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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse 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 Parallel Data War...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Vertica
Ranking in Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 0.9%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 9.1%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

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…
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

"It is very strong, scalable, and has tons of features."
"It handles high volumes of data very well."
"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."
"Data collection and reporting are valuable features of the solution."
"I like Data Warehouse's data integrity features. Data integrity is what databases are made for as opposed to spreadsheets."
"The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support."
"The Vertica architecture means it can process/ingest data in parallel to reporting and analyzing because of its in-memory Write-Optimized Storage sitting alongside the analytics optimized Read-Optimized Storage."
"The hardware usage and speed has been the most valuable feature of this solution. It is very fast and has saved us a lot of money."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"Vertica is a great product because customers can compress and code data. The infrastructure that data warehouse solutions need is a commodity server so that customers don't have to invest in infrastructure."
"Vertica gives knowledgeable users and DBAs excellent tools for tuning."
"Allows us to take volumes and process them at a very high speed."
"The solution is quick, has good compression data, and is not expensive."
"Vertica has a few features that I like. From an architecture standpoint, they have separated compute and storage. So you have low-cost object storage for primary storage and the ability to have several sub-clusters working off the same ObjectStore. So it provides workload isolation."
 

Cons

"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"They need to incorporate a machine learning engine."
"The product must provide more frequent updates."
"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."
"It could be made more user-friendly for business users which would increase the user base."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data."
"Suboptimal projection design causes queries to not scale linearly."
"It would be great if this were a managed service in AWS."
"In my opinion, Vertica's documentation could be improved. Currently, there is not enough documentation available to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platform."
"I think they need an easy client so that you can write queries easily, but it's not necessarily a weak point. I think some users would need them."
"Very bad support, I would rate it two out of 10."
"Vertica seems to scale well, except for one use case where you are on a multi-node cluster. For example, if you had a nine-node cluster, one node goes down, then the eight nodes don't scale, because the absence of the node is very apparent, which is a problem. If you have nine nodes or multiple nodes, the whole idea is that if one of those nodes goes down, then you should not see an impact on the system if you have enough capacity. Even though we have enough capacity, you can still see the impact of the one node going down."
"I believe the installation process could be streamlined."
"If you do not utilize the tuning tools like projections, encoding, partitions, and statistics, then performance and scalability will suffer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"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."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"I think it's starting to get a little expensive. Open source products are starting to get more robust, so I think that's something that they need to start looking at in terms of licensing."
"Work with a vendor, if possible, and take advantage of more aggressive discounts at mid-fiscal year (April) and fiscal year-end (October).​"
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"The pricing depends on the license model because there are several. It depends on the client, but it's cheaper than other solutions. I think it's cheap for all the functionality and robustness. It's not very expensive to deploy."
"Vertica has a perpetual license, but they are currently trying to convert all those licenses to subscription-based licenses on a yearly basis."
"It's an expensive product"
"The solution is relatively cost-effective."
"From a cost perspective, the software is less than most of its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
29%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.