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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sunil Gidwani - PeerSpot reviewer
No competitors provide the entire solution to one place
I rate Azure Synapse Analytics eight out of 10. No competitors provide the entire solution to one place like Synapse. For example, a database just focuses moving and manipulating data, etc. But Synapse is like an all-inclusive workspace. I advise other people to go with Databricks Notebook if you need a computation engine. It has a solid SQL storage procedure. Suppose you are dealing with complex transformation logic and manipulation of run-time data flows. In that case, it's better to use Databricks than any Microsoft ADF. DataBricks looks more promising in terms of computing in memory, so we integrated Databricks in Synapse.
StevenLai - PeerSpot reviewer
Strong scalable solution with streamlined metadata warehousing
We use it to build our data warehouse and databases, and everything in the back end It helps streamline our metadata warehousing process. As it is our only type of data warehouse and database, it serves as our source, destination, and staging area. This product has many features which are useful…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution operates like a typical SQL Server environment so there is no alienation in terms of technical knowledge."
"The features we've found most valuable for data warehouses is extracting data, SSIS packages, and the DBs."
"The biggest benefits are scalability and ease of use when looking at performance tuning and optimization."
"The solution's scalability is very, very good. It's one of the most important aspects for us."
"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."
"We use Azure Synapse Analytics in many different areas and industries, so I like that you can administrate and create pipelines for difference sources of data and later integrate and deploy it to other internal areas, such as separate dashboards for financials, and so on."
"The whole solution is interesting for us."
"We can have the dedicated SQL up and running within 15 minutes."
"The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."
"​It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time.​"
"The most valuable feature for me is querying."
"It performs very well overall."
"The solution's integration is good."
"We have complete control over our data."
"Collecting the data through SSIS packages from different sources and putting them all in one data repository is the most powerful thing. While others have this feature, they don't have the simplicity or ease of use when getting a resource and knowing everything about it."
 

Cons

"When I was trying to link services to an SFTP site it was not able to do all the possible encryption that I needed. They can improve by adding more encryption options."
"Microsoft should develop an interface to make it easier to shift from on-premise to the cloud."
"Scaling this solution up and down is not quick and easy. This could be improved. The pricing of this solution could also be improved."
"With respect to what needs to be improved, concurrent connectivity has some limitations."
"Synapse Analytics' performance slows down if you don't get your distribution right because it gets queued and goes into a single node."
"I am a researcher. For people to be able to research a solution, there should be at least a free trial. Just advertising a product or saying that this product is better doesn't work. I would strongly recommend providing a lot of free trials and trainings. This will also help Microsoft in having more users or customers. Oracle provides some free trials. You can just go for a free trial and use your database online, which is very good."
"If I'm looking for something good in the cloud, I would want it to have better standard connectors."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The reporting for certain types of data needs to be improved."
"Some compatibility issues occur during deployment, so we need to build the product from scratch for some features."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"In the future I would love to see a slightly better automation engine, just for the data integration layer, to make it slightly easier for end-users or junior developers to get involved in incremental updating."
"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."
"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"I think that the error messages need to be made more specific."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is priced well, and I would rate the price at eight out of ten."
"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."
"Price is dependent of the use case of the customer. Customers are not likely to only use this as an individual platform/database, they are likely to bundle it with the Azure stack."
"The pricing is quite reasonable in comparison to other products."
"The solution is expensive at the enterprise level."
"The solution is subscription-based. You can also pay to use the product as you go."
"The costs are billed such that we pay for what we use, which is a good thing."
"We only have to pay for what we use in the solution. It's easy for the customers. It's not more than some companies, not more than 300 to 400 users. They do not need to buy other license products, such as SAP B1, or analytics tools in the market, such as Tableau."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 cost is reasonable for our company. There is no license cost; we pay only for Azure Compute's costs. It is important to manage the cost efficiently on a daily basis.
What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
There are many areas for improvement. A major issue is with table statistics. Sometimes the statistics are not refreshed correctly, which causes issues for us. When we update a table, it should tri...
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.