BigQuery vs SAP Business Warehouse comparison

Google and SAP are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Google is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while SAP is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.4. Google holds a 7.0% mindshare in CDW, compared to SAP’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of SAP users who would recommend it.

BigQuery

Read 40 BigQuery reviews

3,303 Views
2,698 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SAP Business Warehouse

Read 25 SAP Business Warehouse reviews

678 Views
398 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

BigQuery

SAP Business Warehouse

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

SAP Business Warehouse and BigQuery compete in the data warehousing category. BigQuery seems to have the upper hand due to its scalability and integration with Google services, making it adept at handling large-scale data efficiently.

Features: SAP Business Warehouse provides robust analytics, data integration, and process automation suitable for businesses needing comprehensive reporting. BigQuery is known for its scalability, fast SQL queries, and seamless integration with the Google Cloud ecosystem. It also offers real-time data processing, which is beneficial for rapid insights.

Room for Improvement: SAP Business Warehouse could improve its real-time processing capabilities and ease of deployment. It may also benefit from more flexible system integrations. For BigQuery, enhancing support for complex data types and reducing dependency on Google's ecosystem would be beneficial. More competitive pricing options could improve its market appeal.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP Business Warehouse generally requires more time for deployment due to customization and legacy system integration needs. It offers strong post-installation support. BigQuery, with its serverless architecture, allows fast and straightforward deployment, complemented by extensive Google Cloud support.

Pricing and ROI: SAP Business Warehouse often involves higher initial costs related to licensing and implementation, but it offers significant ROI for large organizations. BigQuery's pay-as-you-go pricing model provides flexibility with immediate scalability, proving cost-effective for cloud-based solutions with potential for compelling ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 849,963 peers since 2012

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

BigQuery

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SAP Business Warehouse

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of BigQuery is 7.0%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

VikashKumar1

Tech lead at Ford Motor Company

Easy to maintain and provides high availability

Since I used BigQuery over the GCP cloud environment, I'm not sure whether we can go through internal IDEAs like IntelliJ or DBeaver that we use to connect with databases. Instead of connecting directly to BigQuery, we connect to GCP, Cloud Run, and then to BigQuery, which is a long process. Sometimes, we face some issues, bugs, and defects. We must first connect with a VPN to check data issues while working from home. Then, it allows you to connect to the cloud. After logging into the cloud, it searches for the service we are looking for, and then we go to BigQuery. This is a long process. After that, we analyze the issues in a table. Instead, it would be very helpful if it could provide a tool that we can install on our MacBook or Windows system. Once we open this tool, we can connect directly to the BigQuery server and easily perform tasks.

Read full review

JavedKhan1

SAP Security/GRC Manager at Tata Consultancy

Offers powerful analytics and integration capabilities but requires improved upgrade processes

SAP Business Warehouse could have been better. There is room for improvement from a technical perspective. So, from a technical perspective, when we are upgrading a Business Warehouse server or we are migrating from one place to another, the capability required for this upgradation has many manual activities. It took us around a month to streamline our server. Let’s say there are some transaction codes. Transaction code is a set of programs, and when you want to run a program from the backend, you need to hit the transaction code. It is called a T-code. So during the upgrade, many transaction codes get affected, and as a security consultant, it is my responsibility to recheck those transaction codes which are affected. Sometimes more than 100 codes may get affected, sometimes 500, and sometimes more as well. So, it takes a hell lot of time to integrate them again. That is a limitation or defect within the SAP Business Warehouse. SAP Business Warehouse should come up with proper solutions. Upgradation is an automatic activity. It should happen by itself. We just need to initiate it, and the backend SAP server is automatically upgraded. But it should handle the transactional code as well. They should not get absolutely, and any authorization object should not get deleted from the transaction codes. So, that functionality SAP Business Warehouse should come up with.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integrated data storage features are good."

"The initial setup process is easy."

"The product is serverless. We only need to write SQL queries to analyze the data. We need to pay based on the number of queries. The retrieval time is very less. Even if you write large queries, the tool is able to bring back data in a few seconds."

"It has a proprietary way of storing and accessing data in its own data store and is 100% managed without you needing to install anything. There is no need to arrange for any infrastructure to be able to use this solution."

"BigQuery's querying capabilities are very optimized for large datasets."

"It has a well-structured suite of complimentary tools for data integration and so forth."

"There are some performance features like partitioning, which you can do based on an integer, and it improves the performance a lot."

"When integrating their system into the cloud-based solutions, we were able to increase their efficiency and overall productivity twice compared with their on-premises option."

More BigQuery pros

"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is its ability to feed data into new, multiple systems in various formats. It can open its data to any system over gateway services or a portal or application that needs to consume and analyze data."

"The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us."

"The product is very stable."

"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."

"The real-time information is great."

"The solution has functionality that makes it easy for end-users to readily extract data directly from Business Warehouse into Excel and carry on their analysis on their own."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."

"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."

More SAP Business Warehouse pros

Cons

"The solution should reduce its pricing."

"Some of the queries are complex and difficult to understand."

"It can be slower and more problematic compared to other platforms such as Snowflake."

"It would be beneficial if BigQuery could be made more affordable."

"With other columnar databases like Snowflake, you can actually increase your VM size or increase your machine size, and you can buy more memory and it will start working faster, but that's not available in BigQuery. You have to actually open a ticket and then follow it up with Google support."

"There are some limitations in the query latency compared to what it was three years ago."

"The main challenges are in the areas of performance and cost optimizations."

"When I execute a query, the dashboard doesn't always present the output seamlessly. Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming."

More BigQuery cons

"It takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed when using SAP Business Warehouse."

"The solution should be more open to the cloud."

"The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance."

"So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand."

"There is room for improvement from a technical perspective."

"What I'd like to improve in SAP Business Warehouse is its data structure, that's a little bit rigid. It could be a bit more flexible, so you can design your data structure and improve performance when creating a solution. Currently, the way data is stored in SAP Business Warehouse is rigid."

"One of our requirements is the ability to easily get answers regarding trends and exceptions. In BW, it is not that easy to get such information. I expect better trend and exception detection, better pattern detection."

"The advanced structuring can be complicated and the interface is not very intuitive."

More SAP Business Warehouse cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"1 TB is free of cost monthly. If you use more than 1 TB a month, then you need to pay 5 dollars extra for each TB."

"The product operates on a pay-for-use model. Costs include storage and query execution, which can accumulate based on data volume and complexity."

"The price could be better. Usually, you need to buy the license for a year. Whenever you want more, you can subscribe to it, and you can use it. Otherwise, you can terminate the license. You can use it daily or monthly, and we use it based on a project's requirements."

"We are above the free threshold, so we are paying around 40 euros per month for BigQuery."

"The pricing appears to be competitive for the intended usage scenarios we have in mind."

"The product’s pricing could be more flexible for end users."

"The pricing is adaptable, ensuring that organizations can tailor their usage and costs based on their specific requirements and configurations within the Google Cloud Platform."

"BigQuery pricing can increase quickly. It's a high-priced solution."

More BigQuery pricing and cost advice

"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."

"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."

"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."

"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."

"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The solution is quite expensive."

"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."

"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigQuery?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?

The price is perceived as expensive, rated at eight out of ten in terms of costliness. Still, it offers significant cost savings.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BigQuery?

When I open many of the Google Cloud products, I am in an environment that I do not feel familiar with; it is a little overwhelming. In general, if I know SQL and start playing around, it will star...

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP Business Warehouse?

Out-of-the-box reports are very useful.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?

The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?

Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the background job ODS. Eventually, we moved away from SAP Business Warehouse and bo...

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs BigQuery

Compared 21% of the time

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs BigQuery

Compared 17% of the time

Teradata vs BigQuery

Compared 16% of the time

Vertica vs BigQuery

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Netezza Performance Server vs BigQuery

Compared 2% of the time

More BigQuery Competitors

Amazon Redshift vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 20% of the time

Snowflake vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 18% of the time

Databricks vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 13% of the time

Teradata vs SAP Business Warehouse

Compared 12% of the time

More SAP Business Warehouse Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery

April 2025

Download BigQuery product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP Business Warehouse

April 2025

Download SAP Business Warehouse product report

Overview

BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse that solves this problem by enabling super-fast SQL queries using the processing power of Google's infrastructure. ... You can control access to both the project and your data based on your business needs, such as giving others the ability to view or query your data.

Google

Reporting, analysis and interpretation of business data are crucial to preserve and enhance the competitive edge of companies by optimizing processes and enabling them to react quickly and in line with market needs. SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) provides tools and functions that enable companies to attain these goals. In SAP BW, you can integrate, transform, and consolidate relevant business information from productive SAP applications and external data sources. SAP BW provides you with a high-performance infrastructure that helps you evaluate and interpret data. Decision makers can make well-founded decisions and identify target-orientated activities on the basis of the analyzed data.

SAP

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse

April 2025

Free Report: BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse

Find out what your peers are saying about BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse report.

See our list of best Cloud Data Warehouse vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Data Warehouse reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.