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SAP Business Warehouse vs Snowflake Analytics comparison

 

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

SAP Business Warehouse
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snowflake Analytics
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Web Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake Analytics is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

JavedKhan1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Paresh_Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables data-driven decision-making with robust features and effective scalability
The internal design engine and the columnar database are particularly valuable. These features reduce input and output memory, which is crucial in handling large data sets. The solution fulfills the business requirement for scaling and analytics. Snowflake Analytics supports data security with a single sign-on feature and complies with framework regulations, which is highly beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily."
"The real-time information is great."
"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."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
"Having the back-end data set with the right information is the best qualification for this solution."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is its hybrid functionality, allowing users to leverage both SQL-based data warehouse capabilities from HANA and feature-based data warehousing from BW."
"One advantage is that installation is unnecessary since it's cloud-based. You subscribe to a Snowflake instance, configure it, and start using it. It's very user-friendly and allows you to scale up or down based on usage."
"Snowflake Analytics' most valuable feature is its inbuilt infrastructure for executing queries, which I don't have to manage based on my data volume as it's taken care of by Snowflake."
"Snowflake has a streaming capability to work with real-time streaming data and delta tables."
"What we found most valuable in Snowflake Analytics are its attributes that are very convenient for business use such as data sharing, cloning, time travel, and fail-safe. It's a good product all in all."
"Its performance speed is very good."
"Snowflake Analytics' predictive analytics elements, which incorporate AI, are good and easy to integrate."
"Considering everything I have accessed, the product's dashboard is good since it provides multiple good options, including customization options."
"One of the valuable features is the solution’s time travel capability. The solution is highly stable. The solution is highly scalable. The initial setup is straightforward, and the deployment process is quick and efficient. I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate it a perfect ten."
 

Cons

"The solution should be more open to the cloud."
"So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand."
"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."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"More integration with Microsoft Office products (not just Excel) would be helpful."
"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."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"Machine learning should be improved."
"The solution's high price can be an area of concern that needs improvement."
"Implementing everything on-premise is challenging because it require proper support from advisors, DBAs, and others."
"Snowflake Analytics can improve the integration with machine learning tools and AI and it will make the solution more usable."
"There are issues while loading data from Snowflake Analytics to the Power BI reporting."
"End-to-end execution of jobs isn't possible with Snowflake, which means we have to do some customization."
"The platform's data governance space needs more capability."
"When we insert data into a large table, it takes a lot of time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"When using Snowflake, you pay based on your usage. They calculate how much CPU has been used. If you use excess warehouse storage, you are charged one credit per hour. If you are in Asia, you are charged $3 per credit. If you have 10 users running parallel with the same excess, you will be charged $30."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a seven. The solution's pricing is high."
"It's not costly if you configure it properly to ensure optimal performance. People don't configure it properly, which is why costs go up."
"Snowflake Analytics is a little more costly than Azure."
"Snowflake Analytics is not an expensive solution, and its pricing is average."
"The tool is quite expensive."
"It is not overly expensive. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The product's pricing is subjective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake Analytics?
Snowflake Analytics is quite economical. It does not appear to incur significant extra expenses beyond the solution's initial cost. However, a complete pricing analysis is still in progress.
What needs improvement with Snowflake Analytics?
The advantages of Snowflake Analytics outweigh the disadvantages. However, if it offered flexibility similar to Oracle and supported more heterogeneous data sources and database connectivity, it wo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Lionsgate, Adobe, Sony, Capital One, Akamai, Deliveroo, Snagajob, Logitech, University of Notre Dame, Runkeeper
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Business Warehouse vs. Snowflake Analytics and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.