might be cumbersome due to performance limitations."
"When comparing Apache Superset with Elasticsearch and Solar Search, it lacks some features that come with Elasticsearch, such as Kibana."
"I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators."
"Dark mode would be the main thing I would like; it does not really work because the chart text cannot be white in a dark mode setup, so it is not feasible."
"The platform's reporting feature needs enhancement."
"On the downside, we have had some challenges with upgrades."
"Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved."
"Factoring in total implementation and maintenance costs, SAP BusinessObjects is too expensive."
"It needs to be more flexible for the end-user."
"The performance could be improved, like when we extract a large amount of data."
"The product lacks the ability to manage universal connectivity, so it needs to be made better for users."
"There are a lot of limitation in SAP BW especially for scheduling, which can limit the full utilization of BOBJ, but there is a solution for it all if you think out of the box."
"We need to speed up the performance of our tool because it is slower compared to the SAP Analytics Cloud tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Apache Superset is an open-source solution."
"The price of Apache Superset is less than some of its competitors."
"Apache Superset is open-source and free."
"Apache Superset has a three-year licensing model."
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"We purchase licenses through Epic. So, we get an Epic price as opposed to the SAP price. If we were going to use other products like Webby that they offer or exclusively use BI Launch Pad, it would cost a lot because half of our employees would touch it in some fashion. So, we use Epic-Crystal integration to keep the licensing cost down. I believe the BI Launch Pad licensing is something like $800 for each, and the Crystal Report licensing is something like $500 for each, but that's not what we pay."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"The product's pricing falls on the spectrum's cheaper side, excluding its licensing cost. The product's pricing is good compared to other tools in the market. My company makes payments towards the licensing costs of the product on a yearly basis."
"I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."
"Its price is fair."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise67
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Apache Superset?
I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Ba...
What is your primary use case for Apache Superset?
My major use case for Apache Superset is anything related to analytical dashboards.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Superset vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
896,467 professionals have used our research since 2012.