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

Azure Data Factory vs SAP Business Warehouse 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

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (1st)
SAP Business Warehouse
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 8.4%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Joy Maitra - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data pipeline creation with good analytics and and thorough monitoring
Azure Data Factory is a low code, no code platform, which is helpful. It provides many prebuilt functionalities that assist in building data pipelines. Also, it facilitates easy transformation with all required functionalities for analytics. Furthermore, it connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier. The monitoring is very thorough, though a more readable version would be appreciable.
JavedKhan1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers powerful analytics and integration capabilities but requires improved upgrade processes
SAP Business Warehouse could have been better. There is room for improvement from a technical perspective. So, from a technical perspective, when we are upgrading a Business Warehouse server or we are migrating from one place to another, the capability required for this upgradation has many manual activities. It took us around a month to streamline our server. Let’s say there are some transaction codes. Transaction code is a set of programs, and when you want to run a program from the backend, you need to hit the transaction code. It is called a T-code. So during the upgrade, many transaction codes get affected, and as a security consultant, it is my responsibility to recheck those transaction codes which are affected. Sometimes more than 100 codes may get affected, sometimes 500, and sometimes more as well. So, it takes a hell lot of time to integrate them again. That is a limitation or defect within the SAP Business Warehouse. SAP Business Warehouse should come up with proper solutions. Upgradation is an automatic activity. It should happen by itself. We just need to initiate it, and the backend SAP server is automatically upgraded. But it should handle the transactional code as well. They should not get absolutely, and any authorization object should not get deleted from the transaction codes. So, that functionality SAP Business Warehouse should come up with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important feature is that it can help you do the multi-threading concepts."
"Data Flow and Databricks are going to be extremely valuable services, allowing data solutions to scale as the business grows and new data sources are added."
"Data Factory's best features include its data source connections, GUI for building data pipelines, and target loading within Azure."
"The flexibility that Azure Data Factory offers is great."
"The two most valuable features of Azure Data Factory are that it's very scalable and that it's also highly reliable."
"The platform excels in data transformation with its user-friendly interface and robust monitoring capabilities, making ETL processes seamless."
"The interface of Azure Data Factory is very usable with a more interactive visual experience, making it easier for people who are not as experienced in coding to work with."
"I think it makes it very easy to understand what data flow is and so on. You can leverage the user interface to do the different data flows, and it's great. I like it a lot."
"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is that it's a seamless integration platform. A valuable feature in the tool is the monitoring alert that makes you aware of what process chain has failed. There's no manual monitoring required if you have configured an alert system, so the process chain can run in the background, and you can get alerts about it. The functionalities I find good in SAP Business Warehouse are alerting and monitoring. If you have configured the tool and have integrated it with SAP Solution Manager, then it's a good product to use."
"Having the back-end data set with the right information is the best qualification for this solution."
"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is its ability to feed data into new, multiple systems in various formats. It can open its data to any system over gateway services or a portal or application that needs to consume and analyze data."
"The real-time information is great."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the advanced structuring of data capabilities. You can get different structures of data to suit your needs."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its capabilities to connect to Excel and to slice and dice."
"The product is very stable."
"Out-of-the-box reports are very useful."
 

Cons

"User-friendliness and user effectiveness are unquestionably important, and it may be a good option here to improve the user experience. However, I believe that more and more sophisticated monitoring would be beneficial."
"While it has a range of connectors for various systems, such as ERP systems, the support for these connectors can be lacking."
"The number of standard adaptors could be extended further."
"There is room for improvement primarily in its streaming capabilities. For structured streaming and machine learning model implementation within an ETL process, it lags behind tools like Informatica."
"It's a good idea to take a Microsoft course. Because they are really helpful when you start from your journey with Data Factory."
"Data Factory has so many features that it can be a little difficult or confusing to find some settings and configurations. I'm sure there's a way to make it a little easier to navigate."
"The user interface could use improvement. It's not a major issue but it's something that can be improved."
"The solution should offer better integration with Azure machine learning. We should be able to embed the cognitive services from Microsoft, for example as a web API. It should allow us to embed Azure machine learning in a more user-friendly way."
"A few things which are missing include the visualization of reports. That's where your costs and licensing become heavy. When it comes to this database compared Microsoft Warehouse, it's an expensive solution."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed."
"The solution could offer better connectivity with other databases."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"I'm not sure if our issue is related to BW or the Analysis Office. However, we're having performance issues in terms of time. It takes a long time to generate the report."
"SAP Business Warehouse could integrate better with other ETL tools."
"More integration with Microsoft Office products (not just Excel) would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's fees are based on a pay-per-minute use plus the amount of data required to process."
"It seems very low initially, but as the data grows, the solution’s bills grow exponentially."
"While I can't specify the actual cost, I believe it is reasonably priced and comparable to similar products."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"It's not particularly expensive."
"My company is on a monthly subscription for Azure Data Factory, but it's more of a pay-as-you-go model where your monthly invoice depends on how many resources you use. On a scale of one to five, pricing for Azure Data Factory is a four. It's just the usage fees my company pays monthly."
"For our use case, it is not expensive. We take into the picture everything: resources, learning curve, and maintenance."
"The licensing model for Azure Data Factory is good because you won't have to overpay. Pricing-wise, the solution is a five out of ten. It was not expensive, and it was not cheap."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the background job ODS. Eventually, we moved away from SAP Business Warehouse and bo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.