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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP Business Warehouse vs Snowflake 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.2%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Warehouse is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 18.2%, down from 23.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

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,…
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution enables seamless connection, but it is expensive, and the information is one day old
Out-of-the-box reports are very useful. The product provides a seamless connection between the SAP operation system and the data warehouse. It also moves the data from the operating system to the data warehouse in a 3D format. The report generation is easy. It’s a drag-and-drop process. People who want to do a project need not reinvent the wheel. Everything is designed, built, and delivered out of the box. All we have to do is interact with the customers to understand the kind of reports they need and check whether they are already available in the out-of-the-box report. If they are available, we just have to enable them and give the URLs to the customers. The Integration between the SAP operating system and data warehouse is excellent. The UI is good.
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformation in data querying speed with good migration capabilities
Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses. One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations. It also has tools for migrating data from legacy databases like Oracle. Its stability and efficiency enhance performance greatly. Tools in the AI/ML marketplace are readily available without needing development.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features we've found most valuable for data warehouses is extracting data, SSIS packages, and the DBs."
"The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB."
"I have not used the technical support from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, but I worked with the developers at Microsoft who were top-notch."
"Our primary use case is for gathering data and analytics. We provide insights into vehicle data. We gather millions of records per second and we have various millions of vehicles running across."
"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."
"I think the most valuable component is that pipelines are built into it and then the feature that you can mirror a cosmos BB for analytics."
"The product provides a seamless and adaptable approach to data processing and analytics."
"The features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its capabilities to connect to Excel and to slice and dice."
"Having the back-end data set with the right information is the best qualification for this solution."
"With the technical support, the response has been pretty good from the SAP side."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"Out-of-the-box reports are very useful."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"Now, because of the HANA integration, the hard disk and RAM are together, and because of that, the output is very quick and very fast actually."
"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
"It is very fast and the performance is great."
"The most valuable features of Snowflake are its performance and power."
"Snowflake's most valuable features are data enrichment and flattening."
"The snapshot feature is good, the rollback feature is good and the interface is user-friendly."
"I like the ability to work with a managed service on the cloud and that is easy to start with."
"Snowflake has a variety of other ETL provisions that they provide. You can use your own ETL pipeline. Additionally, they provide adapters, and they are always evolving, it is a well-developed solution."
"Its speed and performance were the most valuable. Easy configuration of Snowflake in any cloud was also a benefit."
"It is a very easy-to-use solution. It is user-friendly, and its setup time is very less."
 

Cons

"In the future, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has the potential to enhance its capabilities by expanding its connectors, specifically with regard to Oracle solutions, such as operating systems. This would involve a comprehensive approach to adding more connectors for both data input and consumption purposes. By doing so, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics would be better equipped to meet the diverse needs of its users and achieve greater efficiency in its performance. The provision of more connectors is definitely a crucial area that needs improvement."
"I would like to see more ready-to-use products from Synapse. Right now, everything seems a bit futuristic without much modern use."
"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."
"In the future, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve the performance, there are other solutions that are better, such as Databricks."
"I would like to see them provide the ingestion of images."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's pricing could be reduced."
"The performance needs to improve in future releases."
"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."
"The solution should be more open to the cloud."
"You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy."
"More integration with Microsoft Office products (not just Excel) would be helpful."
"There is room for improvement from a technical perspective."
"What I'd like to improve in SAP Business Warehouse is its data structure, that's a little bit rigid. It could be a bit more flexible, so you can design your data structure and improve performance when creating a solution. Currently, the way data is stored in SAP Business Warehouse is rigid."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
"The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product. It could be more flexible so that when we are designing a solution, we can design our own data structures and try to improve performance."
"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."
"I am still in the learning stage. It has good security, but it can always be more secure."
"Their UiPath, the workspace area, needs some work."
"It would be better if they had a data profile tool that tells me where the gaps are in my time series data."
"They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did."
"In a future release we would like to have a link which would allow us to connect to an external database and create certain views in your own database. This is because it is becoming hard for us to compare the data between multiple sources."
"They should improve the reporting tools."
"We would like to be able to do modeling with Snowflake. It should support statistical modeling."
"These aren't as crucial, but there are common errors sometimes where the database is down, or a table is nullified and a new table is added and you are not given access to that. With those errors, you don't have permissions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's very difficult to price unless you know exactly how the customer is using it."
"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."
"I don't know about the price, but I'm trying to get a sense of the cost."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The solution could improve by having better costing information."
"The computer and storage costs are totally separate which allows you to work independently or manage costs."
"They are cost aggressive, and it integrates well with other Microsoft tools."
"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."
"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."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"We used Snowflake to see if it is cheaper than using BigQuery. It was just to maintain the cost or the KPI regarding the cost of connectivity by users. Snowflake wasn't cheaper than BigQuery, and its affordability was the main issue."
"The pricing part is based on the computing and storage. The costs are different and then there are services costs as well."
"Snowflake is cost-effective."
"The price of Snowflake is quite reasonable."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"Users have to pay a licensing fee for the solution, which is expensive."
"The whole licensing system is based on credit points. You can also make a license agreement with the company so that you buy credit points and then you use them. What you do not use in one year can be carried over to the next year."
"It's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
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 str...
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 Syn...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the ...
What do you like most about Snowflake?
The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
It is complicated to understand how requests impact warehouse size. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Databric...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
There is a need for a tool to help me estimate the cost of using Snowflake. Enhancements in user experience for data ...
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
No data available
Snowflake Computing
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.