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Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Microsoft Analytics Platfor...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
18th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Analytics Platform System is 2.4%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.2%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BW4HANA3.2%
Microsoft Analytics Platform System2.4%
Other94.4%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

MahmoudMohamed1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at Tatweer Educational Technologies Company - TETCO
Offers smooth data integration between systems, but requires better real-time analytics capabilities
We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services. This lets us continue using private databases without paying additional licensing fees. Additionally, the license includes Analytics services and Power BI, which work on-premises, unlike most other technologies that require cloud solutions.
HP
SAP Analytics Lead at Miracle Software Systems, Inc
Support and pricing challenges overshadow user expertise
In SAP BW4HANA, I have worked in modeling, extraction, and reporting. I have experience with different tools including Power BI, BEx tools, Web Intelligence reports, and SSC. The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects. It directly maps to target fields and source fields. There is no info cube concept, only ODS concept. We can create BEx queries in HANA itself, not as a separate tool. The modeling and reporting processes are easier to accomplish.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"We help customers in many ways from customized analysis for detection of anomalies in tax, operations, customer relationship, and marketing campaigns, and we also use mining and ML to help them discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"It is closely integrated with other products in the MS portfolio."
"The result is a highly flexible, affordable, and scalable platform that makes large-scale Hub and Spoke EDW architectures a practical reality."
"The Cube Solution is quite different when compared to the rest of the competition and has unique functionality for advanced analytics."
"The most valuable part of the product is that it is a system, with different tools for different services for different kinds of scenarios, making it a very rich, integrated, technology-rich platform whose total integration with the rest of Microsoft products creates flexibility and compatibility and makes the tool a very useful one."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System's most valuable feature is its ecosystems and seamless integration with other Microsoft reporting platforms and databases."
"For a big customer, who is SAP-centric, with lots of SAP data or SAP business processes, this is one of the best data warehousing solutions."
"BW4HANA is definitely much better than BW; it is also much better than HANA Native."
"SAP BW4HANA definitely helps to reduce data footprint on data management efficiency as it works on a HANA Cloud, which is an optimized database, and offers the capability to optimize the loads."
"The solution is based on SAP ERP, so there's some business content already included. For customers who use SAP ERP, SAP BW4HANA is a good choice for their DW implementation."
"We like that it is an SAP product, so we can easily connect with the SAP ERP system."
"My advice for anybody who is considering SAP BW4HANA is that it's a very stable product, and if you are looking at a huge volume of data that you want to process daily or any similar kind of task, then this is definitely a good solution."
"The most valuable feature is the dashboard."
"Out of the box, this solution has a lot of standard features."
 

Cons

"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product overall as a five. This is probably because there is still a lot of room for improvement, features that other products have that are missing, and a lot of open-source technology nowadays that are very good and people can use instead."
"Functionality needs to be more up-to-date with competing products."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System could have better support."
"I think the biggest problem with the product is that it does a data ingest model, which is very expensive."
"We need better real-time analytics capabilities. It's a bit challenging for us."
"Machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities need to be more friendly for beginning users."
"I would like to see easier connectivity with other tools."
"Support could be more reliable."
"The integration with AI/ML in SAP BW4HANA is currently very limited, which is definitely an area that needs improvement."
"The licensing cost could be made better."
"BW/4HANA could improve query optimization."
"Not a ten because it's expensive and its ecosystem is not very open."
"From a technical perspective, it could be even more related to legacy systems. The connectivity requirement is quite high and requires systems that are up-to-date."
"The cost of the product might be an area that might introduce some restrictions or limitations to customers, making it one of the aspects where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently paying $200,000 a year for all the different parts of the suite during an ingest model Microsoft now charges us $700,000 a year."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The tool is affordable."
"The product is free if we have the ECC license."
"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
"For some, the rates offered by SAP can be costly while for others it may seem cheap. The price ultimately depends on how you have negotiated your contract with SAP."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
"For the on-premises version of the product, the solution offers a perpetual-based licensing model to its users. In general, SAP offers a monthly subscription-based licensing model to its users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
For improvement, I think AWS for HANA could be better, but it is an on-premise solution. SAP is asking us to move to one client approach and suggested moving to data warehouse cloud, which should h...
What is your primary use case for SAP BW4HANA?
My use cases involve the client I am working with, who already has a BW ON HANA system, and we are currently migrating and redeveloping things in SAP BW4HANA; they are decommissioning the BW On HAN...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft APS, MS Analytics Platform System
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Transport for London, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Prometeia, Tangerine, SSM Health Care, Service Corporation International
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs. SAP BW4HANA and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.