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Dremio vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics 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

Dremio
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (9th)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
5th
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 August 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Dremio is 10.1%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.1%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

KamleshPant - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution offers quick data connection with an edge in computation
It's almost similar, yet it's better than Starburst in spinning up or connecting to the new source since it's on SaaS. It is a similar experience between the based application and cloud-based application. You just get the source, connect the data, get visualization, get connected, and do whatever you want. They say data reflection is one way where they do the caching and all that. Starburst also does the caching. In Starburst, you have a data product. Here, the data product comes from a reflection perspective. The y are working on a columnar memory map, columnar computation. That will have some edge in computation.
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,…

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 feature of Dremio is it can sit on top of any other data storage, such as Amazon S3, Azure Data Factory, SGFS, or Hive. The memory competition is good. If you are running any kind of materialized view, you'd be running in memory."
"We primarily use Dremio to create a data framework and a data queue."
"Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage."
"It's almost similar, yet it's better than Starburst in spinning up or connecting to the new source since it's on SaaS."
"Overall, you can rate it as eight out of ten."
"Dremio enables you to manage changes more effectively than any other data warehouse platform. There are two things that come into play. One is data lineage. If you are looking at data in Dremio, you may want to know the source and what happened to it along the way or how it may have been transformed in the data pipeline to get to the point where you're consuming it."
"Everyone uses Dremio in my company; some use it only for the analytics function."
"Dremio gives you the ability to create services which do not require additional resources and sterilization."
"The solution operates like a typical SQL Server environment so there is no alienation in terms of technical knowledge."
"We can have the dedicated SQL up and running within 15 minutes."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the analytics and that it can connect with Power BI."
"Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."
"Synapse Analytics gives you information and reports in real-time."
"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."
"The pricing seems to be quite fair."
"The most valuable aspect of this Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its consolidation of technical support from Microsoft, and its ability to securely host large quantities of data within the cloud environment. The overall ability to manage and maintain Big Data within the cloud provides a heightened level of efficiency, reliability, and support from Microsoft. This results in a superior user experience and an increased level of value for the end user."
 

Cons

"They have an automated tool for building SQL queries, so you don't need to know SQL. That interface works, but it could be more efficient in terms of the SQL generated from those things. It's going through some growing pains. There is so much value in tools like these for people with no SQL experience. Over time, Dermio will make these capabilities more accessible to users who aren't database people."
"They need to have multiple connectors."
"They need to have multiple connectors. Starburst is rich in connectors, however, they are lacking Salesforce connectivity as of today."
"Dremio doesn't support the Delta connector. Dremio writes the IT support for Delta, but the support isn't great. There is definitely room for improvement."
"There are performance issues at times due to our limited experience with Dremio, and the fact that we are running it on single nodes using a community version."
"We've faced a challenge with integrating Dremio and Databricks, specifically regarding authentication. It is not shaking hands very easily."
"I cannot use the recursive common table expression (CTE) in Dremio because the support page says it's currently unsupported."
"Dremio takes a long time to execute large queries or the executing of correlated queries or nested queries. Additionally, the solution could improve if we could read data from the streaming pipelines or if it allowed us to create the ETL pipeline directly on top of it, similar to Snowflake."
"We'd like the solution to have more analytics capability."
"I'm not entirely happy with the billing model. I'm not entirely happy with how the enterprise services are pretty expensive, but that's about it."
"I am pretty sure that there are areas that need improvement but I just can think of them off the top of my head."
"They should provide a less expensive version with a smaller setup for small businesses. Currently, its price is quite high for entry-level or small businesses. In terms of integration, new connectors are always welcomed."
"If I'm looking for something good in the cloud, I would want it to have better standard connectors."
"In our company, we always want to improve our data management, including how to manage structured and unstructured data."
"The macro functions, though useful, are not totally user-friendly. Some people have difficulties in learning them."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can improve by increasing the size of the files that we can load on the platform. We have some files that are too large to be loaded and it would be a benefit to us if the limit was increased. Additionally, the way we use the tool for generating reports can be made better. They should add some drag-and-drop rules without the need of programming these rules using some programming language. It would be helpful if we did not need someone that was technically advanced to be able to do it with, such as someone with no IT background. Having a reporting tool without code would be great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Right now the cluster costs approximately $200,000 per month and is based on the volume of data we have."
"Dremio is less costly competitively to Snowflake or any other tool."
"There is a cost calculator available online that allows you to input your entire scenario, and it will get back to you with information on what the costs are going to be."
"The licensing fees for this solution are on a pay-per-use basis, and not very expensive."
"You have to be very careful with one specific service inside Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics which is called the Sequel Data Warehouse Dedicated. It is very reliable and performs well, but it's expensive. You need to define the tier well because you can choose between several tiers and you have to define which suits your needs and not overperform the tier because it's quite expensive."
"All of the prices are available online."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month."
"There's no license required for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. the model is more of a use-based system. You got to pay for computing power and disk storage. Everything has different units and is kept backed up. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses storage units(SU). This is how everything's computed for cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dremio?
Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dremio?
The licensing is very expensive. We need a license to scale as we are currently using the community version.
What needs improvement with Dremio?
They need to have multiple connectors. Starburst is rich in connectors, however, they are lacking Salesforce connectivity as of today. They don't have Salesforce connectivity. However, Starburst do...
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?
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. The cloud is not cost-effective. I...
 

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

UBS, TransUnion, Quantium, Daimler, OVH
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Dremio vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.