SaaS Pressure from SAP Commerce Cloud: Higher Costs for Less Freedom?

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SAP has announced the end of support for SAP Commerce (formerly Hybris). It will only receive security updates through 2028. This is part of a broader “cloud-first” strategy, limiting your customization and self-hosting opportunities.

While cloud solutions may have some advantages, there are also major drawbacks. Multi-cloud and hybrid solutions are no longer available, as hosting is limited to Microsoft Azure. As usual, this standard solutions mean less flexibility. Any customization will come at a higher cost. Connecting to third party systems will cause additional effort and depend on additional middleware. And as we've seen with cloud solutions in the past: costs seem reasonable at the beginning until they rise continually.

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So why migrate to the cloud?

Unless you have a very standard SAP integration, there are few real advantages. DevOps efforts may be reduced by automating maintenance, scaling and security. SSL/TLS certificates are being taken care of as well as DDoS protection. But cloud solutions limit your options for any customization.

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What To do then?

If you are a SAP Commerce on-premise client, you will soon have to make a decision. Will you migrate to the cloud or update your system landscape to a modern MACH architecture?

We recommend taking this opportunity to analyze your requirements to find the right solution for the future. A MACH solution is certainly a good fit for customized needs.

Contact us if you need help evaluating your options. If you’ve already decided to make the switch, the next post will outline the steps for migrating from SAP Commerce to an alternative solution.