HANA Studio, Eclipse, Web workbench, Web IDE cloud and Web IDE for HANA

Since the introduction HANA platform, there are several Application development tools provided by SAP for the developers. They are,

1. HANA Studio
2. Eclipse
3. Web Worbench IDE
4. Web IDE cloud
5. Web IDE for HANA

Each tools are different in nature and provide specific features to work on HANA platform. Initially I used to get confused one with other. But I have got an answer to my questions from SAP product Expert, Thomas Jung in forums on the importance of each tools and the future road map of integration of these tools. I would like to share my learning with you in this short blog.


First, I explain briefly about each tool and the usage,

1. HANA Studio:  This is most popular client application installed on premise to access HANA database, application development, BW HANA MT, ABAP Development tools etc.. by switching to different prospective. Software is available on Software center, can be downloaded and installed. You mostly work on this, however it is going away soon, XS Advance modeling can’t be done in Studio. We will see that in the future road map section in the end.
The look and feel of the application,

2. Eclipse tools: It is also a client application to access HANA applications and development tools. It also offers almost all the features of HANA studio, it can be downloaded in the link https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/

Oxygen and Neon are the latest ones, after downloading you will be able to install HANA  ADT, BW MT, development tools from help menu  > Install new software. however, It is also going away soon. The look and feel of Eclipse Oxygen is below.

If Studio and eclipse offer same features, what Difference does it make:

There is no material difference, the end result is the same functionality.  Only the installation process and look and feel theme are different. The other benefit with Eclipse is Some clients already have Eclipse installed and doing Java developments for other projects, they can add HANA tools on eclipse if they got to  do HANA projects. So that, they do not have to have a separate IDE for HANA. if Customer doing only HANA projects then it HANA studio is sufficient.

3. HANA Web Work bench: 

It is web based application for HANA studio, here you can access Catalog and Content objects in browser based application. Security also can be handled here. It is light weigh application, however you will be able to do most of the work what you can do in studio or eclipse in Web work bench also.  It is accessed using the below link, just replace host name and port and also need ide security roles to access it. https://<hostname>:<port>/sap/hana/ide ,

It is always confused with Web IDE on cloud platform, any how it is also going away. The initial page is as below.

What difference it makes: Some of the objects are better supported in Web work bench than the Studio and eclipse, they are Smart Data integration replication task creation and execution, flow graph design for ETL in HANA are best examples.

4. Web IDE on cloud platform: 

Web IDE cloud is used for designing SAPUI5 applications, it has nothing to do with HANA applications and database. UI5 and Fiori developers work on this application to build front end applications for business transaction screen for users.

You can get a free license with your SID or PID to cloud platform to build sample UI5 applications and deploy them.

5. Web IDE for SAP HANA – On Premise

This is the latest and one to use going forward, because XSA models can only be modeled using this application. In this, you can model CDS, Calculation views, Java based developments, UI5 application etc.  How to use Web IDE for HANA for XSA modeling is explained in the below HANA academy learning tutorial.

6. Web IDE full Stack :

This is the last in the last, going to be future development by combining Web IDE for HANA and Web IDE cloud for fiori together. It is not completely available to the customer, according to tech ed update, SAP is still in the process of integrating all the editors in this one.

Let us see all this applications in a road map diagram, to understand better.

Conclusion:

So HANA Studio, Eclipse and Web Workbench IDE are replaced with Web IDE for HANA, it is mandatory if you already migrated to XS advanced server. If you are still on XS classic these tools should work but no further improvements. On the other side, Web IDE for cloud is not changing in the near future.  However, bringing Web IDE full stack is in the road map and it is going to one complete application for all HANA and fiori developments.