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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.0
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides cost savings and efficiency with serverless options, achieving up to 70% ROI in years.
Sentiment score
6.9
Most are satisfied with ROI, acknowledging its benefits, though improvements are possible, as it efficiently enhances backend operations.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics support varies, with larger clients benefiting more, while smaller clients face slower, less expert assistance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support is responsive and expert, though users sometimes need online resources for faster solutions.
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
7.7
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers scalable solutions with serverless architecture, appreciated for flexibility and adaptability despite potential costs.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse excels in scalability, integration, and expandability, though improvements are needed for large data sets.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable, offering numerous opportunities for scalability.
For the scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, I would rate it a 10 until you remain in the Azure Cloud scalability framework.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
As a consultant, we hire additional programmers when we need to scale up certain major projects.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is reliable and efficient, with high user satisfaction despite occasional issues with large datasets.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for its stability, reliability, and quick issue resolution, despite time-consuming extensive dataset processing.
I find the service stable as I have not encountered many issues.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users seek better integration, performance, simpler interfaces, affordability, and expanded support for IoT and machine learning.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse presents complexity, compatibility challenges, performance issues, high costs, and requires improved in-memory analysis and updates.
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.
Databricks is a very rich solution, with numerous open sources and capabilities in terms of extract, transform, load, database query, and so forth.
It would be better to release patches less frequently, maybe once a month or once every two months.
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Synapse Analytics is costly yet appreciated for Microsoft integration, requiring careful cost management due to variable pricing.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's pricing varies by needs; Azure integration can be cost-effective, but technical support costs extra.
When you scale the solution, the cloud doesn't work anymore in terms of cost.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides scalable, secure data processing with seamless integration, user-friendly operations, and Power BI compatibility.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers performance, integration, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for large data management and business intelligence.
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.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is used in the logistics area for optimizing SQL queries related to the loading and unloading of trucks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (5th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

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,…
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides flexible data handling and integrates easily but requires less frequent patch releases
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse keeps giving updates and new features. In my first consultancy, I transitioned a mortgage company from Oracle OBIEE to Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse to greatly reduce the mortgage approval time. There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time. It extracts data from the ERP system, and we are doing extensive data analytics. The system handles target marketing for a company which does 85 to 90% of its business in wholesale. We have a variety of clients from mom-and-pop stores to big box stores, and we have intermediaries. We sell through approximately 13 retail channels including Etsy, our retail website, Faire, Wayfair, and Walmart. Each channel requires different types of inventory updates and packaging, which is managed automatically. A significant amount of development is done on Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse where all these processes are automatically fed out and updated. We also conduct inventory analysis and aging analysis. We identify seasonal buyers, track their purchasing habits, and auto-trigger campaigns for them, sometimes offering discounts on various items. We've found that combining top-selling items with non-selling items can lead to increased sales, as people often buy additional items when they find one on sale.
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860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
10%
University
7%
 

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?
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...
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?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution.
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.