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Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 16, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Azure Data Factory enhances efficiency, centralizes data, reduces costs, and improves data analysis, offering significant financial and operational benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides cost savings and efficiency with serverless options, achieving up to 70% ROI in years.
Our stakeholders and clients have expressed satisfaction with Azure Data Factory's efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Azure Data Factory support is responsive but varies in speed, with community resources and documentation aiding user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics support varies, with larger clients benefiting more, while smaller clients face slower, less expert assistance.
The technical support from Microsoft is rated an eight out of ten.
The technical support is responsive and helpful
The technical support for Azure Data Factory is generally acceptable.
Not monitoring data results often in a big impact on customer services and customer perception.
They are slow to respond and not very knowledgeable.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Azure Data Factory excels in scalability, efficiently managing workloads for any size, despite higher costs than alternatives.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers scalable solutions with serverless architecture, appreciated for flexibility and adaptability despite potential costs.
Azure Data Factory is highly scalable.
For the scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, I would rate it a 10 until you remain in the Azure Cloud scalability framework.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable, offering numerous opportunities for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure Data Factory is stable and reliable, but faces integration challenges and requires enhancements to compete with top competitors.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is reliable and efficient, with high user satisfaction despite occasional issues with large datasets.
The solution has a high level of stability, roughly a nine out of ten.
I find the service stable as I have not encountered many issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Data Factory needs improved integration, better scheduling, enhanced UI, simplified pricing, more connectors, and responsive support.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users seek better integration, performance, simpler interfaces, affordability, and expanded support for IoT and machine learning.
There is a problem with the integration with third-party solutions, particularly with SAP.
When using Git services, there are challenges with linked services and triggers getting overridden when moving between different environments (Dev, UAT, Prod).
Sometimes, the compute fails to process data if there is a heavy load suddenly, and it doesn't scale up automatically.
Databricks is a very rich solution, with numerous open sources and capabilities in terms of extract, transform, load, database query, and so forth.
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Data Factory pricing is usage-based and cost-effective, but large data volumes can lead to increased expenses.
Azure Synapse Analytics is costly yet appreciated for Microsoft integration, requiring careful cost management due to variable pricing.
The pricing is cost-effective.
It is considered cost-effective.
I think the price of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very expensive, but that's not only for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics—it's for the cloud in general.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Data Factory provides seamless data integration, robust transformations, scalability, and strong SAP support, praised for its ease of use.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides scalable, secure data processing with seamless integration, user-friendly operations, and Power BI compatibility.
It connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier.
The platform excels in handling major datasets, particularly when working with Power BI for reporting purposes.
The interface of Azure Data Factory is very usable with a more interactive visual experience, making it easier for people who are not as experienced in coding to work with.
For Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, the integration is the most valuable feature, meaning that whatever you need is fast and easy to use.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers significant visibility, which helps us understand our usage more clearly.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (1st)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 8.1%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Q&A Highlights

PS
Aug 03, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

Joy Maitra - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data pipeline creation with good analytics and and thorough monitoring
Azure Data Factory is a low code, no code platform, which is helpful. It provides many prebuilt functionalities that assist in building data pipelines. Also, it facilitates easy transformation with all required functionalities for analytics. Furthermore, it connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier. The monitoring is very thorough, though a more readable version would be appreciable.
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,…
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

PS
Aug 3, 2023
Aug 3, 2023
I know you're looking for someone who's done research for you but realize that's actually something people get paid to do. That said, what you're asking about is a mix of quite different tools when you throw KNIME in the mix. I don't know that tool but sounds like its for specific purpose and it's not an Azure tool. Realize there's endless ETL tools out there. I've used about 1/2 dozen in ...
2 out of 4 answers
reviewer2009835 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 27, 2023
A couple of questions before starting the feature comparison:  i. Are you fine with an open-source solution? ii. Any specific reason you have listed ADF? iii. Who will be using these tools and how much learning curve is involved within the team? iv. What kind of data you are dealing with? v. Is data privacy an important factor? vi. Are you looking for only a cloud-based solution or open to a hybrid solution also? vii. What is the maturity level of the team when it comes to working on the cloud ........ These are just a few of the many questions basis which we do self-assessment or measure our preparedness. Let me know if you need more insights. Happy to help!!
BA
Apr 27, 2023
I believe Synapse is not an ETL tool.  ADF is one optional ETL tool for a Synapse Data warehouse.. What Are the Top ETL Tools for Azure Data Warehouse? | Integrate.ioI'd like to step back and pose a bigger option. You see, ETL means making a copy of data you have already. Have you considered a data fabric or mesh, where the data is used where it lies now?  Consider this if your data is already used by some systems, but you need to do a more comprehensive analysis of it.I always want to reduce the replication of databases. The concept of build yet another database to "replace" all the others rarely works out that way.  I'd rather beef up the origination system, or use a replica than build a huge portfolio of ETL programs and an army of ops, data governance, and system support to keep them in sync. Finally, if you really need an ETL tool, i.e. copies of all that data... look for existing talent in your staff. Otherwise, expect to hire some people experienced with the new tool that can advise on design and development and mentor existing staff.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
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.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.