Why Companies Should Look Beyond SAP for Their Commerce Future

With SAP Hybris being sunset, businesses face a critical decision: transition to SAP Commerce Cloud or replatform to a more flexible, future-proof solution. While sticking with SAP may seem like the path of least resistance, it comes with significant limitations that could hinder innovation, agility, and cost efficiency.

Staying with SAP Commerce Cloud: The Challenges

Innovation Bottlenecks
SAP Commerce Cloud is built on the legacy of SAP Hybris, bringing the same rigid structure and limitations. As a closed system, it restricts flexibility, making it difficult to introduce new capabilities or replace outdated ones. Businesses end up paying for pre-packaged features they may not even need, adding unnecessary costs and complexity.

Customization Barriers
For companies needing tailored solutions, SAP Commerce Cloud presents roadblocks. Even minor modifications require specialized SAP developers, who are both scarce and expensive. The platform’s cumbersome codebase makes updates costly and time-consuming, leaving businesses stuck with outdated functionality.

Slow & Costly Implementation
Replatforming to SAP Commerce Cloud can be expensive and slow. Integrations with non-SAP or legacy systems are complex and require highly trained development partners, further driving up costs and delaying time to market.

Why Spryker? A Smarter Approach to Digital Commerce

Best-of-Breed vs. Best-in-Suite: Why Flexibility Wins

Traditional suite-based solutions like SAP bundle everything together—whether you need it or not. A best-of-breed approach gives businesses the freedom to select and integrate the best tools available, fostering innovation and adaptability.

  • Industry-leading vendors specialize in their niches, offering superior functionality compared to all-in-one platforms.
  • Open APIs enable seamless integration, making it easier to evolve your commerce stack without lock-in.

Faster Time-to-Value & ROI

A complex platform delays returns. With Spryker, businesses can go live faster, respond to market shifts with agility, and launch new revenue streams without the IT burden of managing multiple systems.

  • Test, launch, and scale new business models in parallel without disrupting existing operations.
  • Adapt and iterate quickly, capturing revenue opportunities without long development cycles.
  • Leverage industry-specific expertise with Spryker’s dedicated team to maximize business impact.

Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

A composable, API-first architecture means businesses can launch and scale faster—without unnecessary overhead. Spryker’s modular approach lets companies choose only the components they need, easily integrate third-party solutions, and customize as required.

  • Short-term benefits: Faster implementation, quicker time-to-value, and seamless integration with existing tech stacks.
  • Long-term impact: Upgrade-safe extensibility ensures smooth updates, cost-effective maintenance, and a platform that evolves alongside business needs.

SAP vs Spryker: Tech Architecture

Spryker’s architecture is built to enable flexible, fast, interoperable, and future-proof e-commerce. See how the tech stacks stack up in the table below.

SAP Commerce Cloud SAP Commerce Cloud
Spryker Spryker
Benefit Benefit
Backend Language
SAP Commerce Cloud xxx
Spryker xxx
Benefit xxx
Base Framework
SAP Commerce Cloud xxx
Spryker xxx
Benefit Symfony’s modular architecture makes it easier to maintain and extend than Spring MVC, which is powerful but can be overly complex for e-commerce-specific applications.
Templating Engine
SAP Commerce Cloud Apache Velocity
Spryker Twig
Benefit Twig is a modern, secure, and widely adopted templating engine. Apache Velocity, while functional, is older and less developer-friendly for modern front-end workflows.

Preparing for a Successful Replatforming

Assess What Needs to Change
This isn’t just a technology shift—it’s an opportunity to refine your digital strategy. Are you simply replicating old processes or rethinking your business model for growth? Consider how your new platform can unlock new revenue streams and improve customer experience.

Control Scope from the Start
Scope creep is the biggest threat to replatforming success. Clearly define critical priorities vs. nice-to-haves to avoid delays and cost overruns. With a composable platform like Spryker, you can evolve incrementally, rolling out enhancements at your own pace.

Drive Change Management Early
Even when a new platform delivers clear benefits, internal resistance can slow adoption. Engage stakeholders across teams from the beginning, ensuring smooth transition and buy-in. Educating employees and customers on the benefits of your new commerce approach will set the foundation for long-term success.

Customer Example: HORNBACH

In 2020, HONRBACH realized that the previously used SAP Hybris e-commerce solution was just too rigid and not customizable enough. It restricted further technological design too much to make the necessary changes possible. Switching to Spryker's modular, headless architecture, HORNBACH gained the benefits of additional flexibility and speed. This now allows HORNBACH to react more flexibly to changing market requirements and implement new business models more quickly.

Several core software development principles played a vital role throughout the implementation process — influencing everything from the overarching architecture to individual lines of code. The focus extended beyond functionality to include performance, scalability, traceability, orchestration, and test coverage, ultimately resulting in a flexible, scalable, and future-proof architecture.

The Bottom Line

Replatforming isn’t just about moving away from SAP—it’s about moving toward a future-ready commerce solution that helps turn volatility into value. Businesses that choose Spryker can gain greater flexibility, lower costs, and faster innovation—all essential for staying competitive in today’s digital-first economy.

Ready to explore what a future with Spryker looks like?

Let’s talk

Marketing materials are created to provide general information. For detailed product information, please refer to the Spryker Services Description. Discrepancies between sources will be resolved in favor of the Spryker Services Description.

About Spryker

Spryker is the leading global composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional businesses, Spryker’s easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Ricoh. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York backed by world class investors such as TCV, One Peak, Project A, Cherry Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Learn more at spryker.com.

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