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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Vertica 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
Vertica
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.5%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 5.6%, up from 5.2% 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,…
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Very interactive and provides flexibility."
"The most valuable feature is that you can suspend the computer if it is not being used, which means that you don't incur costs."
"Its seamless integration with Azure services is most valuable. If somebody wants to use all Azure services, it is the best solution."
"Technical support is okay in terms of the help they provide."
"It's scalable; you can scale up and scale down."
"We can have the dedicated SQL up and running within 15 minutes."
"The solution offers strong scalability opportunities."
"It's feature-rich. It has a wide range of features."
"Its projections and encoding are excellent tools for tuning large volumes."
"It has improved my organization's functionality and performance."
"Any novice user can tune vertical queries with minimal training (or no training at all)."
"Vertica enabled us to close large deals. Customers with large data sets had to be migrated from PostgreSQL to Vertica due to performance."
"Initiate on one node, and the RPM propagates automatically to all other nodes. ​"
"Its analytics has enabled Pythian's clients to get the business insights as quick as they wanted. Its lower maintenance has also improved the ROI."
"The solution was executed quite quickly due to its columnar storage underground, which is the most valuable feature of our company"
"Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability."
 

Cons

"The macro functions, though useful, are not totally user-friendly. Some people have difficulties in learning them."
"The platform is not flexible, and the graphical user interface needs to be improved because the interface makes it hard for the end user to use it."
"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."
"An area for improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its user interface. You can use it for analytical purposes, but its platform should be a little bit more user-friendly. Another small point for improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its stability. It's good currently, but it could still be improved. Microsoft is combining different tools and technologies into one solution, so in the future, I'm expecting to see even more improvement in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next version of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the drag-and-drop feature. If you're doing some integrations where you can write Scala or you have SPARK programming or SQL, or you're combining different programming, the process should be seamless, and you should be able to drag and drop in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. When doing reporting in the solution, you should also be able to drag and drop. There should be connectors available and a drag-and-drop feature available in the user interface of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, so you won't have to worry about how all processes would work together. You need to be able to drag and drop even from the backend, and having this feature will make the solution more user-friendly."
"If I'm looking for something good in the cloud, I would want it to have better standard connectors."
"It's pay as you go, so you never know what your bill is going to be beforehand, and that's scary for customers. If you have someone who makes a mistake and the program's a loop that is running all night, you could receive a very expensive bill."
"It needs strong support for social media, internet data, and native support for NoSQL."
"The major challenge that we're seeing with Azure Synapse is around security concerns. The way it is working right now, it has Managed VNet by Microsoft option, similar to the implementation of Azure Databricks, which may pose a concern for financial institutions. For managed environments, the banks have very strict policies around data being onboarded to those environments. For some confidential applications, the banks have the policy to encrypt it with their own key, so it is sort of like Bring Your Own Key, but it is not possible to manage the resources with Microsoft or Databricks, which is probably the major challenge with Azure Synapse. There should be more compatibility with SQL Server. It should be easier to migrate solutions between different environments because right now, it is not really competitive. It is not like you can go and install SQL Database in some other environment. You will have to go through some migration projects, which probably is one of the major showstoppers for any bank. When they consider Synapse, they not only consider the investment in the actual service; they also consider the cost of the migration process. When you scale out or scale down your system, it becomes unavailable for a few minutes. Because it is a data warehouse environment, it is not such a huge deal, but it would be great if they can improve it so that the platform is available during the change of configuration."
"It would be great if this were a managed service in AWS."
"We faced some challenges when trying to use the temporary tables feature."
"Vertica's native cloud support could be improved, and its installation could be made easier."
"The biggest problem is the cost of cloud deployment."
"One feature, which has really benefited us, is the scalability offered by Vertica as it has enabled Pythian's clients to manage data with agility."
"Metadata for database files scale okay, but metadata related to tables/columns/sequences must be stored on all nodes."
"I have found that coding support could be simplified."
"It's hard to make it slow for a small data volume. For large volumes, it's hard to make it work. It's also hard to make it faster, and to make it scale."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's very difficult to price unless you know exactly how the customer is using it."
"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."
"Our license is very expensive"
"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."
"We have a licensing cost to pay."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is a moderately priced solution."
"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."
"Read the fine print carefully."
"Start with license per 1TB. Starting from hundreds of TB there is unlimited licensing to be considered. Move historical data to HDFS/S3 which are significantly cheaper or even free."
"It's an expensive product"
"The price could be cheaper and it is best to negotiate the price."
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"The pricing and licensing depend on the size of your environment and the zone where you want to implement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

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 do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.