Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon EMR vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EMR
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (3rd)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon EMR is 4.3%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 8.7%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless data integration enhances reporting efficiency and an easy setup
Amazon EMR has multiple connectors that can connect to various data sources. The service charges are based on processing only, depending on the resources used, which can help save money. It is easy to integrate with other services for storage, allowing data to be shifted to cheaper storage based on usage.
Matthew Spieth - PeerSpot reviewer
Beneficial real-time analytics, simple setup, and useful tutorials
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve its compatibility with Visual Studio. One of the challenges for people moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, is that you're constantly working in a browser. There are people that have been working for decades on desktop applications. For them to start working in a browser, it's quite a change. Allowing people to work and do their work inside Visual Studio than in the browser, would be a large advantage.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is scalable."
"We are using applications, such as Splunk, Livy, Hadoop, and Spark. We are using all of these applications in Amazon EMR and they're helping us a lot."
"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."
"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."
"When we grade big jobs from on-prem to the cloud, we do it in EMR with Spark."
"Amazon EMR's most valuable features are processing speed and data storage capacity."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The project management is very streamlined."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The product is very user friendly."
"The pricing seems to be quite fair."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its integration with the new legacy systems. Whatever application we want to integrate, we receive the reports based on the objects. The solution is easy to purchase from the cloud."
"Overall deployment and integration is pretty fast."
"I have been working with Microsoft, and they have been very helpful."
"Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."
"We've had a good experience with technical support in general."
 

Cons

"Amazon EMR can improve by adding some features, such as megastore services and HiveServer2. Additionally, the user interface could be better, similar to what Apache service provides, cross-platform services."
"The legacy versions of the solution are not supported in the new versions."
"We don't have much control. If we have multiple users, if they want to scale up, the cost will go and increase and we don't know how we can restrict that price part."
"The product must add some of the latest technologies to provide more flexibility to the users."
"Amazon EMR is continuously improving, but maybe something like CI/CD out-of-the-box or integration with Prometheus Grafana."
"The solution can become expensive if you are not careful."
"The most complicated thing is configuring to the cluster and ensure it's running correctly."
"Spark jobs take longer on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences."
"The need to improve a little bit in terms of user-friendliness."
"One area that could be improved is the schema management."
"Could have more connectors and better integration for Hadoop."
"It would be of interest to improve things like the web service integration and availability in terms of being easy to create internal web services in the database."
"They should provide a less expensive version with a smaller setup for small businesses. Currently, its price is quite high for entry-level or small businesses. In terms of integration, new connectors are always welcomed."
"The support and price could improve."
"The filing can be improved."
"Synapse Analytics needs to develop an automation framework because now you have to build a cache yourself. You have to build a pipeline in WhereScape, which does end-to-end pipeline automation well. Microsoft should come up with a framework to save people time. If they developed a tool like WhereScape, it would dramatically reduce development time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."
"You don't need to pay for licensing on a yearly or monthly basis, you only pay for what you use, in terms of underlying instances."
"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"The cost of Amazon EMR is very high."
"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."
"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."
"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"The solution could improve by having better costing information."
"It just depends on how big your instance is. It could be anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000 per year depending on how big your instance is. You pay based on how big you make your database. Essentially, they charge you per hour of usage."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is a moderately priced solution."
"I understand that Synapse Analytics' pricing is lower than Informatica's."
"Our license is very expensive"
"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."
"This is a cost-effective product."
"It requires a less expensive version because currently, not every customer is able to buy it. If it could have a smaller setup that doesn't require so many resources, it would be helpful, and we would be able to use it in more cases. We are a small country, and most of our customers are quite small businesses."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EMR?
Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?
The cost of Amazon EMR is a little bit expensive, especially considering the support package, which includes a gold package.
What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?
Spark jobs take longer on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences. This aspect could be improved to make them more efficient.
How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The financial aspect, including pricing and cost reduction, is not something I focus on.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce
Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yelp
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EMR vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.