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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics 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

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
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 March 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.7%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Renee Hoon - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable performance tuning and optimization for finance and supply chain jobs
We run our finance and supply chain jobs using SQL BW, and we visualize our data loads on Power BI. We are using SQL Data Warehouse for data warehousing In terms of cost savings, we don't need specialization in skills as advanced as Teradata. We used to pay extensive licensing fees for Teradata,…
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

"Synapse makes it easy to integrate and onboard data from other Microsoft and Azure sources. The interface is familiar because we were using Azure Data Factory before Synapse. It made the transition even easier because the Synapse interface is exactly the same."
"The stability is pretty good."
"The features we've found most valuable for data warehouses is extracting data, SSIS packages, and the DBs."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are the user experience because it is easy to make analyses, load different databases, and different resources. Our end users can do the analysis by themselves without IT supervising. This is a great aspect of the solution, it's better for our environment."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers significant visibility, which helps us understand our usage more clearly."
"Its scalability and ease of use are valuable. It is fairly simple for a tool that's that powerful. If you have a background in Microsoft SQL Server, it is a very easy-to-transition path."
"The solution offers strong scalability opportunities."
"It is a fantastic product; we are satisfied with its features and performance."
"The real-time information is great."
"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"Having the integration with the reporting tool which is provided by SAP is great."
"The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us."
"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."
"The solution has functionality that makes it easy for end-users to readily extract data directly from Business Warehouse into Excel and carry on their analysis on their own."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily."
 

Cons

"The linked services can be improved. We can create dynamic linked services to access a lot of databases but only those of the same type. For example, I can use the same linked services to access 11 SQL databases. However, if I have 11 SQL databases and five Oracle databases, I need two dynamic linked services. I cannot do it with only one linked service. The UI also needs to be improved. When I have used Azure Synapse for programming with PySpark, Scala, or .NET, for example, the UI has been unstable. If I open two notebooks for programming, one notebook will queue the session of the other."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in usability. I have found the same issue with all Microsoft solutions."
"Microsoft should develop an interface to make it easier to shift from on-premise to the cloud."
"Right now, we are really struggling with the performance. it's not as good as we had hoped."
"The product needs a tool that allows for work from a laptop instead of a browser."
"From an infrastructure standpoint, I believe it can be more secure in terms of availability."
"It would be ideal if the solution could be better used intuitively by the staff without having a great deal of training."
"It could be more stable."
"So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand."
"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."
"One of our requirements is the ability to easily get answers regarding trends and exceptions. In BW, it is not that easy to get such information. I expect better trend and exception detection, better pattern detection."
"The advanced structuring can be complicated and the interface is not very intuitive."
"There is room for improvement from a technical perspective."
"The problem with BW, and the factor that differentiated it from the original BW, is that you only get limited functionality with your runtime license. So, you have to pay extra for extracting data."
"In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed."
"The solution could offer better connectivity with other databases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It goes by the usage, and there are some limits. Synapse goes by particular pricing, and it is expensive. Both Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake are pretty expensive. They don't have standard pricing. They deal with each customer differently."
"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."
"I don't know about the price, but I'm trying to get a sense of the cost."
"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."
"The price of the package not expensive and depends on how much it is used."
"We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month."
"Microsoft's pricing is relatively high, and it varies according to the extent of our usage. The pricing is directly tied to our consumption. This decision is ultimately a business choice."
"Very costly solution and other products are available for less."
"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 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."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"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."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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?
We use an enterprise-level subscription for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. I would rate our satisfaction with the price around five, as I have not focused much on cost aspects presently.
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...
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
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 Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,145 professionals have used our research since 2012.