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Currently there are more than 14,000 jobs listed for SAP ABAP in India. More than 140 ABAP jobs are available for freshers with 0-2 years of experience. So, there is a lot of demand for ABAP programmers. But what is ABAP and how to learn it without spending too much money?

That is what we are going to discuss in this blog.

Firstly, let’s get a high-level overview of ABAP, free ABAP tutorials and certifications that will boost your job opportunities and how to make use of the free SAP software to learn ABAP. Stick to the full video to get the most out of it.

Introduction to ABAP:

ABAP stands for Advanced Business Application Programming. It was introduced by SAP in 1983 to develop SAP applications.

SAP’s core applications like S/4HANA, S/4HANA Cloud, ECC, CRM, SRM, TM, EWM, PPM and SCM are all written using the ABAP programming language.

Apart from these applications, SAP also offers a few cloud products like SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, FieldGlass, BTP, SAP Analytics cloud etc. which are not written in ABAP. The reason being; a lot of these applications were acquired by SAP and they are cloud native which means they are written using programming languages like Node.js, Java, Rust etc.

You need an SAP system to compile ABAP programs. That is one of the main reasons why the ABAP programming language is not used to develop software applications by companies apart from SAP.

All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. They are not stored in separate external files like Java or C++ programs. In the database all ABAP code exists in two forms: one is source code, which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench tools; and the second one is generated code, a binary representation somewhat comparable with bytecode.

ABAP has come a long way since it’s inception in the 1980’s. Here’s a timeline highlighting the key milestones and developments in the evolution of ABAP

1980s to 1990s was considered as the Traditional ABAP Era: ABAP was initially designed as a procedural language for SAP R/2 and later SAP R/3 systems. It primarily focused on data processing, business logic, and report generation within the SAP environment.

In the 2000s: SAP introduced Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) concepts to ABAP. This allowed developers to use classes, interfaces, and inheritance to build modular and reusable code, enhancing code organization and maintainability.

Since 2010: With the rise of SAP HANA as an in-memory database platform, SAP introduced ABAP for SAP HANA. This introduced new programming paradigms and optimized techniques for leveraging the capabilities of SAP HANA, such as native SQL, Open SQL, AMDP (ABAP Managed Database Procedures), and CDS (Core Data Services) for efficient data processing.

Then SAP introduced ABAP Cloud since it started focusing on enabling ABAP development in cloud environments with platforms like SAP Cloud Platform (SCP) and SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This allows developers to build cloud-native applications using ABAP.

Also, ABAP supports the development of microservices using SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment, enabling developers to build scalable and flexible applications in cloud environments.

Now it is more Modernized with the help of technologies like SAPUI5 and Fiori, allowing developers to create responsive and intuitive user experiences.

SAP is also enhancing ABAP’s interoperability with non-SAP systems, allowing integration with external services and technologies.

The future for SAP looks great as it continues to innovate ABAP with a focus on cloud-native development, DevOps practices, and integration with emerging technologies like machine learning and blockchain.

How can you learn ABAP?

There are plenty of YouTube videos available through which you can learn ABAP and some of them are really good as well.

Apart from those, you can learn ABAP via the SAP learning website.

There is this particular learning journey called “Acquiring core ABAP skills” which has got 40 hours worth of free content. This is a really good learning journey if you want to get some good insights into ABAP.

Once you have completed this learning journey, you can take the exam to acquire the SAP certified Associate – Back-End Developer ABAP-Cloud certification.

Gaining this certification alone is not going to get you a job but it will definitely give you some credibility that you have put the effort to learn and take the exam and have passed it.

And then there is SAP community website.

I go to and select “Topics” and search for ABAP.

Under the ABAP development topic, you will find lots of blogs, tutorials and topics through which you can learn ABAP.

You can also ask questions and get things clarified from ABAP experts around the world.

Free SAP trial systems:

As i mentioned before, in order to practice ABAP programming, you will require access to an SAP system. Let’s see what are the options available for you.

The first and easy option is to use SAP BTP free tier.

The free tier of the SAP BTP provides you access to an ABAP environment using which you can develop and run ABAP programs. This page contains links to documents on how to enable the free tier and how to access the functionality etc.

The second option is to install the Docker image of an SAP ABAP trial system.

You will require a really powerful computer with at least 48GB’s of RAM or have access to cloud servers like Amazon AWS or Azure to run this docker.

I have made a detailed video on how to install this SAP trial system on the docker. Click here to watch it if you are interested.

The last option is to download the SAP developer system and install it on a VM or a local server. This option is similar to the second option. In the second option, you just have to install the docket and don’t need to install the SAP system as the docker image will contain the SAP system as pre-installed. But in the third option, you can download the SAP software image and install it on any server you like.

I hope this blog provided some insights into ABAP and how to learn it. Please share this video with your friends who might benefit as well.