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SAP Analytics Hub vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

SAP Analytics Hub
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
31st
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (51st)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of SAP Analytics Hub is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 2.9%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform2.9%
SAP Analytics Hub0.5%
Other96.6%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Nitesh Agrawal - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration and security have improved, but search functionality and clarity of future direction need enhancement
The search function in SAP Analytics Hub is not effective. When speaking about integration with various analytic sources, for example, if I wanted to send the data from SAP BW or B4HANA to a data lake, we used to earlier use the Open Data Hub or Analytics Hub. Nowadays, we are using the Data Sphere integrators available with Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud. The search capability could be better, and SAP needs to come out with a clear roadmap for the solution going ahead, as they have not yet provided that.
Declan Dempsey - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient data reporting while needing easier deployment and improved interface
Users tend to put everything into Excel, though I try to discourage this. The best feature about it for me, and for them, is the fact that you have a universe that is well made. This means you don't have those months that get assigned. You can just get to the point and get a report very quickly. Unfortunately, in some ways, it's a double-edged sword because it becomes more of a self-service ETL, even for the reporting team. If you have a decent universe and you just want to quickly get something together, it's very usable. Compared to Click, you can drop those reports very quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Data consistency is also a notable feature; the system takes care of data consistency, so you don't need to handle it manually."
"What I like best about this solution is that it is built into the SAP line, making it easier to integrate with other SAP products."
"The platform's main benefit is its integration with SAP ERP data. It’s effective for data integration and integrity."
"As a partner, I can mention something positive about SAP Analytics Hub: its products are tightly integrated, so the business context of data is retained in the analytics solution, and that's the main advantage."
"For report scheduling, I always prefer SAP because it has the most powerful scheduling features, like sending reports to more than 1,000 customers per day. That option is not as good in Microsoft BI and in Tableau it only exists as an add-on option."
"SAP Analytics Hub offers a user-friendly interface with effortless configuration, seamless updates, and real-time availability of information. It avoids the complexities associated with batch processing, providing a smooth and efficient experience."
"This product provides good reports using a single pane of glass."
"The return on investment from this solution is high, with the highest ROI observed."
"​It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities.​"
"BusinessObject's most useful feature is the semantic layer, which offers us the flexibility to go for ad hoc reporting."
"To share a metadata service layer, you don't need to add a user or write a SQL query. Instead, you can present a raw database to your end user."
"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."
"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."
"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. Power BI is just getting into that space. They've concentrated more on visualization, which is what the SAP Lumira does. With Web Intelligence, you are able to build reports that users can interact with. They can also do a lot of querying themselves. It is robust in terms of security and integration. It is also quite scalable."
"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."
 

Cons

"Pricing and support are integrated into the system. However, the support process can be challenging, particularly when navigating the SAP support site, which lacks user-friendliness and ease of access."
"Faster implementation of new functions for the new product is an area of improvement in SAP Analytics Hub."
"The search capability could be better, and SAP needs to come out with a clear roadmap for the solution going ahead, as they have not yet provided that."
"The platform could easily integrate with other ERP data solutions. Additionally, it should be faster compared to competitors in the cloud space."
"The interface can be simplified because it is not a user-friendly experience."
"The analytics part of SAP has not been that good up until now. They're still in the infant stage and development is still going on. SAP has some cloud analytics and they're trying to configure it in Lumira, but it's not that good at this point."
"The technical support for Analytics Hub is limited and could be improved."
"We're an Epic shop, and Epic is moving away from Crystal. It would be nice if it had tighter integration with products like Epic. It would be awesome to have better integration with third-party products."
"The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not user friendly."
"Currently, we can use Explore to do data discovering, but cannot generate charts."
"There is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options."
"There should be more integration with other platforms."
"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."
"When we implemented BusinessObjects, the setup was straightforward. After SAP bought BusinessObjects, it gradually became more and more stepwise. There are too many steps, and they take too much time."
"The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They are pursuing a highly assertive approach to target businesses of all sizes within the industry."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive."
"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise65
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Analytics Hub?
The product is expensive. The cost starts from $1,000,000 per year. Moreover, there are additional costs involved for customization.
What needs improvement with SAP Analytics Hub?
The platform could easily integrate with other ERP data solutions. Additionally, it should be faster compared to competitors in the cloud space.
What advice do you have for others considering SAP Analytics Hub?
I advise others to be aware of the total ownership cost of the product for the next three to five years. I rate it a seven out of ten.
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...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

STIB-MIVB
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Analytics Hub vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.