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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Matthew Spieth - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB."
"The whole solution is interesting for us."
"It's user-friendly and has a good dashboard."
"I have been working with Microsoft, and they have been very helpful."
"Data can be stored any way you want in the data warehouse."
"Synapse Analytics' best features are notebooks, pipelines, and monitoring."
"It's feature-rich. It has a wide range of features."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are the interface and the agility of the on-cloud platform."
"I like Data Warehouse's data integrity features. Data integrity is what databases are made for as opposed to spreadsheets."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse integrates beautifully with other Microsoft ecosystem products."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."
"The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it."
"​It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time.​"
"I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support."
"One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL."
"Tools like the BI and SAS are excellent."
 

Cons

"We'd, of course, always like to pay less for the service if we can."
"I would like my team to be able to build pipelines that integrate with the Azure Data Factory."
"Comes with a pretty steep learning curve."
"I would like to see more ready-to-use products from Synapse. Right now, everything seems a bit futuristic without much modern use."
"This is a young product in transition to the cloud and it needs more work before it is both settled as a product and competitive in the market."
"I wish the data governance feature could be incorporated without requiring an additional license."
"One area for improvement could be better integration with Power BI, as well as data integration with BW."
"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."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"The product does not have all of the features that the native products have."
"It could be made more user-friendly for business users which would increase the user base."
"I would like the tool to support different operating systems."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"More tools to help designers should be included."
"A major issue is with table statistics. Sometimes the statistics are not refreshed correctly, which causes issues for us."
"The solution is expensive and has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better. It was a school project, and I got it for free. If I try to pay through my company, it is a little bit more expensive as compared to Oracle."
"The computer and storage costs are totally separate which allows you to work independently or manage costs."
"It requires a less expensive version because currently, not every customer is able to buy it. If it could have a smaller setup that doesn't require so many resources, it would be helpful, and we would be able to use it in more cases. We are a small country, and most of our customers are quite small businesses."
"The pricing is quite reasonable in comparison to other products."
"We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month."
"We are on a monthly payment plan for the use of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics."
"The costs are billed such that we pay for what we use, which is a good thing."
"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."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"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."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"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."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
29%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
9%
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 financial aspect, including pricing and cost reduction, is not something I focus on.
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?
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
 

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: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.