In this article, I will explain the difference between Neo environment and Cloud Foundry environment in SAP Cloud Platform.

Note: SAP provides FREE trial account for both Neo and Cloud Foundry. Refer to below articles to know more about it.

• Get a free trial account on SAP Cloud Platform Neo environment
• Get a free trial account on SAP Cloud Platform Cloud Foundry environment

SAP Cloud Platform provides two different development environments: Cloud Foundry and Neo. The availability of different environments provides choices for technologies, runtimes, and services when using SAP Cloud Platform, thereby allowing for great flexibility in your development process.

Cloud Foundry Environment

SAP Cloud Platform Cloud Foundry environment contains the Cloud Foundry Application Runtime, which is based on the open-source application platform managed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation.

Application developers can use the Cloud Foundry environment to enhance SAP products and to integrate business applications, as well as to develop entirely new enterprise applications based on business APIs that are hosted on SAP Cloud Platform.

The Cloud Foundry environment allows you to use multiple programming languages such as Java, Node.js, and community/bring-your-own language options.

For more information on regional availability of the Cloud Foundry environment, see Regions and API Endpoints Available for the Cloud Foundry Environment

Neo Environment

SAP Cloud Platform Neo environment contains SAP propriety runtime. Neo is a feature-rich and easy-to-use development environment, allowing you to develop Java, SAP HANA XS, and HTML5 applications. You can also use SAPUI5 to develop rich user interfaces for modern web-based business applications.

The Neo environment also lets you use virtual machines, allowing you to install and maintain your own applications in scenarios that aren’t covered by the platform. A virtual machine is the virtualized hardware resource (CPU, RAM, disk space, installed OS) that blends the line between Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service.

For more information about regional availability of the Neo environment, see Regions and API Endpoints Available for the Neo Environment

Difference between Cloud Foundry and Neo

Which SAP Cloud Platform environment shall I use?

Based on the use case and business need, you can choose which environment is most suitable for you.

Use Cases for the Cloud Foundry Environment

Application developers can use the Cloud Foundry environment to enhance SAP products and to integrate business applications, as well as to develop entirely new enterprise applications based on business APIs that are hosted on SAP Cloud Platform.

The Cloud Foundry environment allows you to use multiple programming languages such as Java, Node.js, and community/bring-your-own language options.

We can use Cloud Foundry environment for micro-services-based applications, for Internet of Things and machine learning scenarios, and for developing applications using SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model (SAP HANA XSA).

Use Cases for the Neo Environment

Neo is a feature-rich and easy-to-use development environment, allowing you to develop Java, SAP HANA XS, and HTML5 applications. We can use the Neo environment to develop HTML5 and complex Java applications and for complex integration and extension scenarios.

Central Cockpit

To be able to administrate the two environments in a unified way, SAP provides one central cockpit.

The central cockpit is a Web-based user interface for administrators, providing access to a number of functions for configuring and managing applications and connecting them to services on the cloud platform. It can be used to manage resources, services, security, monitor application metrics, and perform actions on cloud applications.

A typical Cloud Platform cockpit looks like below.

You can access and use trial account cockpit for free. To know more refer to Get Started with SAP Cloud Platform

SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment

Recently, there has been one more environment got added to the SAP Cloud Platform – ABAP Environment.

ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform is SAP’s new Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering for ABAP. Since many years, ABAP has been the foundation for SAP’s on-premise solutions. With ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform, ABAP developers can make use of their existing ABAP know-how to develop and run ABAP applications in the Cloud.

Customers and partners can build extensions for ABAP-based products like SAP S/4HANA Cloud as well as develop new cloud applications. ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform is also an option to transform existing ABAP-based custom code or extensions to the Cloud.

To know more on ABAP Environment, please refer to following blog posts:

• Overview of ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform
• ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform – Frequently Asked Questions
• SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment

Migrate Applications from Neo Environment to Cloud Foundry

When you migrate an application from the Neo to the Cloud Foundry environment following documents could be helpful.

Migrate SAP Cloud SDK Based Applications from SAP Cloud Platform Neo Environment to Cloud Foundry

Help document on CF Migration

Best Practices for Adapting SAP Cloud Platform Applications to the Cloud Foundry Environment