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Databases · head to head

BigQuery vs SAP BusinessObjects

BigQuery logo

BigQuery

Databases

Google Cloud's serverless analytical warehouse, billed either by bytes scanned per query or by reserved compute slots.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
SAP BusinessObjects logo

SAP BusinessObjects

Business Intelligence

Enterprise business intelligence suite

From
$400/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only BigQuery has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: BigQuery on-demand billing charges for bytes read from every column a query references, so an unqualified select or a missing partition filter turns a routine query into a large bill, and the cost is discovered after the fact rather than at review time.; SAP BusinessObjects sAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud Edition is listed on UK G-Cloud 14 as a Cloud software service by SAP (UK) Limited titled 'SAP Business Objects Private Cloud Edition', alongside a reseller listing from NTT DATA Business Solutions; the G-Cloud search results describe it as subscription-based but show no per-user or per-month figure in the listing summary
  • They diverge on capability: BigQuery covers Serverless compute, SAP BusinessObjects covers Crystal Reports.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigQuery and SAP BusinessObjects actually diverge.

Attributes where BigQuery and SAP BusinessObjects differ
AttributeBigQuerySAP BusinessObjects
Starting priceFree$400/month
Pricing modelusage-basedsubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Cloud APIWeb, Desktop, Mobile
CategoryDatabasesBusiness Intelligence
Founded20081972

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BigQuery

  • Serverless compute
  • Separation of storage and compute
  • Two pricing models
  • Partitioning and clustering
  • Materialised views
  • BigQuery ML
  • Storage Write API
  • BI Engine

Only in SAP BusinessObjects

  • Crystal Reports
  • Web Intelligence
  • Lumira
  • Analysis for Office
  • Live Office
  • SAP HANA
  • SAP ERP
  • Oracle

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BigQuery

  • A warehouse for an organisation already on Google Cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same placenot SAP BusinessObjects
  • Bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster runningnot SAP BusinessObjects
  • Event and clickstream analytics ingested continuously through the Storage Write API and queried without a load windownot SAP BusinessObjects
  • Analytics teams with no infrastructure staff, where the absence of anything to tune or patch is worth more than dialect portabilitynot SAP BusinessObjects

SAP BusinessObjects

  • Enterprise reportingnot BigQuery
  • Executive dashboardsnot BigQuery
  • Regulatory compliancenot BigQuery
  • Strategic planningnot BigQuery
  • Operational analyticsnot BigQuery

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BigQuery

  • On-demand billing charges for bytes read from every column a query references, so an unqualified select or a missing partition filter turns a routine query into a large bill, and the cost is discovered after the fact rather than at review time.
  • There is no way to join tables that live in different regions, so a data estate split across regions for residency reasons has to be reconciled with copies and the storage and transfer that implies.
  • It is not built for point lookups; retrieving a single row has latency measured in hundreds of milliseconds or more, so BigQuery cannot serve an application's read path and always needs a second store in front of it.
  • Frequent small mutations run into DML concurrency limits and the cost of rewriting storage blocks, so a workload that updates individual rows continuously behaves badly compared with an append-only design.
  • The compute exists only inside Google Cloud, so while tables can be exported, the accumulated GoogleSQL, scheduled queries, authorised views, ML models and IAM structure do not move, and switching warehouses is a rewrite of the analytical layer.

SAP BusinessObjects

  • SAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud Edition is listed on UK G-Cloud 14 as a Cloud software service by SAP (UK) Limited titled 'SAP Business Objects Private Cloud Edition', alongside a reseller listing from NTT DATA Business Solutions; the G-Cloud search results describe it as subscription-based but show no per-user or per-month figure in the listing summary

Pricing, plan by plan

BigQuery

Free
  • Free TierFree
    • 1TB queries/month
    • 10GB storage/month
    • Standard support
  • On-demand$6.25/TB
    • Pay per query
    • Pay per storage
    • All features

SAP BusinessObjects

$400/month
  • Standard$400/month
    • Core BI Tools
    • Web Intelligence
    • Crystal Reports
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Full Suite
    • Advanced Features
    • Premium Support

Which should you pick?

Choose BigQuery if

  • You need serverless compute.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Cloud API.
  • You also want separation of storage and compute.
BigQuery review

Choose SAP BusinessObjects if

  • You need crystal reports.
  • You work on Web, Desktop, Mobile.
  • You also want web intelligence.
SAP BusinessObjects review

Questions people ask

Is BigQuery or SAP BusinessObjects better?
Neither clearly leads. BigQuery starts at Free and SAP BusinessObjects at $400/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigQuery or SAP BusinessObjects?
BigQuery has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for BigQuery and $400/month for SAP BusinessObjects.
Does BigQuery or SAP BusinessObjects run on more platforms?
BigQuery runs on Web, Cloud API. SAP BusinessObjects runs on Web, Desktop, Mobile.
Can I use BigQuery for free?
Yes. BigQuery has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. SAP BusinessObjects starts at $400/month.
What is BigQuery best used for?
BigQuery is most often used for a warehouse for an organisation already on google cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same place, bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster running, event and clickstream analytics ingested continuously through the storage write api and queried without a load window, analytics teams with no infrastructure staff, where the absence of anything to tune or patch is worth more than dialect portability. Of those, a warehouse for an organisation already on google cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same place and bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster running are not what SAP BusinessObjects is typically brought in for.
What can BigQuery do that SAP BusinessObjects cannot?
BigQuery covers Serverless compute, Separation of storage and compute, Two pricing models, Partitioning and clustering. SAP BusinessObjects covers Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Lumira, Analysis for Office.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigQuery: How is BigQuery actually billed?

Storage is billed separately from compute. Compute is either on-demand, priced by the bytes a query reads from the referenced columns, or capacity-based, where you reserve autoscaling slots. Most cost surprises come from on-demand queries that scan more than expected.

BigQuery: How do I control query cost?

Partition and cluster tables so queries prune data, select only the columns needed, use materialised views for repeated aggregations, and set maximum bytes billed on queries so a runaway scan fails instead of billing.

BigQuery: Can I use it without being on Google Cloud?

The service only runs on Google Cloud. BigQuery Omni can query data held in S3 or Azure storage, but the compute is still Google's and the account relationship is still with Google.

BigQuery: Is it suitable for serving application queries?

No. Latency for single-row reads is far too high. BigQuery is an analytical warehouse and application read paths need a transactional database or a cache in front of it.

BigQuery: When should I move from on-demand to capacity pricing?

When on-demand spend becomes both large and predictable, or when unpredictable spend is a bigger problem than query queueing. The switch trades a variable bill for a fixed one plus contention between workloads.

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