What Is SAP S/4HANA? Editions, RISE with SAP, SAP Cloud ERP, and How They Differ

SAP S/4HANA is SAP's current ERP suite, the successor to SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC), built on the SAP HANA in-memory database with SAP Fiori as its user interface. As of October 2026, it comes in three deployment options: SAP S/4HANA on-premise, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. SAP sells the two cloud editions under the commercial names SAP Cloud ERP Private and SAP Cloud ERP, through the RISE with SAP and SAP GROW offerings.

RISE with SAP and SAP GROW are offerings rather than ERP versions: they are how SAP brings a customer to each edition, with a subscription contract, tools, and services. For IT, the choice among the three options decides who runs the infrastructure, who sets the upgrade date, and what kind of code and integration the system accepts. For plant maintenance, it decides which processes, transactions, mobile apps, and interfaces for maintenance orders, notifications, and confirmations are available.

What SAP S/4HANA is

SAP launched S/4HANA on February 3, 2015, as the ERP generation that replaces SAP ERP 6.0. SAP's own training material describes it as the ERP suite built on SAP HANA with SAP Fiori as the interface. Two technical consequences follow from that definition.

• The database is always SAP HANA. SAP HANA is SAP's in-memory, column-oriented database. An ECC system can run on HANA or on databases from other vendors; an S/4HANA system cannot.
• Users enter through the SAP Fiori launchpad, with apps organized by role. Classic transactions remain in the editions that accept them.

Plant maintenance, which in ECC is the SAP PM module, continues in S/4HANA inside the Asset Management area, with the same core objects: equipment, functional location, maintenance notification, maintenance order, operation, maintenance plan, and measuring point.

The technical guide says SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, the commercial proposal says SAP Cloud ERP Private, and the project deck says RISE with SAP. All three can be describing the same system.

S/4HANA, SAP Cloud ERP, RISE, and GROW: which name means what

SAP uses four kinds of names for the same ERP: the technical product name, the commercial name, the name of the sales offering, and the portfolio name. The official course Exploring SAP Cloud ERP sums up the mapping: GROW with SAP is the sales bundle, SAP Cloud ERP is the marketing term, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is the technical name; RISE with SAP is the sales bundle, SAP Cloud ERP Private is the marketing term, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition is the technical name.

The table sorts each name by type, following SAP's own documentation as of October 2026.

Name	Type of name	What it refers to in October 2026
SAP S/4HANA	Product and technical family	The on-premise ERP and, by extension, the whole family. Still used in technical guides; the current release is SAP S/4HANA 2025
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition	Technical name	Single-tenant cloud ERP with the same code as on-premise
SAP Cloud ERP Private	Commercial name	Private Edition, sold as a package with transformation tools. In use since the announcement of April 22, 2025
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition	Technical name	Multi-tenant cloud ERP delivered as software as a service
SAP Cloud ERP	Commercial name and category	Public Edition. SAP also uses the term as a category covering both cloud editions
RISE with SAP	Offering and journey	Transformation of the installed base to cloud ERP, currently presented with SAP Cloud ERP Private as the destination
SAP GROW (GROW with SAP)	Offering and journey	Adoption of the public ERP. The commercial site says SAP GROW; contracts and announcements say GROW with SAP
SAP Business Suite	Portfolio	Set launched in February 2025 that combines cloud ERP, business applications, SAP Business Data Cloud, and SAP Business AI
SAP Business Suite 7	Previous generation	The suite that includes SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC), under maintenance with deadlines by enhancement package
SAP ERP, private edition, transition option	Time-bound subscription	Continuity from 2031 to 2033 for an ECC system already moved to SAP ERP, private edition on SAP HANA
SAP Business AI Platform and SAP Autonomous Suite	Portfolio evolution	Enterprise AI foundation and agents on top of existing applications, announced on May 12, 2026. They are not a new ERP edition

The S/4HANA name has not gone away. API identifiers, conversion guides, contract documents, and certifications keep the technical names, and a document that says S/4HANA is not outdated for that reason. SAP has not set a single date for the switch: the April 22, 2025 announcement shows SAP Cloud ERP Private already in use on that date, and both vocabularies coexist.

When each name and offering appeared

The table lists the SAP announcements that explain the current vocabulary, with the date of each official publication.

Date	What SAP announced
February 3, 2015	Launch of SAP S/4HANA
January 27, 2021	RISE with SAP, a subscription offering with one party responsible for the SLA, operations, and support
September 15, 2022	Two-year release cycle and seven years of mainstream maintenance per release, starting with S/4HANA 2023
March 21, 2023	GROW with SAP, with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, for midsize customers
February 4, 2025	SAP ERP, private edition, transition option
February 2025	New SAP Business Suite
April 22, 2025	SAP Cloud ERP Private package
August 4, 2025	Transition option conditions, including the 2 TB minimum
May 12, 2026	SAP Business AI Platform and SAP Autonomous Suite
October 7, 2026	FPS02 for S/4HANA 2025 recorded in the guide; statement on third-party databases and Java beyond 2030

What are the three S/4HANA deployment options?

All three options share the SAP HANA database and differ in contract, operations, upgrades, and extensibility. On-premise and Private Edition use the same code; Public Edition has its own numbering and calendar.

SAP S/4HANA on-premise

SAP S/4HANA on-premise is the ERP installed on infrastructure managed by the customer or by a provider the customer hires. On-premise does not require a server inside the company: the system can sit in the customer's own data center, with a hosting provider, or on hyperscaler machines the customer contracts directly.

It is bought as a perpetual license with maintenance, and the customer's Basis team or partner runs infrastructure, database, and patching. A base release ships every two years since 2023, numbered by year. The customer decides when to upgrade: there is no contractual obligation to install upgrades, but maintenance for each release ends. ABAP Cloud and classic ABAP are both available, and SAP recommends clean core even where modification is technically possible.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, sold as SAP Cloud ERP Private

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition is SAP's single-tenant cloud ERP, with the same code and functional scope as on-premise, bought by subscription and technically operated by SAP. SAP Cloud ERP Private is the commercial name for this edition and for the package in which it is sold, within RISE with SAP.

The service description guide for the private edition uses the FUE metric, which converts user types into a single unit; quantities and factors depend on the document version and the order form. Infrastructure runs in an SAP data center or on a hyperscaler, and SAP lists AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud among the providers, with availability that varies by region and contract. SAP installs the technical upgrade on request; the customer keeps the system on a release covered by maintenance and prepares processes, custom code, and integrations. Classic ABAP remains available, and the right to modify standard code depends on the offering named in the contract.

The Roles and Responsibilities document for the private edition, in its July 2026 version, separates standard, additional, optional, packaged, and excluded services. A task that applies to the landscape and is neither included nor purchased stays with the customer.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, sold as SAP Cloud ERP

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is SAP's multi-tenant cloud ERP, delivered as software as a service, with preconfigured processes and extensibility only through released mechanisms. SAP Cloud ERP is the commercial name for this edition, sold through the SAP GROW offering.

The service use description for the public edition, updated on July 20, 2026, measures the Finance and Supply Chain packages by User and keeps FUE in GROW offerings. SAP operates the entire service. Release numbers combine year and month: 2602 is the February 2026 release and 2608 is the August release. There are two major upgrades per year, installed by SAP on a published calendar. In the two-system landscape, the planned 2608 schedule placed the quality system on August 1 and 2, 2026, and production on August 15 and 16, and the customer's regression testing has to fit that window.

Articles that describe quarterly upgrades are mixing the major upgrades with the corrections and continuous deliveries that happen between them.

Are RISE with SAP and SAP GROW products?

They are not software products. RISE with SAP is SAP's subscription-based transformation offering for moving the installed base to cloud ERP. At launch in 2021, SAP presented it as a single offering with one party responsible for the service level agreement, operations, and support. As of October 2026, the official page describes it as the path to SAP Cloud ERP Private, with a methodology and transformation tools.

SAP GROW is SAP's offering for adopting the public cloud ERP, with preconfigured processes, adoption services, a community, and learning resources. It launched on March 21, 2023, as GROW with SAP, aimed at midsize customers.

• RISE is not a release, a database, or a system upgrade. The ERP version inside a RISE contract is still an S/4HANA release.
• Pairing RISE with the private edition and GROW with the public edition describes the commercial presentation of October 2026. SAP's August 4, 2025 update names both editions in the RISE journey, and the 2026 research by ASUG, the Americas' SAP Users' Group, still records members running RISE on the public edition.
• Hosting your own S/4HANA license on a hyperscaler does not create a RISE contract. What changes is who contracts infrastructure and operations and which terms govern the service.
• The SAP Cloud ERP Private package announced on April 22, 2025 names SAP LeanIX, SAP Signavio, SAP Build, and other components besides the ERP. The announcement list is not a universal entitlement: quantities, limits, and SAP BTP services depend on the tier and the order form.

The contract, the responsibility matrix, and the questions to ask before signing are covered in RISE with SAP. The difference between the two offerings is in RISE with SAP vs. GROW with SAP.

On-premise vs. Private Edition vs. Public Edition: the full comparison

The table compares the three deployment options and ECC as the starting point. The Private and Public columns stand for the technical products. The data comes from SAP's public documentation and from the contract documents in force in October 2026; where the rule depends on the contract, the cell says so.

Dimension	S/4HANA on-premise	Private Edition (SAP Cloud ERP Private)	Public Edition (SAP Cloud ERP)	ECC as the starting point
Type	Installed ERP	Private cloud, single tenant	Public cloud, multi-tenant	Previous-generation ERP
Associated offering	Customer's own license	RISE with SAP	SAP GROW; earlier RISE contracts	SAP Business Suite 7
Usual contract	Perpetual license and maintenance	Subscription	Subscription	Existing license and maintenance
Metric	Per license and engines	FUE; others per component	User; FUE in GROW offerings	Per the existing contract
Database	SAP HANA	SAP HANA	SAP HANA, underlying the service	SAP HANA or other supported databases
Infrastructure	Owned or hosted	SAP or an eligible hyperscaler	SAP public service	Existing installation
Technical operations	Customer or provider	SAP, within the contracted scope	SAP	Customer or provider
Version numbering	Year: 2023, 2025	Year: 2023, 2025	Year and month: 2602, 2608	ERP 6.0 with EHP
Major upgrade	Every two years	Every two years	Twice a year, February and August	Depends on the migration path
Who installs the upgrade	Customer or partner	SAP, at the customer's request	SAP, on the calendar	Customer or partner
Functional and integration testing	Customer or partner	Customer or partner	Customer, within the calendar window	Customer or partner
Entry path	New implementation, system conversion, or selective data transition	The same, plus lift and shift of an existing S/4HANA	New implementation with data migration	It is the origin
Configuration	IMG and SAP Best Practices	IMG and SAP Best Practices	Mandatory scope items	Existing customizing
Classic ABAP	Available	Available, subject to contract	No unrestricted Standard ABAP	Code to analyze during conversion
ABAP Cloud	Depends on release	Depends on release	It is the development model	Not the ECC model
Modifying standard code	Possible; clean core recommended	Depends on the contracted offering	Not allowed	Legacy to inventory
Clean core levels	A to D	A to D	A only	Not applicable
RFC and BAPI	Per release and authorization	Per release, network, and authorization	Only interfaces released per scenario	Those of the current system
OData and APIs	Check per release	Check per release	Public APIs, through communication arrangements	Do not assume S/4HANA APIs
SAP GUI and Fiori	Classic transactions and Fiori apps	Classic transactions and Fiori apps	Fiori, with SAP GUI for HTML on some screens	Classic transactions
SAP mobile app for maintenance	SAP Service and Asset Manager	SAP Service and Asset Manager	SAP Maintenance Assistant	SAP Service and Asset Manager, with EHP7 or EHP8

The comparison of the two cloud editions, with the detail on scope, extensibility, upgrades, and integration, is in SAP Cloud ERP public vs. private.

Clean core and custom code: what each edition accepts

Clean core is SAP's guideline of keeping extensions decoupled from standard code and built on released interfaces, so that an upgrade does not depend on reworking each customization. The official course on the topic classifies custom code into four levels: A uses only released APIs, with ABAP Cloud; B uses classic APIs considered safe; C uses internal objects that carry some risk and are tracked through an SAP changelog; D uses techniques SAP does not recommend.

In Public Edition, only level A is allowed. Levels B, C, and D exist only in Private Edition and on-premise. The classification measures what the code depends on and grants no license to modify standard objects. For an ECC system with years of Z programs, the practical consequence is an inventory in which every object gets a destination before the edition is chosen. The levels, the extension types, and the handling of existing code are in SAP clean core.

S/4HANA releases and maintenance dates as of October 2026

As of October 2026, the most recent on-premise and Private release is SAP S/4HANA 2025. The document history of the official guide records the first version on October 8, 2025, FPS01 on February 25, 2026, and FPS02 on October 7, 2026. The guide provides for three feature package stacks per release; after them, the release receives support package stacks with corrections.

• Since S/4HANA 2023, SAP ships a base release every two years, with seven years of mainstream maintenance. Releases up to 2022 had five.
• SAP's commitment is that at least one S/4HANA release will be in maintenance until 2040. The commitment is to the family: each release has its own end of maintenance, which should be read in SAP's Product Availability Matrix rather than calculated by adding years to the launch date.
• Public Edition does not follow that table. Releases 2602 and 2608 are the major upgrades of 2026.

Compatibility packs are often mistaken for an ERP deadline. SAP's presentation of February 4, 2026 separates usage rights from maintenance and points to May 31, 2026 as the end of certain usage rights, with exceptions and conditions until 2030 and different rules for cloud subscriptions. That date is neither the end of S/4HANA nor the end of maintenance management; the inventory of what is in use and SAP Note 2269324 determine what applies to each system.

The dates for every version, from ECC by enhancement package to S/4HANA, NetWeaver, and HANA, and what each maintenance phase covers are in SAP maintenance end dates by version.

Still on ECC: maintenance deadlines by enhancement package

SAP ERP 6.0, known as ECC, is part of SAP Business Suite 7. It is the starting point of the projects and not a fourth S/4HANA edition. The deadline depends on the enhancement package (EHP) installed, and support until 2027 applies to only part of the installed base.

• ERP 6.0 with no EHP or an EHP earlier than 6: mainstream maintenance ended on December 31, 2025, and those systems are in customer-specific maintenance. Moving up to EHP6 through 8 brings the system back to the 2027 horizon.
• EHP6 through 8: mainstream maintenance until the end of 2027 and optional extended maintenance from 2028 to the end of 2030, at a premium of two percentage points on the maintenance base.
• Without extended maintenance, or after it: customer-specific maintenance, with a narrower scope.
• 2031 to 2033: SAP ERP, private edition, transition option, a subscription for eligible customers that does not extend maintenance for on-premise ECC. It requires the system to be moved to SAP ERP, private edition on SAP HANA before December 31, 2030, a 2 TB minimum, and the max success plan.

Moving the ECC database to HANA does not turn ECC into S/4HANA and does not change the application deadline. On October 7, 2026, SAP clarified what happens to Business Suite 7 on third-party databases or with Java dependencies: the reselling and support arrangements for those databases and the Java support tied to SAP NetWeaver AS Java 7.5 are scheduled to end at the end of 2030, and customer-specific maintenance does not replace that support. A system conversion from Business Suite 7 on a third-party database to S/4HANA or SAP Cloud ERP is only available while those arrangements are in force; afterward, the statement points to new implementations. The restriction covers the affected environments, not every ECC system.

The official paths are new implementation (greenfield), system conversion (brownfield), and selective data transition; lift and shift moves an existing S/4HANA system to the private cloud while keeping its release. Each path, with the EHP deadlines and the October 7, 2026 statement, is covered in SAP S/4HANA migration: greenfield, brownfield, and the other paths.

What changes for plant maintenance in each edition

Maintenance exists in all three deployment options. The concept behind the Asset Management area is explained in what EAM means. Across editions, what changes is the scope that can be activated, the user interface, the mobile app, and the integration path.

Maintenance process scope

On-premise and in Private Edition, maintenance runs on the classic processes and on the phase-based process, configured in the IMG. In Public Edition, orders follow the phase-based process, structured in nine phases, and each process is activated through a scope item. The current list in the official course includes Reactive Maintenance (4HH), Proactive Maintenance (4HI), Improvement Maintenance (4VT), Operational and Overhead Maintenance (4WM), and Permit to Work (7Z4). Maintenance Resource Scheduling (43R), SAP Maintenance Assistant (4RV), and Maintenance Order Processing with SAP Field Service Management (7Z2) require an additional license.

Corrective Maintenance (BH1) and Preventive Maintenance (BJ2) have been deprecated since release 2302, and Emergency Maintenance (BH2) since 2602; the successors are 4HH and 4HI. Deprecated means the item cannot be newly activated.

Saying that the public edition has no plant maintenance is wrong, and so is saying that it fits any plant. SAP's comparison course records that, in release 2602, there was no scope item for Refurbishment of Spare Parts or for the Checklist Process. The gap belongs to that release, and the status in 2608 has to be checked before the decision.

SAP GUI and Fiori

Fiori and SAP GUI are not mutually exclusive. On-premise and in Private Edition, classic transactions such as IW31 and IW32 remain documented for S/4HANA 2023 FPS03, alongside the Fiori apps. In Public Edition, the launchpad combines Fiori apps with SAP GUI for HTML screens: an SAP Knowledge Base Article links IK11 and IK18 to that edition. That does not mean access to the desktop SAP GUI or to every classic transaction. How the classic confirmation transaction works is covered in SAP PM confirmation with IW41.

Mobility

SAP's mobile apps have different back ends. The quick start guide for SAP Service and Asset Manager 2511 lists Private Edition, S/4HANA on-premise, and ERP 6.0 with EHP7 or EHP8 as back ends, and directs Public Edition to SAP Maintenance Assistant. The consequence applies to any field app, from SAP or from a third party: an integration validated on ECC or Private Edition is not validated on Public Edition by analogy. The decisions behind a field rollout are in SAP PM mobile project.

Integrating orders, notifications, confirmations, and measurements

In Public Edition, integration uses released interfaces, activated through communication scenarios. The documentation lists, among others, API_MAINTENANCEORDER_0002 for maintenance orders, API_MAINTNOTIFICATION for notifications, and API_MAINTORDERCONFIRMATION for confirmations, on OData V2, plus API_MEASURINGPOINT and API_MEASUREMENTDOCUMENT on OData V4. A measuring point is master data; a measurement document is the recorded reading, and the API for one does not cover the other.

The public edition is also not limited to OData: SAP documents BAPIs released for specific order, confirmation, and notification scenarios, which does not authorize calling any BAPI. For each interface, check the object, the read or write operation, the exact API, the edition, the release, and the active communication scenario.

On-premise and in Private Edition, the range of interfaces is wider, and each one enters the test plan of every upgrade. The structure of SAP PM maintenance orders helps list the fields each flow writes, and the SAP PM integration log shows how to trace what failed between systems.

SAP S/4HANA in the United States: what ASUG member research shows

SAP does not publish how many US companies run each edition. The closest public data comes from ASUG, the Americas' SAP Users' Group, and it describes ASUG members rather than the national market.

• ASUG Pulse of the SAP Customer 2025: a survey of 787 ASUG members conducted in November 2024. Moving to SAP S/4HANA remained a top priority, and 26% of respondents named it the number one challenge facing their organizations. The report notes that SAP ECC usage continues to decline as customers shift to S/4HANA, with significant increases through RISE and GROW with SAP.
• ASUG S/4HANA research, published October 6, 2026: among 194 members, 68% are live or in the process of moving from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. The most common subscription plans are RISE with SAP private edition (42%) and public edition (9%), and another 9% use GROW with SAP. The same text reports that 62% have been on S/4HANA for less than three years.

Two limits matter when quoting these figures. The 68% includes members still migrating, so it is not the share already in production. ASUG does not state the base for the subscription question, so the 42%, 9%, and 9% should not be read as market share.

Vocabulary causes its own confusion in US projects. ASUG's environment categories, such as on-premises, hybrid, and private cloud, describe where systems run and are not the S/4HANA editions. When a document says private cloud, confirm whether it means infrastructure the customer contracted from a third party or the SAP product called Private Edition, because contract, operations, and upgrade rules differ.

How to choose among on-premise, Private Edition, and Public Edition

Company size alone does not decide. SAP also positions the public ERP for subsidiaries of large groups, and what rules out the public edition is dependence on code or processes it does not accept, at any company size. The table organizes the decision by criterion, based on the differences documented in the sections above.

Criterion	Question to answer	What the documentation indicates
Starting point	Is the current system a customized ECC, an existing S/4HANA, or a new operation?	Conversion leads to on-premise or Private; Public is a new implementation with data migration
Custom code and add-ons	How much of the process depends on classic ABAP, modifications, or installed add-ons?	Private and on-premise keep classic ABAP; Public allows level A only
Upgrade calendar	Can operations test twice a year on dates set by SAP?	Public: February and August. Private and on-premise: the customer picks the window
Operations	Does the Basis team keep running the system or start managing a service contract?	On-premise keeps operations in-house; Private and Public hand SAP what the contract covers
Maintenance scope	Do the processes in use exist as scope items in the target release?	Refurbishment of spare parts and checklists had no scope item in Public 2602
Mobility and integrations	Do the field app and each order, notification, and confirmation interface have a released path in the target?	In Public, only released interfaces, and SAP Maintenance Assistant as the SAP app
Contract model	Perpetual license with maintenance, or subscription?	On-premise is licensed; Private and Public are subscriptions with different metrics
Deadline	Which EHP, which database, and is there a Java dependency?	Deadlines by EHP; third-party databases and Java have their own limit at the end of 2030

The order of the answers matters. Functional scope, custom code, and integrations rule out options before price and calendar do. A team that picks the edition by contract and later finds that a maintenance process has no scope item, or that a field interface has no released API, reopens the decision with the project underway.

Where maintenance execution fits in this decision

The edition defines what the ERP accepts. Execution still happens in the field: the technician receives the order, records labor hours, enters the measurement reading, and the confirmation goes back to SAP. PM RUN is a maintenance execution, mobility, and planning platform that runs on top of SAP PM without replacing SAP, with more than 12,000 users. PM RUN works with SAP PM on ECC 6.0 or on S/4HANA, on-premise or in the cloud.

In a migration project, that integration goes into the same interface inventory and the same per-upgrade regression plan as any other, and the architecture is validated on the target edition and release. The asset management in SAP page shows what technicians and planners do on the platform, and maintenance planning software covers scheduling and work assignment.