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AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) 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

AtScale Adaptive Analytics ...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
52nd
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (7th), Data Governance (49th), BI on Hadoop (1st)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 2.2%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform2.2%
AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3)0.5%
Other97.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

it_user822762 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior BI and Reporting Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The GUI interface is nice and easy to use, but the organization of the icons is not saved across users
Connecting to a Hadoop database to create a cube to connect to Tableau. We want to be able to easily create cubes which can be connected to Tableau for visualization The product had many issues. We had great collaboration with the product development team, but the product was not able to meet our…
EO
Data Analytics Manager at Dangote Industries Limited
Solution empowers self-service reporting and delivers comprehensive performance insights
Empowering business users means they should be able to work independently without depending on the developer. One advantage of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is self-service capabilities, allowing users to do drag and drop to build their own reports and perform analyses without needing technical know-how.The platform has many drivers that I can use to connect to virtually all available databases, making it easy to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and many others. With the cloud version, I can fetch data on-premises and to the cloud for analysis easily. It is so flexible that I can make choices for fetching data. For authentication in an SAP environment, I can choose to integrate with SAP logon for SSO or use AD authentication for convenience, along with the flexible integration options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GUI interface is nice and easy to use."
"The GUI interface is nice and easy to use."
"We find that we can scale it as needed."
"Business analytics are the most valuable features of this solution; I don't have experience with the other functional features offered."
"It provides flexibility for creating reports, is very good for creating highly-complex reports, and when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools."
"If I were to compare it with Power BI and I wanted to build proper well-formatted reports, BusinessObjects Business Intelligence does that much better."
"We have used all the business objects tools, but this one satisfies all of the business requirements in an optimized way."
"There are two tools inside BusinessObjects' schematic layout called the Universal Design Tool and Information Design Tool. These are the most powerful tools that set BusinessObjects' reporting from other solutions. If my organization has 300 or 400 tables, I can combine all of them into one universe, and everyone can use that. It is just a schematic layout that does not hold any data but the table relationships."
"​Provides autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports.​"
"The most important feature of BusinessObjects is its integration with the SAP ERP system. If an organization is using SAP as its ERP system, and they want to do business intelligence, reporting, or analysis, SAP BusinessObjects is the only tool that I see doing that quite efficiently. That's because of the fact it is tightly integrated, and it gives a good user experience in terms of faster reporting. Its integration is the feature that I have found most valuable, but there are also other factors."
 

Cons

"The organization of the icons is not saved across users."
"The product was not able to meet our 10 second refresh requirements."
"There was an issue with the incremental aggregation not working as indicated."
"The product was not able to meet our 10 second refresh requirements."
"I don't like the fact that I have to use two tools."
"The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement."
"I am not sure about how it supports my compliance and data governance requirements."
"The performance could be improved, like when we extract a large amount of data."
"Integrations with things like Active Directory and LDAP tend to be a little complex."
"The calculation engine requires some improvement."
"On the minus side, there is still a lot to be done on the mobile side to make Web Intelligence truly seamless between the desktop and mobile versions and I would like to see SAP pay a lot more attention to this."
"It could be a lighter solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"Its price is fair."
"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 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."
"It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
"The platform's pricing needs to be revised."
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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
Healthcare Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise68
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
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

AtScale, AtScale Intelligence Platform
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rakuten, TD Bank, Aetna, Glaxo-Smith Kline, Biogen, Toyota, Tyson
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
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