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 Workbench
4. Web IDE cloud
5. Web IDE for HANA
6. Web IDE full stack
7. Business Application Studio
8. Visual Studio Code Editor

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 cloud: 

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. Go to www.developer.sap.com to register for the trial access. the screen looks like below.

 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 learning tutorials.

6. Web IDE  full stack  :

It has all the features of SAP Web IDE which is available on cloud, plus the back end development features, which makes the tool to be called full stack.

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

7. Business Application Studio: 

BAS is available on Cloud Platform as a service, currently it is used for HANA cloud object developments. The look and feel of it is more like MS Visual studio Code editor. This is successor of Web IDE full-stack, all future investments will occur only in BAS.

Update: BAS personal Edition is scheduled to release in early 2023.

8. Visual Studio Code Editor: 

VS code can be used for local developments on your machine, easy to install the extensions for git, CAP, ui5 and also ABAP.

You can see the tools in below picture.

Conclusion:

So HANA Studio 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. If you are working on S/4 HANA and BW/4 HANA, Eclipse will be used to access ABAP and BW prospective.  SAP Web IDE is changed to Web IDE full stack on cloud platform and it is used for all HANA and fiori developments on cloud. In cloud environment, Web IDE full stack will be replaced with Business Application Studio soon.

Thanks for reading !

Sreekanth