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SAP BW4HANA vs SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse 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

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
SAP NetWeaver Business Ware...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.2%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is 2.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BW4HANA3.2%
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse2.2%
Other94.6%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AK
Project Manager - Analytics at Mindsprint
Can transform data per clients' needs and can easily distribute reports to end users
I would recommend looking at all of the solutions currently available and then decide. I would not immediately suggest going for SAP NetWeaver. Being able to transform the data according to my requirements is a crucial feature; the phasing layers are helpful to distinguish data with respect to a specific project; analytics and reporting are very feasible; and the distribution of reports to the end users is also very easy. However, connectors need to be simplified, and technical support needs to be improved. Thus, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse at eight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I find most valuable in SAP BW4HANA include the minimal modeling optics, where earlier in the BW System we had a lot of modeling objects for things like virtualization and data staging, but in SAP BW4HANA they have simplified everything, allowing us to design data by using minimal objects combined into a single object."
"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 system has always been stable."
"From an ERP point of view and a functionality point of view, it works very well. The benefits are in that of financial costing and material management."
"It is a stable solution."
"Overall, it's hard to compare with other products on the market, but I think it has improved quite significantly."
"Out of the box, this solution has a lot of standard features."
"We benefited from BW/4HANA's ability to utilize predefined content inside, and we didn't need to start from scratch."
"It's an excellent over-all tool for managers to analyze their business."
"A robust and efficient product."
"We are an airline and use the system for data modeling and data warehousing, and we implement it for time performance and feedback analysis."
"Data cleansed and harmonization. It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users."
"With SAP BW, the organization can start to deploy a data warehouse and deliver data to business people."
"It is a robust system."
"Queries based on the Data warehouse have enabled the Service department of the organization analyze data deeply and get insights into daily inflow and revenue as well as analyze data over time periods, various models, model years, by customer segment, etc."
"Transformation is a valuable feature of SAP NetWeaver. I can transform the data as per my needs or my client's needs. For example, flat tables can be transformed with respect to our requirements to combine multiple modules into one single table, and we can derive analytics."
 

Cons

"So far, this functionality is a little bit limited in the tool, and it is not thought through, but I think it will come."
"I would like to be able to design new reports in a future release."
"The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done."
"The tool is not easy to use for an end user."
"There's one area where the other vendors have an upper edge, which is the data lake. I think SAP is trying to figure out whether to stick with IQ, their own data lake solution, or push customers toward customer-preferred vendors, like Azure Data Lake, AWS, or any other provider."
"Support could be more reliable."
"If I want to have good reporting, then I have to buy a separate license. I have to pay for separate things; that's quite irritating."
"BW/4HANA could improve query optimization."
"It is difficult when your native language is not English. It is difficult for us to explain our issue and also difficult for the technical team to explain a resolution to us."
"Design and modeling could be simplified."
"The program is difficult to learn to use"
"Connectors are complex, and it is difficult to understand or know which connector should be used. For instance, if I want to connect APIs, I will not be able to do it directly. I would have to go to the portal integration to get the data. Therefore, having simplified connectors will make things much easier."
"The complexity of this data warehouse application is huge and makes it tough to manage and deploy it. In general, it requires a lot of know-how and time which makes it expensive to deliver fast answers."
"People using SAP BW have to undergo some training to be able to use the product. Complexity can be reduced and could be made a bit more user-friendly."
"The setup needs skilled resources in SAP BW. A lack of trained resources can create serious problems."
"The product could provide more features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is affordable."
"The solution is expensive."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
"The product is free if we have the ECC license."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"The price is high and currently only affordable for large organizations."
"Pricing is based on the number of user IDs and tyhe user ID works across a suite of products."
"All SAP products are expensive."
"The licensing cost is high for SAP NetWeaver compared to that for other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

SAP BW/4HANA
NetWeaver Business Warehouse, NetWeaver BusinessObjects Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
EMC Corporation, Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Eldorado, Mozzart, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, Hilti Group, Nissha Printing Company Ltd., Asian Paints, Aareal Bank Group, Magazine zum Globus (Migros Group)
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BW4HANA vs. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.