SAP BW/4HANA vs. Snowflake

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAP BW/4HANA
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
SAP BW/4HANA is a next-generation data warehouse solution. It is specifically designed to use the advanced in-memory capabilities of the SAP HANA platform. For example, SAP BW/HANA can integrate many different data sources to provide a single, logical view of all the data. This could include data contained in SAP and non-SAP applications running on-premise or in the cloud, and data lakes, such as those contained in the Apache Hadoop open-source software framework. With SAP BW/4HANA,…N/A
Snowflake
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
The Snowflake Cloud Data Platform is the eponymous data warehouse with, from the company in San Mateo, a cloud and SQL based DW that aims to allow users to unify, integrate, analyze, and share previously siloed data in secure, governed, and compliant ways. With it, users can securely access the Data Cloud to share live data with customers and business partners, and connect with other organizations doing business as data consumers, data providers, and data service providers.N/A
Pricing
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Features
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAP BW/4HANA
8.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Snowflake
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Location-Based Data Governance8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
SAP BW/4HANA
7.0
Ratings
12% below category average
Snowflake
-
Ratings
Data model creation7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
SAP BW/4HANA
4.0
Ratings
27% below category average
Snowflake
-
Ratings
Visualization4.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Warehouse
Comparison of Data Warehouse features of Product A and Product B
SAP BW/4HANA
6.0
Ratings
24% below category average
Snowflake
-
Ratings
High-Volume Data Processing8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Warehouse Management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Administrative Automation5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-Optimization3.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Small Businesses
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.5 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Score 9.0 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exadata
Score 10.0 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP BW/4HANASnowflake
Likelihood to Recommend
Solid data warehouse based on best-in-class in-memory HANA database with excellent integration into SAP solutions, as well as predelivered business content facilitating initial implementation. Leverages the best of SAP's architecture and flexible data warehousing capabilities, without compromising performance and simplification. Will be key enabler to our Finance and HCM analytics roadmap.
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If you need a quick query, snowflake is the way to go. It's super simple and scalable; we were struggling before with Azure, and with Snowflake, everything runs smoothly, and we have more control over our schemas and warehouses. Snowflake, in my opinion, is the next step when you want to scale your business and manage data. If your company is still small, there may be cheaper options.
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Pros
  • Loading data from SAP ERP data sources.
  • Use of data virtualization to minimize load times.
  • Data hosting in memory since the underlying database is HANA.
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  • Snowflake scales appropriately allowing you to manage expense for peak and off peak times for pulling and data retrieval and data centric processing jobs
  • Snowflake offers a marketplace solution that allows you to sell and subscribe to different data sources
  • Snowflake manages concurrency better in our trials than other premium competitors
  • Snowflake has little to no setup and ramp up time
  • Snowflake offers online training for various employee types
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Cons
  • Still has reliance of ABAP stack.
  • Not all exception aggregation conditions are pushed down to HANA
  • BW-IP should be included in offering as it was previously.
  • BW workspaces could improved, has huge potential.
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  • Add constraints for views and not just for tables
  • Do not force customers to renew for same or higher amount to avoid loosing unused credits. Already paid credits should not expire (at least within a reasonable time frame), independent of renewal deal size.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
SnowFlake is very cost effective and we also like the fact we can stop, start and spin up additional processing engines as we need to. We also like the fact that it's easy to connect our SQL IDEs to Snowflake and write our queries in the environment that we are used to
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Usability
SAP BW/4HANA requires specialized skillsets around data warehouse modeling and the access to data, however the modeling capabilities are intuitive and have now become accessible to both SAP and non-SAP data warehouse specialists. This new model allows for Interchangeable skillsets and access to a broader pool of experts throughout the industry, as well as easier access to data.
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The interface is similar to other SQL query systems I've used and is fairly easy to use. My only complaint is the syntax issues. Another thing is that the error messages are not always the easiest thing to understand, especially when you incorporate temp tables. Some of that is to be expected with any new database.
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Support Rating
I never experienced any support issue when using SAP BW/4HANA. The only issues I faced were at the moment of installing the tool in my computer but I got support from the local IT department of my company and was quickly fixed
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We have had terrific experiences with Snowflake support. They have drilled into queries and given us tremendous detail and helpful answers. In one case they even figured out how a particular product was interacting with Snowflake, via its queries, and gave us detail to go back to that product's vendor because the Snowflake support team identified a fault in its operation. We got it solved without lots of back-and-forth or finger-pointing because the Snowflake team gave such detailed information.
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Alternatives Considered
SAP BW / 4HANA and SAP IQ are both used for warehouse; with quick consultations for business analysis and that allows us to obtain dashboards and KPIs efficiently. SAP IQ is columnar and SAP BW / 4HANA immemorial. SAP BW / 4HANA was selected for the response speed of the queries since it saves the information in cache.
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Snowflake provides various features, such as integration with Python using Snowpark. The reporting feature that caters to your small reporting needs is Snowsight. The Snowflake data marketplace is where you can get multiple data for free and even some of the data which you can buy according to your needs. And the integration options with various tools like Sigma are add-ons.
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Return on Investment
  • Reduced our Dev time to generate queries and views out of the ERP layer.
  • Be conscious of the Infrastructure costs
  • It is easily integrated with broader SAP Landscape, reducing overall implementation costs.
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  • With separate compute and storage feature, the queries get executed quickly and it improves our overall productivity.
  • Earlier we were using a different product for analytical purposes, but with Snowflake's in-built analytical feature we are now able to save money.
  • Snowflake is cost efficient, features like auto suspend for compute resources helped to control the costs.
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ScreenShots

SAP BW/4HANA Screenshots

Screenshot of Next generation data warehousing with SAP BW/4HANA.Screenshot of SAP BW/4HANA user cockpit.Screenshot of Geolocation analytics in SAP BW/4HANA.Screenshot of Data modeling in SAP BW/4HANA.Screenshot of Modern user experience in SAP BW/4HANA.Screenshot of Monitor the performance of your business in real-time with SAP BW/4HANA.

Snowflake Screenshots

Screenshot of Snowflake Installation