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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

"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to manage the database on the cloud."
"The solution's reporting, dashboard, and out-of-the-box capabilities match exactly our requirements."
"I like that we can synch and run a large query. I also like that we can work with a large amount of data. You don't need to work separately, as it's a ready-made solution. It also comes with a built-in machine-learning feature. Once we start inputting the data, it will suggest some things related to the data, and we can come up with nice dashboards and statistics from a vast amount of data."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"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."
"It's similar to a Hadoop cluster, except it's managed by Google."
"Even non-coders can review the data in BigQuery."
"BigQuery processes a substantial amount of data, whether in gigabytes or terabytes, swiftly producing desired data within one or two minutes."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"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."
"Predominantly, our company uses SAP Business Warehouse for reporting purposes across various departments, especially for managers to gain a quick understanding of their current standing and make informed decisions."
"The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
"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."
"With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"We are currently in a basic stage of analytics and the first goal we have is to make sure the numbers are correct. BW has some features that help you to build factors and ETL in such a way that it's easy to get to correct responses. That's the number one condition that you have to have in an analytic solution."
 

Cons

"The solution should reduce its pricing."
"It would be beneficial if BigQuery could be made more affordable."
"We'd like to have more integrations with other technologies."
"We would like to be able to calibrate the solution to run on top of a raw file."
"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."
"I understand that Snowflake has made some improvements on its end to further reduce costs, so I believe BigQuery can catch up."
"When I execute a query, the dashboard doesn't always present the output seamlessly. Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming."
"I noticed recently it's more expensive now."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
"More integration with Microsoft Office products (not just Excel) would be helpful."
"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."
"We are very unhappy with technical support. First of all, they send their sales agents or pre-sales agents and most of them who don't know the solution as a properly trained tech would. We have an on-site SAP representative who is supposed to help us with our high priority and production issues, and they're not satisfactory to say the least."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a bit high but the technology is worth it."
"The pricing is good and there are no additional costs involved."
"We are above the free threshold, so we are paying around 40 euros per month for BigQuery."
"BigQuery is inexpensive."
"Its cost structure operates on a pay-as-you-go model."
"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."
"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."
"The tool has competitive pricing."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"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."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"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."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"The solution is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.