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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs SAP Crystal Reports comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform's ROI varies by usage and integration, with potential returns within 6-12 months if deployed properly.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAP Crystal Reports delivers over 1000% ROI through Visual Studio integration, boosting sales despite training and database understanding costs.
For most of my clients using the on-premises version of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, the return on investment is positive due to its affordability and ability to handle diverse reporting needs while automating information distribution.
I have seen a return on investment so far in the form of saved time and resources.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
SAP BusinessObjects support varies from poor to excellent; forums and community resources are valuable despite connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP Crystal Reports' support varies; some praise it, others turn to online communities or face scheduling and complexity challenges.
Sometimes, they forward my ticket to the technical team, especially when my issue involves technical aspects that basis people may not be familiar with.
I have experience with SAP technical support and have supported customers, including those in financial services.
I would rate their technical support as excellent.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform offers seamless scaling and integration, supporting enterprise-level deployments with reliable performance across various organizations.
Sentiment score
7.9
SAP Crystal Reports excels in scalability for large enterprises, but smaller setups may face SDK and cost challenges.
I rate the scalability of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as a nine due to performance issues related to optimizing parts.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
SAP BusinessObjects' stability varies with configuration; though resilient, complexity and issues impact reliability compared to competitors.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP Crystal Reports stability improved since 2011, with updates resolving crash issues, though some memory problems persist.
When they tried upgrading from 4.2 to 4.3, they found it buggy in some reports, which was quite problematic.
 

Room For Improvement

The SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform struggles with integration, complexity, performance, and usability, needing improvement in cloud integration and support.
SAP Crystal Reports needs improvements in customization, interface, exporting, and compatibility for better user efficiency and experience.
I've worked with other tools, for example, Microsoft Power BI, which is visualization-wise very strong.
I would appreciate integration with Outlook as an additional feature in the future to make it closer to a perfect score.
If SAP could split the analytics side from financial analytics, it would become more affordable and easier to learn for technicians.
 

Setup Cost

SAP BusinessObjects is costly for enterprises, with complex licensing, yearly fees, and high implementation costs compared to Power BI.
SAP Crystal Reports can be costly, but discounts and free software help manage expenses, requiring careful license model evaluation.
The price is very competitive and reliable.
I rate the pricing for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as a seven or eight.
 

Valuable Features

SAP BusinessObjects provides flexible, secure, user-friendly BI tools, enabling efficient report creation and insightful analytics integration with databases.
SAP Crystal Reports offers flexible custom report creation with easy database connectivity, export options, and Business Objects integration.
For calculations, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform outperforms all other tools such as Power BI and Tableau, showing more accuracy, reliability, and flexibility compared to all other BI tools worldwide.
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 important features include a dashboard and reporting capabilities through SAP Analytics Cloud, which I consider to be a better version than the initial BusinessObjects platform.
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (4th)
SAP Crystal Reports
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 3.8%, down 5.4% compared to last year.
SAP Crystal Reports, on the other hand, focuses on Reporting, holds 2.8% mindshare, down 3.6% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GhulamMustafa - PeerSpot reviewer
Data management and graphs help with decision-making and good at customization
The overall environment is the best. Data management, graphs, and layout – everything is the best, in my opinion. It is good at customization in context with Crystal Reports. I use Crystal Reports on the front end, and SQL Server on the back end. So we can build any kind of report and face no difficulties in our routine reporting. So, flexibility is of great importance to me.
report
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with SAP Crystal Reports?
Maybe some Power BI-related features could be added, like dashboards or direct editing in reports. We use query language to build reports; this area could be improved more.
What is your primary use case for SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for reporting. We use it for financial reports like statements of accounts, trial balances, and other management reports, salary slips, and many other purposes.
What do you like most about SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for operational reporting.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International (ARI), LivePerson, Coelba (Grupo Neoenergia), RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association - NBA, TALLY WEiJL, El Machetazo, Young Heroes, Mozzart, Mitsui Knowledge Industry (MKI) , Surgutneftegas Open Joint Stock Company, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, AL-KO KOBER GROUP
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: June 2025.
859,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.