The right ERP system creates a lion’s share of a business’ success. ERP systems help streamline business operations, optimize resources and handle operational issues, supporting the company’s overall growth and boosting its productivity.
PeopleSoft and SAP are extremely popular ERPs among businesses, as each of them offers great benefits and helps companies improve their daily processes. Still, these two systems have many differences, and businesses should know about them before making a choice.
PeopleSoft vs. SAP: An Overview
- PeopleSoft: PeopleSoft is an ERP system owned by Oracle, primarily focused on HR, HCM, CRM and financials. It’s popular in education, healthcare, and government. PeopleSoft is mostly on-premise (with some private cloud options) and is generally easier to use, but narrower in scope.
- SAP: SAP S/4HANA is a leading ERP from SAP that supports a broad range of business functions — finance, supply chain, manufacturing, HR, analytics, and more. It’s widely used in manufacturing, retail, automotive, finance, and logistics. It offers on-premise, cloud, and hybrid deployment, with strong real-time analytics and scalability, though it has a steeper learning curve.
In this post, we’ll compare the PeopleSoft and SAP ERP systems, highlighting their differences in functionality, as well as reviewing the main reasons why an enterprise may need to migrate its data from PeopleSoft to SAP.
PeopleSoft and SAP: a Brief Overview
PeopleSoft and SAP are both enterprise-scale ERP systems with diverse sets of capabilities and functions. Let’s take a closer look at each of these systems.
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft is an ERP system owned by the Oracle Corporation. The core focus of PeopleSoft is human capital management (HCM), customer relations (CRM) and financial data. The solution is a popular choice for mid-sized and large companies in the areas of education, healthcare and government. For example, the system is used by Indiana University as a campus management solution.
PeopleSoft is primarily an on-premise ERP solution, although it can be hosted in a private cloud environment through infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers. It does not currently offer a native, multi-tenant SaaS version. Oracle continues to support and develop PeopleSoft, with committed support extended through at least 2036. PeopleSoft also integrates well with third-party systems and can be extended using PeopleTools and native frameworks.
The pricing model of PeopleSoft is complex and depends on such factors as the number of users, the number of added modules and specific organizational needs. On review aggregator platforms, people rate the price as “8 out of 10”, where “10” means “expensive.”
SAP
SAP is a global software company that offers a wide range of enterprise solutions, including its flagship ERP system — SAP S/4HANA, which supports key business functions such as finance, supply chain, manufacturing, HR, procurement and analytics. Large-scale companies widely use SAP products in areas like manufacturing, retail, automotive, metals and mining, finance and logistics. Examples include Honda, Lufthansa, Škoda and Siemens.
SAP offers flexible deployment options: on-premise, public or private cloud, and hybrid. Built on the in-memory SAP HANA database, S/4HANA enables real-time data processing and seamless integration with other enterprise systems. A wide partner network supports implementation and ongoing optimization.
Pricing depends on factors such as deployment model, number of users, and modules. While often rated as costly, especially for smaller businesses, SAP is valued by large organizations for its scalability, advanced features and global support.
PeopleSoft vs. SAP: Key Differences
To help you see a full picture of the differences between SAP and PeopleSoft, you can look at the comparison table highlighting the peculiarities of these two solutions:
PeopleSoft vs. SAP: Additional Evaluation Factors
Compliance and Security
SAP S/4HANA offers built-in support for regulatory compliance standards (e.g., SOX, GDPR, ISO 27001), while PeopleSoft customers may need to configure and manage these controls manually, depending on their hosting model.
Mobile Capabilities
Both systems offer mobile-friendly interfaces — SAP through its Fiori apps and PeopleSoft via Fluid UI. However, SAP’s mobile access is more consistent across modules, especially in cloud deployments.
Vendor Lock-In and Ecosystem
SAP has a vast partner and consultant network and is continuously expanding its business technology platform. Oracle’s PeopleSoft ecosystem is smaller but stable, with most innovation targeted at Oracle Cloud Applications. Organizations should assess vendor’s strategy and ecosystem maturity before committing.
PeopleSoft to SAP Migration: When and Why
Although both PeopleSoft and SAP offer great data management capabilities, companies may sometimes prefer to migrate from PeopleSoft to SAP. This happens because SAP, while being more costly and complicated, has many more scalability options and allows for the adaptation of new technologies, which is important for further business growth.
The key reasons for PeopleSoft to SAP migration are the following:
- Business scalability and modernization: PeopleSoft is mostly focused on human capital management, while SAP is a big family of solutions, which enables businesses to solve more complex problems and allows for better scalability.
- Digital transformation: Companies looking to leverage AI, machine learning and IoT often find SAP’s roadmap and embedded capabilities more robust for digital transformation initiatives.
- Increased necessity in real-time data and analytics: SAP S/4HANA, built on the HANA in-memory database, offers real-time processing and analytics, which can be a significant differentiator for data-driven enterprises.
- Cost efficiency: PeopleSoft may offer lower licensing costs for companies focused on HR and finance, but often requires paid add-ons for functions like supply chain or analytics. SAP provides a broader suite of built-in capabilities, which can reduce integration needs but generally comes with a higher total cost of ownership. The best value depends on your organization’s scope and long-term goals.
- Complex integrations and interoperability: PeopleSoft has to be equipped with paid modules for additional tasks. SAP has a lot of modules present out-of-the-box, which enables businesses to cover various needs without third-party tools. At the same time, SAP easily integrates with many other solutions, so users won’t have a problem with data integration and system connectivity.
- Long-term platform strategy: Migrating to SAP may align better with an organization’s future IT strategy of moving toward cloud-native architectures or broader SAP ecosystem adoption.
PeopleSoft to SAP S/4HANA Migration: Doing It Right
SAP S/4HANA is the most optimal choice for migration from PeopleSoft. It’s the latest SAP ERP solution that combines user-friendly interfaces with great technological capabilities, speeding up adoption and user training and preventing business lags.
SAP S/4HANA migration is a complex procedure, but it is achievable if you take the right approach and practices.
1. Careful Planning and Preparation
Take the time to meticulously define the scope of your data migration, set clear objectives, create a detailed strategy, and ensure compliance with data governance standards. Timely addressing these aspects prevents potential disruptions and delays during the migration process.
2. Key Stakeholders Engagement
Involve business users in the data migration process. Their active participation will help streamline user training, introduce them to the specifics of the new system, and give them more time to adapt to the changes.
3. Test Migrations
Before initiating the actual data transfer, run multiple test migrations based on your specific migration scenarios. This allows you to uncover potential issues in advance, address them proactively, and develop contingency plans. Utilizing data migration platforms, such as DataLark, will provide a clear visualization of the process, helping you create correct connections between data sources and targets before the full migration.
4. Downtime Minimization
Through extensive testing, you can address any issues ahead of time, ensuring the migration process runs smoothly with minimal lags. This is especially important when dealing with dynamic data, such as transactional data, where minimizing downtime and lag is essential for maintaining business continuity.
5. Post-Migration Data Validation
Once the migration is complete, validate the data to confirm that it has transferred successfully, and the new system is functioning as expected. Using specialized SAP data validation tools will help identify any discrepancies, such as inaccurate or missing data. These tools present results in an easy-to-understand graphical format, making the validation process more efficient.
6. Ongoing Support and Monitoring
After the migration, continue to monitor the data environment. Ongoing observation helps quickly detect any issues and make necessary adjustments, ensuring the new system operates smoothly and is scalable for future business growth.
Although migrating from PeopleSoft to SAP S/4HANA involves certain challenges, they can be addressed by using the right tools for data management and migration.
PeopleSoft vs. SAP: Which Should You Choose?
As you can see, PeopleSoft and SAP, while sharing many similarities, are often used for different purposes. Ultimately, your choice depends on strategic priorities.
If your organization requires advanced HR functionality and prefers a customizable on-premise environment, PeopleSoft remains a strong candidate — particularly in education, healthcare, and government sectors.
If your goal is to standardize and scale operations across departments with real-time analytics, modern UI, and cloud-readiness, SAP S/4HANA may be the better fit. A thorough internal assessment of future business needs, IT landscape, and resource availability will help guide your ERP decision.
