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IBM Db2 Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Db2 Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (11th)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sherpard  Muzuva - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced features enhance business intelligence, but complex management calls for improved user guidance
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more user-friendly and easier to master. They should implement a more comprehensive graphical user interface with additional features. For instance, when users encounter problems, the system should provide better guidelines and troubleshooting directions, except for hardware-related issues. They need to implement tools that would help users perform basic troubleshooting rather than solely relying on support. Other databases have features where users can investigate specific issues using error codes. From my experience, many minor issues could be resolved before escalating to support.
Joy Maitra - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported data pipeline development but still requires better integration and support
The best feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the notebook functionality; it provides a very good interface, and we can easily do our experiments, POCs, and check things before migration or deployment to higher environments such as from development to SIT and then production. The deployment process is also much smoother. Driving data-driven insights in my organization depends upon the preparation of the data. If your data is not good, then insights won't be good, and Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics helps in preparing your data, so it is very helpful. I find Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics' native data lake support beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support."
"Provides good security and reliability."
"It can be mounted on the cloud, which is a huge plus. If the client, for example, starts small with on-premise deployment and then it rapidly needs to grow, we can transfer this to the cloud easily."
"The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data."
"The solution is stable."
"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its integration with the new legacy systems. Whatever application we want to integrate, we receive the reports based on the objects. The solution is easy to purchase from the cloud."
"Azure Synapse combines the strengths of SQL technologies for effective enterprise data management."
"Azure elasticity allows us to scale as much as we want, and it is pay-as-you-go, so we can scale up as we need to."
"The fact that we can ingest from different types of sources, whether they are internal systems or external sources."
"The solution's scalability is very, very good. It's one of the most important aspects for us."
"The most advantageous aspect of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its simplified data transformation process compared to traditional databases. This makes data cleansing and transformation more manageable and straightforward, which we appreciate. It is much easier to build as well."
"The pricing seems to be quite fair."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are how easy and quick it is to set up the linked services."
 

Cons

"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."
"Lacks sufficient documentation and particularly in Spanish."
"In terms of improvement, IBM Db2 Warehouse should be more scalable."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"It takes a long time to have a new version or release, similar to Oracle."
"There should be more material available for training and training should be free."
"One area for improvement could be better integration with Power BI, as well as data integration with BW."
"With respect to what needs to be improved, concurrent connectivity has some limitations."
"This solution needs to have query caching so that if the same query is run and the results are available, it will return the data from the cache without having to re-run the query."
"Synapse Analytics' performance slows down if you don't get your distribution right because it gets queued and goes into a single node."
"The product could be more feature-rich."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve in usability. I have found the same issue with all Microsoft solutions."
"Non-structured data is unavailable with this product."
"Right now, we are really struggling with the performance. it's not as good as we had hoped."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."
"It just depends on how big your instance is. It could be anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000 per year depending on how big your instance is. You pay based on how big you make your database. Essentially, they charge you per hour of usage."
"They are cost aggressive, and it integrates well with other Microsoft tools."
"The costs are billed such that we pay for what we use, which is a good thing."
"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."
"I'm not sure of the exact cost, however, it is around $100,000 a year."
"We normally pay between $300 and $500 per month, which is quite expensive for how much we actually use it, performance- and usage-wise. They have a cheap version and an expensive version, and our usage usually falls in the middle ground, which makes it not as cost-effective as it could be."
"It requires a less expensive version because currently, not every customer is able to buy it. If it could have a smaller setup that doesn't require so many resources, it would be helpful, and we would be able to use it in more cases. We are a small country, and most of our customers are quite small businesses."
"All of the prices are available online."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more u...
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 find the pricing of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reasonable; compared to AWS Glue or Databricks, it is reasonable.
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.