BigQuery vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

Google and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Google is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Google holds a 7.4% mindshare in CDW, compared to Microsoft’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

BigQuery

Read 40 BigQuery reviews

3,769 Views
3,040 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Read 91 Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reviews

8,714 Views
3,808 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

BigQuery

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and Google BigQuery compete in the cloud data warehousing category. Based on feature integration and scalability, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics may have the upper hand for enterprise users.

Features: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is known for easy setup, seamless integration with Power BI, and scalability through its Massively Parallel Processing architecture. BigQuery stands out for its storage capabilities, performance speed, and seamless machine-learning integration.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in pricing transparency, interface usability, and better integration with Active Directory. BigQuery's enhancements could include better handling of special characters during data migration, query caching, and more diverse data source integration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers flexibility with deployment options across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, although tech support experiences vary. BigQuery is praised for its straightforward deployment in the public cloud, with generally positive experiences with Google's technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers a flexible pricing structure but can lead to cost unpredictability, impacting smaller business adoption. However, it shows good ROI through reduced operational costs. BigQuery is reasonably priced, using a pay-as-you-go model based on data usage, but careful cost planning is necessary despite its competitive pricing for large data volumes.

To learn more, read our detailed BigQuery vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

January 2025

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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

BigQuery

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of BigQuery is 7.4%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.9%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

VikashKumar1

Tech lead at Ford Motor Company

Easy to maintain and provides high availability

Since I used BigQuery over the GCP cloud environment, I'm not sure whether we can go through internal IDEAs like IntelliJ or DBeaver that we use to connect with databases. Instead of connecting directly to BigQuery, we connect to GCP, Cloud Run, and then to BigQuery, which is a long process. Sometimes, we face some issues, bugs, and defects. We must first connect with a VPN to check data issues while working from home. Then, it allows you to connect to the cloud. After logging into the cloud, it searches for the service we are looking for, and then we go to BigQuery. This is a long process. After that, we analyze the issues in a table. Instead, it would be very helpful if it could provide a tool that we can install on our MacBook or Windows system. Once we open this tool, we can connect directly to the BigQuery server and easily perform tasks.

Read full review

Matthew Spieth

Senior Database Administrator at Summa Health System

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BigQuery excels at data analysis. It processes vast amounts of information using its advanced architecture and sophisticated querying capabilities, making it crucial for critical insights and safe for handling sensitive data."

"It has a proprietary way of storing and accessing data in its own data store and is 100% managed without you needing to install anything. There is no need to arrange for any infrastructure to be able to use this solution."

"One of the most significant advantages lies in the decoupling of storage and compute which allows to independently scale storage and compute resources, with the added benefit of extremely cost-effective storage akin to object storage solutions."

"The most valuable features of BigQuery is that it supports standard SQL and provides good performance."

"It's similar to a Hadoop cluster, except it's managed by Google."

"It has a well-structured suite of complimentary tools for data integration and so forth."

"What I like most about BigQuery is that it's fast and flexible. Another advantage of BigQuery is that it's easy to learn."

"BigQuery can be used for any type of company. It has the capability of building applications and storing data. It can be used for OLTP or OLAP. It has many other products within the Google space."

More BigQuery pros

"This is a stable solution with many functionalities."

"Synapse Analytics' best features are notebooks, pipelines, and monitoring."

"The solution offers strong scalability opportunities."

"Technical support is okay in terms of the help they provide."

"Synapse Analytics gives you information and reports in real-time."

"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."

"The useability, the user interface, is very user-friendly."

"The features we've found most valuable for data warehouses is extracting data, SSIS packages, and the DBs."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pros

Cons

"It would be beneficial if BigQuery could be made more affordable."

"The product could benefit from improvements in user-friendliness, particularly in terms of the user interface."

"BigQuery should integrate with other tools, such as Cloud Logging and Local Studio, to enhance its capabilities further and enable powerful and innovative analyses."

"The processing capability can be an area of improvement."

"It can be slower and more problematic compared to other platforms such as Snowflake."

"The process of migrating from Datastore to BigQuery should be improved."

"When I execute a query, the dashboard doesn't always present the output seamlessly."

"I noticed recently it's more expensive now."

More BigQuery cons

"I would like to see better integration with Active Directory, because we have had problems, and we still do."

"One area that could be improved is the schema management."

"Documentation could be improved."

"It would be ideal if the solution could be better used intuitively by the staff without having a great deal of training."

"I would like to see version control implemented into the data warehouse."

"It needs strong support for social media, internet data, and native support for NoSQL."

"Scaling this solution up and down is not quick and easy. This could be improved. The pricing of this solution could also be improved."

"Synapse Analytics' performance slows down if you don't get your distribution right because it gets queued and goes into a single node."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool has competitive pricing."

"The price could be better. Usually, you need to buy the license for a year. Whenever you want more, you can subscribe to it, and you can use it. Otherwise, you can terminate the license. You can use it daily or monthly, and we use it based on a project's requirements."

"The solution's pricing is cheaper compared to other solutions."

"The solution is pretty affordable and quite cheap in comparison to PDP or Cloudera."

"One terabyte of data costs $20 to $22 per month for storage on BigQuery and $25 on Snowflake. Snowflake is costlier for one terabyte, but BigQuery charges based on how much data is inserted into the tables. BigQuery charges you based on the amount of data that you handle and not the time in which you handle it. This is why the pricing models are different and it becomes a key consideration in the decision of which platform to use."

"I have tried my own setup using my Gmail ID, and I think it had a $300 limit for free for a new user. That's what Google is offering, and we can register and create a project."

"Its cost structure operates on a pay-as-you-go model."

"BigQuery is inexpensive."

More BigQuery pricing and cost advice

"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."

"Our license is very expensive"

"We have a licensing cost to pay."

"We normally pay between $300 and $500 per month, which is quite expensive for how much we actually use it, performance- and usage-wise. They have a cheap version and an expensive version, and our usage usually falls in the middle ground, which makes it not as cost-effective as it could be."

"It's very difficult to price unless you know exactly how the customer is using it."

"We are on a monthly payment plan for the use of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics."

"The licensing fees for this solution are on a pay-per-use basis, and not very expensive."

"The product is expensive."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Retailer

Educational Organization

51%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigQuery?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?

The price is perceived as expensive, rated at eight out of ten in terms of costliness. Still, it offers significant cost savings.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BigQuery?

When I open many of the Google Cloud products, I am in an environment that I do not feel familiar with; it is a little overwhelming. In general, if I know SQL and start playing around, it will star...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs BigQuery

Compared 31% of the time

Vertica vs BigQuery

Compared 14% of the time

Teradata vs BigQuery

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs BigQuery

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Exadata vs BigQuery

Compared 7% of the time

More BigQuery Competitors

SAP BW4HANA vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 14% of the time

Teradata vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

Snowflake vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 9% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery

February 2025

Download BigQuery product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

February 2025

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report

Download Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics product report

Also Known As

No data available

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics

Overview

BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse that solves this problem by enabling super-fast SQL queries using the processing power of Google's infrastructure. ... You can control access to both the project and your data based on your business needs, such as giving others the ability to view or query your data.

Google

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an end-to-end analytics solution that successfully combines analytical services to merge big data analytics and enterprise data warehouses into a single unified platform. The solution can run intelligent distributed queries among nodes, and provides the ability to query both relational and non-relational data.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is built with these 4 components:

Synapse SQL
Spark
Synapse Pipeline
Studio

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has many valuable key features, including:

Cloud Data Service: WIth Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can operate services (data analytics, machine learning, data warehousing, dashboarding, etc.) in a single workspace via the cloud.
Structured and unstructured data: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports both structured and unstructured data and allows you to manage relational and non-relational data - unlike data warehouses and lakes that tend to store them respectively.
Effective data storage: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers next-level data storage with high availability and different tiers.
Responsive data engine: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and analytical workloads efficiently without any problems.
Several scripting languages: The solution provides language compatibility and supports different programming languages, such as Python, Java, Spark SQL, and Scala.
Query optimization: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works well to facilitate limitless concurrency and performance optimization. It also simplifies workload management.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics include:

Database templates: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers industry-specific database templates that make it easy to combine and shape data.
Better business insights: With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can expand discovery of insights from all your data and apply machine learning models to all your intelligent apps.
Reduce project development time: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics makes it possible to have a unified experience for developing end-to-end analytics, which reduces project development time significantly.
Eliminate data barriers: By using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can perform analytics on operational and business apps data without data movement.
Advanced security: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides both advanced security and privacy features to ensure data protection.
Machine Learning: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Power BI.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Jael S., who is an Information Architect at Systems Analysis & Design Engineering, comments on her experience using the product, saying that it is “Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeps your data secure”. She also says "We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

Michel T., CHTO at Timp-iT, mentions that "the features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."

A Senior Teradata Consultant at a tech services company says, "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."

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe,

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

January 2025

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