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Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

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Executive Summary
Updated on April 10, 2022

We performed a comparison between Amazon Redshift and Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Amazon Redshift reviewers agree that its installation is a straightforward process. Some Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users say that its initial setup is straightforward, while others say it is complex.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability. Amazon Redshift users say that it is user-friendly and has good machine learning features. Several users mention that it can slow down when performing multiple operations simultaneously.

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users say it is simple to use, fast, and flexible. A few users mention that its performance needs to improve.
  • Pricing: Most reviewers of both solutions say that they are fairly priced.
  • ROI: Amazon Redshift reviewers do not mention ROI. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reviewers report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Most reviewers of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Amazon Redshift comes out on top in this comparison. It is easy to use and performs well. In addition Amazon Redshift is easier to set up than Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report (Updated: May 2022).
Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
May 2022
Free Report: Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
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Q&A Highlights
Question: How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Answer: 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 databases. It scales very easily and has a good cost-benefit ratio. It is very powerful and performs well. The data processing is very fast and can do analytics on the fly. Amazon Redshift should have more cloud-native tools that integrate with it as Microsoft does with the Azure ecosystem. There is some missing functionality that can make Redshift difficult to work in. If you are analyzing a lot of data, the load performance-wise can be very low. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can handle large amounts of data - in the petabyte range. You can scale up and down as much as you want. It has a pay-as-you-go protocol, so you only pay for what you use. The speed is very good and the architecture is excellent. You are in control of what you need, which is a huge advantage. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be a very complicated product to use. The setup can be very complex. We had some issues with dashboard reporting - we found there were bugs in the platform when dealing with specific types of queries. This solution did not meet the necessary security protocols for some of our clients. Conclusion Both of these solutions are very stable, scalable, and flexible. Each of these products has their own unique ecosystems that are very competitive with each other, making them both great solutions to use. Although they are very similar, there are some features and functionalities that make them unique and attractive depending on the type of enterprise you operate. We are a smaller enterprise and overall our team felt based on ease of use, support, and where we are headed, we have started to migrate everything over to an AWS ecosystem and chose Amazon Redshift. It is the solution our clients liked best as well.
Featured Review
Eli Misael Manjarrez
Researched Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics but chose Amazon Redshift: Costs less than Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Azure solutions
Jael Sande
Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeping your data secure
With our current COVID situation and being under lockdown, many of the businesses are moving to the cloud and it's been beneficial for us. Many... Read more →
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Amazon Redshift is very fast. It has really good response times. It's very user-friendly.""I like the cost-benefit ratio, meaning that it is as easy to use as it is powerful and well-performing.""Has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors.""Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers.""Redshift's versioning and data security are the two most critical features. When migrating into the cloud, it's vital to secure the data. The encryption and security are there.""I find the most valuable features to be the MPP style of processing, which mostly all of the data warehouses provide. The ability to integrate all other AWS services, such as NSS and S3, with little effort is very helpful. The service is well maintained, there are update patches frequently.""It's scalable because it's on the cloud.""For the on-premises version of Amazon Redshift, we need to start from scratch. However, with the cloud version whenever you want to deploy, you can scale up, and down, and it has a data warehousing capability. Redshift has many features."

More Amazon Redshift Pros →

"The solution's scalability is very, very good. It's one of the most important aspects for us.""The solution offers strong scalability opportunities.""I have not used the technical support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, but I worked with the developers at Microsoft who were top-notch.""The features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems.""The stability is pretty good.""They are very reliable and cost-effective.""Can capture all the transactional data throughout a company.""The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are how easy and quick it is to set up the linked services."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Pros →

Cons
"Amazon should provide more cloud-native tools that can integrate with Redshift like Microsoft's development tools for Azure.""Redshift's GUI could be more user-friendly. It's easier to perform queries and all that stuff in Azure Synapse Analytics.""We are using third-party tools to integrate Amazon Redshift, they should create their own interface on their own for it to be easily connected on the AWS itself.""Planting is the primary key enforcement that should be improved.""The technical support should be better in terms of their knowledge, and they should be more customer-friendly.""The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster.""There are too many limitations with respect to concurrency.""In our experiments, the handling of unstructured data was not very smooth."

More Amazon Redshift Cons →

"More integration is needed to improve the product for the future.""I am very sure that there are areas in need of improvement, but I can't recall what they are off the top of my head.""Indicating what areas need improvement in this solution is a difficult question because the organizations that I am working for are really new in this area. However, an even better more simple interface, or perhaps an extension of a connector app store solution, would be helpful.""Could have more connectors and better integration for Hadoop.""I'd like to see part of the service de-coupled.""Microsoft should develop an interface to make it easier to shift from on-premise to the cloud.""I am pretty sure that there are areas that need improvement but I just can think of them off the top of my head.""Integration with other products is an area that can be improved."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "My customers have implementations that cost about $500 a month for a very small one. I also have a customer with a monthly invoice of about $25,000 USD."
  • "At the moment, pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it depends on the size of the company."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable. According to the RA3 cluster particularly, it provides 128 GB of storage with only four nodes. If you can manage your computations processes with the help of materialized views and proper queries. I think the IP clusters are very useful and overall fair for the price."
  • "This solution implements the pay-as-you-use model, so no license. Pricing could be cheaper."
  • "The price of Amazon Redshift is reasonable because it depends on the usage that you use and for DWH for the long term."
  • "Amazon Redshift is an expensive solution. Larger organizations can afford this solution, but smaller businesses would struggle to afford it."
  • "It's pay per use. You can have multiple models."

    • More Amazon Redshift Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "All of the prices are available online."
  • "Our license is very expensive"
  • "They are cost aggressive, and it integrates well with other Microsoft tools."
  • "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."
  • "Its price could be better. It was a school project, and I got it for free. If I try to pay through my company, it is a little bit more expensive as compared to Oracle."
  • "The price of the package not expensive and depends on how much it is used."
  • "The cost of the licensing depends on the size of the warehouse, where the cost of storage is approximately $130 USD per terabyte."
  • "This is a cost-effective product."

    • More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
    Top Answer: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… more »
    What do you like most about Amazon Redshift?
    Top Answer:Redshift's versioning and data security are the two most critical features. When migrating into the cloud, it's vital to secure the data. The encryption and security are there.
    Read all 19 answers   →
    What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Redshift?
    Top Answer:The price of Amazon Redshift is reasonable because it depends on the usage that you use and for DWH for the long term.
    Read all 11 answers   →
    What are the benefits of having separate layers or a dedicated schema for...
    Top Answer:Traditional ETL would usually use a dedicated database (or even database server) where you'll load & transform your raw data before ingesting it into the final destination. This would allow checking… more »
    Read all 6 answers   →
    What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
    Top Answer:The initial setup is very simple.
    Read all 44 answers   →
    What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure S...
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Read all 35 answers   →
    Ranking
    4th
    out of 15 in Cloud Data Warehouse
    Views
    12,653
    Comparisons
    10,184
    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
    464
    Rating
    7.6
    2nd
    out of 15 in Cloud Data Warehouse
    Views
    31,104
    Comparisons
    21,912
    Reviews
    39
    Average Words per Review
    502
    Rating
    7.8
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
    Learn More
    Amazon
    Microsoft
    Overview

    Amazon Redshift is a fast and powerful, fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service in the cloud. Customers can start small for just $0.25 per hour with no commitments or upfront costs and scale to a petabyte or more for $1,000 per terabyte per year, less than a tenth of most other data warehousing solutions.

    Traditional data warehouses require significant time and resource to administer, especially for large datasets. In addition, the financial cost associated with building, maintaining, and growing self-managed, on-premise data warehouses is very high. Amazon Redshift not only significantly lowers the cost of a data warehouse, but also makes it easy to analyze large amounts of data very quickly.

    Amazon Redshift gives you fast querying capabilities over structured data using familiar SQL-based clients and business intelligence (BI) tools using standard ODBC and JDBC connections. Queries are distributed and parallelized across multiple physical resources. You can easily scale an Amazon Redshift data warehouse up or down with a few clicks in the AWS Management Console or with a single API call. Amazon Redshift automatically patches and backs up your data warehouse, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period. Amazon Redshift uses replication and continuous backups to enhance availability and improve data durability and can automatically recover from component and node failures. In addition, Amazon Redshift supports Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), SSL, AES-256 encryption and Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect your data in transit and at rest.

    As with all Amazon Web Services, there are no up-front investments required, and you pay only for the resources you use. Amazon Redshift lets you pay as you go. You can even try Amazon Redshift for free.

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an end-to-end analytics solution that successfully combines analytical services to merge big data analytics and enterprise data warehouses into a single unified platform. The solution can run intelligent distributed queries among nodes, and provides the ability to query both relational and non-relational data.

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is built with these 4 components:

    1. Synapse SQL
    2. Spark
    3. Synapse Pipeline
    4. Studio

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Features

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has many valuable key features, including:

    • Cloud Data Service: WIth Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can operate services (data analytics, machine learning, data warehousing, dashboarding, etc.) in a single workspace via the cloud.

    • Structured and unstructured data: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports both structured and unstructured data and allows you to manage relational and non-relational data - unlike data warehouses and lakes that tend to store them respectively.

    • Effective data storage: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers next-level data storage with high availability and different tiers.

    • Responsive data engine: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and analytical workloads efficiently without any problems.

    • Several scripting languages: The solution provides language compatibility and supports different programming languages, such as Python, Java, Spark SQL, and Scala.

    • Query optimization: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works well to facilitate limitless concurrency and performance optimization. It also simplifies workload management.

    Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics include:

    • Database templates: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers industry-specific database templates that make it easy to combine and shape data.

    • Better business insights: With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can expand discovery of insights from all your data and apply machine learning models to all your intelligent apps.

    • Reduce project development time: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics makes it possible to have a unified experience for developing end-to-end analytics, which reduces project development time significantly.

    • Eliminate data barriers: By using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can perform analytics on operational and business apps data without data movement.

    • Advanced security: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides both advanced security and privacy features to ensure data protection.

    • Machine Learning: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Power BI.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users who are currently using the solution.

    PeerSpot user Jael S., who is an Information Architect at Systems Analysis & Design Engineering, comments on her experience using the product, saying that it is “Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeps your data secure”. She also says "We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

    Michel T., CHTO at Timp-iT, mentions that "the features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."

    A Senior Teradata Consultant at a tech services company says, "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."


    Offer
    Learn more about Amazon Redshift
    Learn More
    Learn more about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
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    Sample Customers
    Liberty Mutual Insurance, 4Cite Marketing, BrandVerity, DNA Plc, Sirocco Systems, Gainsight, Blue 449
    Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider25%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Retailer19%
    Logistics Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company27%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Media Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company27%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company26%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Energy/Utilities Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise34%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise73%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
    May 2022
    Free Report: Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
    Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: May 2022.
    DOWNLOAD NOW
    607,332 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Amazon Redshift is ranked 4th in Cloud Data Warehouse with 15 reviews while Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is ranked 2nd in Cloud Data Warehouse with 43 reviews. Amazon Redshift is rated 7.6, while Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Amazon Redshift writes "Quick to deploy, easy to use, and performs well, but ingesting data in realtime should be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics writes "Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeping your data secure". Amazon Redshift is most compared with Snowflake, Oracle Exadata, Vertica, Teradata and Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse, whereas Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is most compared with Snowflake, Apache Hadoop, SAP BW4HANA, Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse and Azure Data Factory. See our Amazon Redshift vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report.

    See our list of best Cloud Data Warehouse vendors and best Data Warehouse vendors.

    We monitor all Cloud Data Warehouse reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.