Differences and connections between SAP UI5 and OpenUI5

The open source project OpenUI5 provides most of the basic framework functions. SAPUI5 enhances this by providing additional libraries under different license .

OpenUI5 is provided under the Apache 2.0 license. The SAPUI5 packages used in UI5 Tooling are provided under the terms of the SAP Developer License Agreement.

Note that projects using the OpenUI5 framework cannot depend on projects using the SAPUI5 framework. However, SAPUI5 projects can depend on OpenUI5 projects.

OpenUI5 is open source, free to use, released under the Apache 2.0 license. Since we also use many open source libraries, we can benefit from the experience and knowledge of developers around the world.

On the other hand, SAPUI5 is integrated in the following products:

• SAP HANA
• SAP Business Technology Platform
• SAP NetWeaver 7.4 or higher and ABAP platform 1809 or higher (included in UI Technology (SAP_UI) component)
• User Interface Plug-in for SAP NetWeaver Application Server 7.3x

The easiest way to see which libraries are provided by each of SAP UI5 and Open UI5 is to check out the API reference for each demo kit. It's not hard to see that the list of libraries in SAPUI5 is much longer...which by no means means that OpenUI5 provides a smaller scope than SAP UI5.

Most importantly, the core containing all central functions and the most commonly used control libraries are the same in both deliveries.

For example, sap.m, sap.ui.layout, sap.ui.unified, and so on.

OpenUI5 also provides us with all the important features we need to build feature-rich web applications.

The additional library in SAPUI5 contains more controls for developing enterprise web applications on top of the basic controls, such as various types of chart controls (chart), and SAPUI5 also allows us to use smart controls (smart controls), these controls are automatically configured and generated by OData annotations on the backend.

The exact functional scope of SAPUI5 also depends on the platform used by the application. For example, we can only use ABAP repository with SAP NetWeaver and not on SAP BTP.