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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 most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are its serverless flexibility and complete power have allowed me to explore various different use cases. While I am not an expert in the product, my experience in programming in Databricks has shown me that Microsoft's investments in Synapse could potentially lead to it becoming a complete replacement for Databricks in the future."
"-"
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"Azure elasticity allows us to scale as much as we want, and it is pay-as-you-go, so we can scale up as we need to."
"We can have the dedicated SQL up and running within 15 minutes."
"We find the serverless tool to be the most valuable feature ."
"I have not used the technical support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, but I worked with the developers at Microsoft who were top-notch."
"Our primary use case is for gathering data and analytics. We provide insights into vehicle data. We gather millions of records per second and we have various millions of vehicles running across."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"The solution has been reliable."
"It is a very stable database."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The interface is very user-friendly."
"The solution's integration is good."
"I like Data Warehouse's data integrity features. Data integrity is what databases are made for as opposed to spreadsheets."
"Data collection and reporting are valuable features of the solution."
 

Cons

"There may be some challenges in terms of connecting with Virtual Networks (VNETs) to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics."
"The security performance and cost are the two things that needs improvement."
"Documentation could be improved."
"While the solution is flexible, sometimes this works against the user."
"The initial setup has a bit of a learning curve."
"I wish the data governance feature could be incorporated without requiring an additional license."
"Synapse Analytics is generally stable, but its performance can be slow when performing very large datasets."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in usability. I have found the same issue with all Microsoft solutions."
"We find the cost of the solution to be a little high."
"Some compatibility issues occur during deployment, so we need to build the product from scratch for some features."
"More tools to help designers should be included."
"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."
"Sometimes, the product requires rolling back to its previous version during a software update. This particular area could be enhanced."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our license is very expensive"
"The solution is expensive at the enterprise level."
"I'm not sure of the exact cost, however, it is around $100,000 a year."
"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."
"I don't know about the price, but I'm trying to get a sense of the cost."
"The solution is subscription-based. You can also pay to use the product as you go."
"My company pays for the license and I am not sure about the price."
"The pricing is competitive, but only when you pay upfront. If you pay as you go, it's not as competitive. I'd give pricing a rating of seven out of ten."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"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."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
51%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
29%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.