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BigQuery vs SAP Business Warehouse 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

BigQuery
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP Business Warehouse
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of BigQuery is 8.0%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 2.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BigQuery8.0%
SAP Business Warehouse2.3%
Other89.7%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Luís Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Handles large data sets efficiently and offers flexible data management capabilities
The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data. It is kind of difficult to explain, but structured data and the ability to handle large data sets are key features. The data integration capabilities in BigQuery were, in fact, an issue at the beginning. There are two types of integrations. As long as integration is within Google, it is pretty simple. When you start to try to connect external clients to that data, it becomes more complex. It is not related to BigQuery, it is related to Google security model, which is not easy to manage. I would not call it an integration issue of BigQuery, I would call it an integration issue of Google security model.
VishnuReddy2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Enterprise Architect at R2V2.ai
Have encountered complexity with programming language while working on large-scale data integration and have experienced improved governance and reporting
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehouse, I would to see added features that simplify the product very well now. They are coming up with a terminology called SAP BDC where they are consolidating their tools, SAP Data Sphere for integration and SAP BW for the ETL and warehousing parts, and SAP Analytics Cloud. They are packaging these three features and calling it Business Data Cloud; they are fully coming on the cloud. We have to wait and watch; they have been speaking about BW/4HANA for quite some time now, but the customers or clients I work with are not finding great interest and it was seen as a candidate for evaluation. I have seen people looking at the latest technologies who are already on cloud who started building from scratch on cloud, such as Snowflake or Databricks, which can process very huge amounts of data and also address unstructured data, where SAP lags behind in cases where there is a need to bring in unstructured data. I have worked with SAP Data Intelligence, which earlier used to be called SAP Data Hub. The unstructured data is not greatly handled in SAP at this point in time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BigQuery excels at structuring data, performing predictions, and conducting insightful analyses and it leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities, powered by Google's Duarte AI."
"The initial setup is simple."
"BigQuery is a very nice product; it is a good product, scalable, and has high performance."
"The product's most valuable features include its scalability and the ability to handle complex queries on large datasets."
"BigQuery's querying capabilities are very optimized for large datasets."
"It's straightforward to set up."
"When integrating their system into the cloud-based solutions, we were able to increase their efficiency and overall productivity twice compared with their on-premises option."
"Using BigQuery's central repository brings dispersed information together, which facilitates exploring the data and gaining insights, and consequently, it improves operations, response time, and the business overall."
"The most valuable feature is the new version of Business Explorer Analyzer, which is a very good version because there are a lot of analytical features of Excel also."
"The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
"I think BW is one of the best products at the moment."
"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Having the integration with the reporting tool which is provided by SAP is great."
"Technical support is good, and they were able to assist us in some specific issues we were experiencing."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its capabilities to connect to Excel and to slice and dice."
 

Cons

"I would like to see version-based implementation and a fallback arrangement for data stored in BigQuery storage. These are some features I'm interested in."
"I understand that Snowflake has made some improvements on its end to further reduce costs, so I believe BigQuery can catch up."
"There are areas that could be improved with BigQuery, such as more bolt-on capabilities and the ability to use more bolt-ons for APIs."
"With other columnar databases like Snowflake, you can actually increase your VM size or increase your machine size, and you can buy more memory and it will start working faster, but that's not available in BigQuery. You have to actually open a ticket and then follow it up with Google support."
"As a product, BigQuery still requires a lot of maturity to accommodate other use cases and to be widely acceptable across other organizations."
"I noticed recently it's more expensive now."
"The process of migrating from Datastore to BigQuery should be improved."
"When I execute a query, the dashboard doesn't always present the output seamlessly."
"The problem with BW, and the factor that differentiated it from the original BW, is that you only get limited functionality with your runtime license, so you have to pay extra for extracting data."
"The solution could offer better connectivity with other databases."
"I would like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."
"We are running an older version; it is doing what we need it to do but there is some limitation due to its version."
"I'm not sure if our issue is related to BW or the Analysis Office. However, we're having performance issues in terms of time. It takes a long time to generate the report."
"Areas for improvement in SAP Business Warehouse include enhancing scheduling and monitoring tools, as well as improving communication about hidden features to make them more accessible to users."
"A few things which are missing include the visualization of reports. That's where your costs and licensing become heavy. When it comes to this database compared Microsoft Warehouse, it's an expensive solution."
"When some things go wrong, it becomes extremely unreliable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are above the free threshold, so we are paying around 40 euros per month for BigQuery."
"The product’s pricing could be more flexible for end users."
"The solution's pricing is cheaper compared to other solutions."
"Its cost structure operates on a pay-as-you-go model."
"The product operates on a pay-for-use model. Costs include storage and query execution, which can accumulate based on data volume and complexity."
"The pricing is good and there are no additional costs involved."
"One terabyte of data costs $20 to $22 per month for storage on BigQuery and $25 on Snowflake. Snowflake is costlier for one terabyte, but BigQuery charges based on how much data is inserted into the tables. BigQuery charges you based on the amount of data that you handle and not the time in which you handle it. This is why the pricing models are different and it becomes a key consideration in the decision of which platform to use."
"The price could be better. Usually, you need to buy the license for a year. Whenever you want more, you can subscribe to it, and you can use it. Otherwise, you can terminate the license. You can use it daily or monthly, and we use it based on a project's requirements."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Media Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Retailer
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigQuery?
The initial setup process is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?
I believe the cost of BigQuery is competitive versus the alternatives in the market, but it can become expensive if the tool is not used properly. It is on a per-consumption basis, the billing, so ...
What needs improvement with BigQuery?
With what I have seen in BigQuery, I had some response times problems, but then it is an analytical database and not a transactional database, so it comes with eventual consistency. I cannot have e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The pricing for SAP Business Warehouse is on the expensive side. I am not sure about the current costing model as such. In my experience on cloud, I did not use BW HANA Cloud. I used the cloud prod...
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehou...
What is your primary use case for SAP Business Warehouse?
I am using SAP Business Warehouse in my organization for data warehousing as well as an ETL tool. Integration with SAP Business Warehouse's ETL tools is not straightforward. Integration with SAP ER...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about BigQuery vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.