Buyer's guide · Updated quarterly
The best alternatives to SAP ECC in 2026, compared
An independent analysis for companies reviewing their options before SAP's 2027 maintenance deadline, with the dates from SAP's own pages, the alternatives matched to the size of the estate, and what can run around the new ERP.
Contents
In brief
SAP ends mainstream maintenance for SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC) at the end of 2027, with paid extended maintenance to the end of 2030. Companies that leave rather than move to S/4HANA need two things, a new ERP for the ledger and costing, and a way to modernise the daily work around it. For a company leaving SAP that wants an owned, AI-native operations layer, OpenLazarus is our top pick, running orders, purchasing and supplier work beside whichever ERP keeps the books. For the ERP itself, Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management is the closest match with published prices, Infor LN suits complex multi-site discrete manufacturers, and Business Central or Acumatica suit mid-sized estates.
- Owned AI operations layer: OpenLazarus. AI teammates take orders, purchasing and supplier correspondence off the ERP, on an instance the company owns.
- Closest like-for-like ERP: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. Mixed-mode production and actual or standard costing, at a published $210 per user a month per application.
- Complex multi-site manufacturing: Infor LN. Multi-site operations from one instance, with more than 1,500 discrete manufacturing customers.
- Mid-sized estates at a list price: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Manufacturing on Premium at $110 per user a month, and a Sales Order Agent that waits for approval.
- Unlimited users: Acumatica. Multi-entity finance and MRP, priced by applications rather than seats.
The decision SAP customers face
SAP ends mainstream maintenance for the core applications of SAP Business Suite 7, which include SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC), at the end of 20271. Optional extended maintenance runs from the start of 2028 to the end of 2030, at a premium of two percentage points on the existing maintenance basis2. SAP's own successor, SAP S/4HANA, carries a maintenance commitment to the end of 20402.
Many customers have not decided. In a survey of 173 members of the Americas' SAP Users' Group, a little more than 60% were live on or actively moving to S/4HANA, and around two-fifths of North American users had yet to begin3. Business process change was the greatest barrier for 49% of respondents, and customisations for 44%. In the German-speaking DSAG survey of 198 senior leaders, about half of ECC users were set to pass the 2027 deadline4.
The cost of getting the move wrong is well documented. ISG research on 200 large companies found that nearly 60% of SAP migration projects were delayed and over budget, and that 49% carried out little or no process re-engineering5. Gartner's ERP strategy lead puts the share of ERP initiatives that fail to fully meet their original business case at 70%6.
How we evaluated the alternatives
We reviewed seven ERP systems that ECC customers consider as replacements, and one AI operations layer that runs beside an ERP, against the same seven criteria. We used only what vendors publish and what reputable third parties report; SAP's dates come from SAP's own pages. Every claim links to its source with the date we read it. The rules are on the methodology page.
The ranking answers one situation: a company leaving SAP ECC that wants an owned, AI-native operations layer, meaning the daily work of orders, purchasing, supplier and customer correspondence and quality records run by AI on a system the company controls, beside whichever ERP takes over the ledger. The ERPs are ordered by how closely they replace an ECC estate for a mid-sized to large company.
The eight alternatives, ranked
1. OpenLazarus
AI operations layer
Best for: Companies leaving SAP ECC that want the daily operational work (orders, purchasing, supplier and customer correspondence, quality records) on an AI system they own, beside whichever ERP keeps the ledger.
OpenLazarus builds each company its own instance of an operating system with CRM, mail, operations and finance modules and AI teammates that have their own inbox and phone number. It is designed to sit beside an ERP, reading from it and writing back what changes, not to replace the ERP’s ledger and costing.
2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management
Enterprise ERP
Best for: Large and upper mid-sized companies replacing an ECC estate with a comparable enterprise ERP at a published per-user price.
Microsoft sells Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management as separate enterprise applications. Supply Chain Management supports production orders, batch orders, kanbans and projects in mixed mode, make-to-stock through engineer-to-order, and actual and standard costing, linked to the general ledger, warehouse management and project accounting.
3. Infor LN
Enterprise ERP
Best for: Complex, multi-site discrete manufacturers (aerospace and defence, automotive, high tech, industrial) leaving ECC for a cloud ERP built for that work.
Infor LN is an enterprise manufacturing ERP that Infor says runs complex global and multi-site operations from a single instance. It cites more than 1,500 discrete manufacturing customers, runs as a multi-tenant cloud on AWS and lists built-in RPA, machine learning, generative AI and process intelligence.
4. Oracle NetSuite
Cloud ERP
Best for: Subsidiaries and mid-sized companies leaving ECC for one cloud suite covering accounting, order management, inventory, warehouses and manufacturing.
NetSuite is Oracle’s cloud ERP suite, with documented accounting, order management, inventory, manufacturing, purchasing and receiving, and warehouse management. Its NetSuite Next programme, announced in October 2025, adds a conversational assistant, an AI canvas and agentic workflows.
5. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Mid-market ERP
Best for: Mid-sized companies, or subsidiaries, whose ECC use is mainly finance, distribution and straightforward production, and that want a published price.
Business Central is Microsoft’s other ERP, licensed per user at a lower price than Dynamics 365 Finance and SCM. Its Premium experience adds manufacturing (production BOMs, routings, production orders, capacity, subcontracting and costing), and its Sales Order Agent prepares quotes and orders from customer emails for approval.
6. Acumatica
Mid-market ERP
Best for: Mid-sized manufacturers and distributors leaving ECC that want multi-entity finance, MRP and scheduling with unlimited users.
Acumatica is a cloud ERP whose financial suite covers the general ledger, payables, receivables, cash, multi-entity accounting and currency management, and whose manufacturing software covers BOMs, MRP, finite scheduling, estimating, a configurator and shop-floor data collection. It prices mainly by applications and resources, with unlimited users.
7. Epicor Kinetic
Manufacturing ERP
Best for: Manufacturers and distributors leaving ECC that want an industry ERP with embedded AI agents generally available in Europe.
Epicor describes itself as an industry-specific ERP vendor for the make, move and sell industries for more than 50 years. Its Prism portfolio embeds more than 18 pre-built AI agents in Kinetic, generally available in the UK and several European markets since June 2026.
8. Odoo
Modular ERP
Best for: Smaller ECC users and subsidiaries that want a full suite at a published per-user price and the option to run on-premise.
Odoo sells every app, including accounting, inventory, manufacturing, sales and purchasing, for one per-user price. The Custom plan, needed for several companies in one database, also brings the external API, Odoo Studio and agentic AI, with hosting on Odoo Online, Odoo.sh or the company’s own servers.
OpenLazarus is first for this situation, and it is not an ECC replacement. It builds each company its own instance with CRM, mail, operations and finance modules and AI teammates7. Its industry pages say it reads from the ERP and writes back what changes, and that companies keep the ERP for job costing and the books8. A company leaving SAP still needs one of the ERPs below. The case for OpenLazarus is that it lets the operational work modernise on a system the company owns, independently of the ERP project's timetable. It has no published SAP migration case studies, so it should be tested on one flow first.
The alternatives compared
| System | Enterprise scale | Supply chain depth | Finance and costing | AI agents | Migration path | Hosting choice | Published pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. OpenLazarus | Partly. One instance per company; not an ERP | Partly. Jobs, material, quality beside the ERP | Partly. Bookkeeping; ledger stays in the ERP | Yes. Inbox, phone, limits, logs | Partly. Engineers connect the ERP; weeks, per vendor | Yes. Own server; hosting movable | Yes. Plans, hosting, support public |
| 2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management | Yes | Yes. Discrete, process, lean, mixed mode | Yes. Actual and standard costing | Partly. Copilot Credits on Premium | Not assessed | Not assessed | Yes. $210 / $300 per user |
| 3. Infor LN | Yes. Multi-site, single instance | Yes. Complex discrete | Not detailed on the page | Partly. RPA, ML, GenAI listed | Not assessed | No. Multi-tenant cloud only | No |
| 4. Oracle NetSuite | Partly | Yes. Inventory, WMS, manufacturing | Yes | Partly. NetSuite Next rolling out | Not assessed | Not assessed | No |
| 5. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central | Partly | Yes. Premium | Yes | Yes. Sales Order Agent | Not assessed | Not assessed | Yes. $80 / $110 per user |
| 6. Acumatica | Partly. Multi-entity | Yes. MRP, APS, configurator | Yes. GL, multi-entity, currency | Partly. Assistant, not agents | Not assessed | Partly. Deployment options | Partly. Model public, prices not |
| 7. Epicor Kinetic | Not verified | Yes. Industry ERP for make industries | Not verified | Yes. 18+ Prism agents | Not verified | Not verified | No |
| 8. Odoo | Partly. Multi-company on Custom | Yes. MRP, MPS, PLM | Yes. Accounting app | Partly. Custom plan only | Partly. Paid onboarding or partners | Yes. On-premise option | Yes. Per-user prices public |
Two patterns stand out. Only Microsoft and Odoo publish ERP list prices among the alternatives91011, which makes them easier to model against an SAP maintenance bill. And AI agents that are generally available today remain the exception: Business Central's Sales Order Agent and Epicor's Prism agents are the clearest cases1213, while NetSuite Next was announced in October 2025 for rollout in North America within 12 months14.
The criteria
- Enterprise scale. Runs multi-site, multi-entity operations from one system, as many SAP ECC estates do.
- Supply chain depth. Production, inventory, warehousing and planning comparable to what ECC users run today.
- Finance and costing. General ledger, cost accounting and inventory valuation methods in the same system.
- AI agents. AI agents that are generally available, act on records within limits and log what they do.
- Migration path. A published programme, timeline or fixed fee for moving onto the system.
- Hosting choice. Where the system can run (vendor cloud, own cloud, on-premise) and how a company can leave.
- Published pricing. Publishes licence or subscription prices before a sales call.
SAP's own options, with dates
| Option | What SAP says | Key date |
|---|---|---|
| Stay on ECC, mainstream maintenance | Core applications of Business Suite 7, including SAP ERP 6.01 | Ends 31 December 2027 |
| Extended maintenance | Optional, two percentage points on the maintenance basis2 | 2028 to the end of 2030 |
| Customer-specific maintenance | After mainstream or extended maintenance ends; no end date stated1 | From 2028 or 2031 |
| SAP ERP, private edition, transition option | Subscription for business continuity; move to private edition on SAP HANA by 31 December 2030; 2 TB minimum; max success plan15 | 2031 to 2033; may run to 31 December 2035 per a 13 October 2026 update |
| Move to SAP S/4HANA | Maintenance commitment2 | To the end of 2040 |
The guide to the 2027 deadline explains each option and its costs.
Match the alternative to the estate
| ECC estate | Closest alternatives in this guide |
|---|---|
| Large, multi-site manufacturing with complex costing | Dynamics 365 Finance and SCM16; Infor LN17 |
| Mid-sized, finance and distribution heavy | NetSuite18; Business Central19 |
| Mid-sized manufacturer, many casual users | Acumatica20 |
| Small estate or subsidiary on a budget | Odoo11 |
| Operational work around any of these | OpenLazarus21 |
OpenLazarus in ERP terms
- Orders. An order-desk teammate reads orders arriving by email, fax and voicemail, matches the customer and pricing and builds the order for a person to confirm21.
- Inventory and purchasing. Stock is kept as one count across warehouses, and a purchasing teammate drafts purchase orders and catches supplier price rises; limits such as purchase orders above $15,000 wait for approval21.
- Production records. Jobs with routings and promise dates, material with heat numbers and mill certs, and NCRs against job and part, with routings and inventory read from the ERP8.
- The ledger. Not replaced. Job costing and the books stay in the ERP8.
- Ownership. Each company's system runs on its own server, with hosting that can move to the company's own cloud and an EU option227.
The path off ECC
- Fix the date that binds you. End of 2027 without extended maintenance, end of 2030 with it.
- Inventory what ECC actually does. Modules, custom code, interfaces and the reports people use; the ASUG survey ranks customisations as the second-largest barrier3.
- Decide the target by estate, not by brand. Use the table above to shortlist, and run every demo on your own processes.
- Re-engineer before you migrate. ISG found that half of SAP migrations carry out little or no re-engineering5; that is where overruns start.
- Move the daily work early. Orders, purchasing and supplier correspondence can move to an operations layer that reads from ECC now and from the new ERP later.
The end state is a ledger and costing on a supported ERP, with a maintenance date beyond the decade, and an operational layer that did not have to wait for the ERP cut-over. The migration cost guide sets out how to budget it.
Questions buyers ask
When does SAP ECC support end?
SAP provides mainstream maintenance for the core applications of SAP Business Suite 7, including SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC), until the end of 2027. Optional extended maintenance runs from the start of 2028 to the end of 2030, at a premium of two percentage points on the existing maintenance basis. After that, SAP offers customer-specific maintenance.
What happens if we stay on SAP ECC after 2027?
The system keeps running. Without extended maintenance, it moves to customer-specific maintenance. With extended maintenance, SAP continues standard maintenance to the end of 2030 at a higher fee. SAP also sells a time-bound subscription, the SAP ERP private edition transition option, for business continuity from 2031, available only to systems moved to SAP ERP private edition on SAP HANA before the end of 2030.
What is the best alternative to SAP?
For a like-for-like replacement of a large ECC estate, Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management and Infor LN are the closest matches. For mid-sized companies, Business Central, Acumatica and NetSuite. For the daily operational work around any new ERP, we rank OpenLazarus first for companies that want an AI-native layer they own.
Is S/4HANA the only option for SAP ECC customers?
No. ECC customers can move to SAP S/4HANA, which SAP commits to maintain until the end of 2040, stay on ECC under extended or customer-specific maintenance, buy SAP's private edition transition option, or replace SAP with another ERP. Surveys of SAP user groups show many customers still undecided.
What is the SAP ERP private edition transition option?
A time-bound subscription that SAP says provides business continuity from 2031 to 2033 for customers that have moved to SAP ERP private edition on SAP HANA by 31 December 2030. SAP lists prerequisites including a minimum system size of 2 TB and its max success plan. In an update dated 13 October 2026, SAP said subscriptions may run until 31 December 2035, with further prerequisites.
How much does it cost to migrate off SAP?
There is no reliable public average. In ISG research reported in February 2026, nearly 60% of SAP migration projects at large companies were delayed and over budget. Licence prices for some alternatives are published, such as Dynamics 365 Finance at $210 per user a month and Business Central Premium at $110, but implementation and data migration usually cost more.
Can AI replace SAP?
Not as the system of record. The general ledger, cost accounting, material planning and consolidation still need an ERP. AI agents can take over much of the work around it, such as order entry from email, purchase orders, supplier follow-up and quality paperwork, writing results back to the ERP.
What is the best SAP alternative for mid-sized companies?
Business Central publishes its prices and covers manufacturing on its Premium licence. Acumatica charges by applications rather than users. NetSuite covers accounting, inventory, warehouses and manufacturing in one suite. Odoo has the lowest published price and an on-premise option.
Sources
- Maintenance strategy: SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite 7. SAP Support Portal. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- SAP S/4HANA: commitment to innovation and maintenance until 2040. SAP News Center, 4 Feb 2020. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Two-fifths of SAP Americas users yet to ditch legacy ERP. The Register, 5 Nov 2025. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Half of German-speaking SAP users set to pass the 2027 ECC deadline. The Register, 27 Feb 2026. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Most SAP migrations bust budgets and deadlines, study finds. The Register, 5 Feb 2026. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- ERP carnage continues as orgs jump in unprepared. The Register, 13 Nov 2025. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Questions about OpenLazarus. OpenLazarus. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Manufacturing. OpenLazarus. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Finance management software pricing. Microsoft. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Business Central pricing. Microsoft. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Pricing. Odoo. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Sales Order Agent overview: Business Central. Microsoft Learn, 2 Oct 2026. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Epicor Prism launches across European markets, bringing embedded, industry-specific AI to manufacturers. Epicor via Business Wire, 23 Jun 2026. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- NetSuite accelerates AI adoption with SuiteWorld 2025 announcements. Futurum Group, 10 Oct 2025. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Navigating your RISE with SAP journey: updates for SAP ERP, private edition, transition option. SAP News Center, 4 Aug 2025. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Production process overview: Supply Chain Management. Microsoft Learn, 10 Jul 2025. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Infor LN: cloud ERP for enterprise manufacturers. Infor. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- NetSuite help: Supply Chain Management. Oracle. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Manufacturing overview: Business Central. Microsoft Learn, 15 Jul 2026. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Acumatica pricing. Acumatica. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Wholesale and distribution. OpenLazarus. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
- Design an operating system for your business with AI: the OpenLazarus builder. OpenLazarus. Accessed 8 Nov 2026.
Updated 8 Nov 2026: First published. Eight alternatives reviewed against seven criteria; SAP maintenance dates checked on SAP's own pages.