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BigQuery 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

BigQuery
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 BigQuery is 7.0%, down from 8.0% 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

VikashKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"BigQuery has a very nice interface that you can easily learn if you know SQL."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable aspect of BigQuery is its ability to handle high data workloads without causing friction with our online systems."
"Even non-coders can review the data in BigQuery."
"BigQuery is a powerful tool for managing and analyzing large datasets. The versatility of BigQuery extends to its compatibility with external data visualization tools like Power BI and Tableau. This means you not only get query results but can also seamlessly integrate and visualize your data for better insights."
"The solution is very useful nowadays for keeping a huge number of records."
"What I like most about BigQuery is that it's fast and flexible. Another advantage of BigQuery is that it's easy to learn."
"The product's most valuable features include its scalability and the ability to handle complex queries on large datasets."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"Having the back-end data set with the right information is the best qualification for this solution."
"SAP Business Warehouse is a scalable solution."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is its hybrid functionality, allowing users to leverage both SQL-based data warehouse capabilities from HANA and feature-based data warehousing from BW."
"With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side."
"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The product’s performance could be much faster."
"I would like to see version-based implementation and a fallback arrangement for data stored in BigQuery storage. These are some features I'm interested in."
"The primary hurdle in this migration lies in the initial phase of moving substantial volumes of data to cloud-based platforms."
"The main challenges are in the areas of performance and cost optimizations."
"The processing capability can be an area of improvement."
"The solution should reduce its pricing."
"It can be slower and more problematic compared to other platforms such as Snowflake."
"As a product, BigQuery still requires a lot of maturity to accommodate other use cases and to be widely acceptable across other organizations."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"What I'd like improved in SAP Business Warehouse is its setup. It could be more flexible, and it could be a configuration-based setup."
"I would like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."
"You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"The solution should be more open to the cloud."
"What I'd like to improve in SAP Business Warehouse is its data structure, that's a little bit rigid. It could be a bit more flexible, so you can design your data structure and improve performance when creating a solution. Currently, the way data is stored in SAP Business Warehouse is rigid."
"The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"BigQuery is inexpensive."
"The tool has competitive pricing."
"BigQuery pricing can increase quickly. It's a high-priced solution."
"The pricing is good and there are no additional costs involved."
"The product’s pricing could be more flexible for end users."
"1 TB is free of cost monthly. If you use more than 1 TB a month, then you need to pay 5 dollars extra for each TB."
"The platform is inexpensive."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"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."
"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."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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.
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.
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...
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

Information Not Available
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 BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.