We performed a comparison between Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Snowflake had a better user rating regarding ease of deployment and pricing. Both softwares had the same rating when it came to service and support. In terms of features, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users felt the software had security issues and didn’t feel it was very intuitive. In contrast, users of Snowflake felt the UI needed improvement.
"Can capture all the transactional data throughout a company."
"The most important feature for me is the integration with PolyBase."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the pipeline that is the ETL tool. It's very well designed and is overall very good. We usually don't use the ETL tool in Databricks, but we use the ETL tool in this solution."
"Azure Synapse combines the strengths of SQL technologies for effective enterprise data management."
"Synapse makes it easy to integrate and onboard data from other Microsoft and Azure sources. The interface is familiar because we were using Azure Data Factory before Synapse. It made the transition even easier because the Synapse interface is exactly the same."
"The integrated workspace in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics where everything comes together, such as Power BI and Data Factory, is very good. Additionally, the ability to do dedicated SQL pooling is a benefit."
"They are very reliable and cost-effective."
"It's quite quick for querying, even with large datasets, and it's scalable. It's also flexible to use, so it's easy to update and get data quickly without wasting time."
"It is a very easy-to-use solution. It is user-friendly, and its setup time is very less."
"The Time Travel feature is helpful for accessing historical data and the ability to clone external tables is useful."
"As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."
"Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake."
"The most valuable feature has been the Snowflake data sharing and dynamic data masking."
"The features I found most valuable with this solution are sharing options and built-in time zone conversion."
"I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The security performance and cost are the two things that needs improvement."
"The performance needs to improve in future releases."
"Documentation could be improved."
"One area that could be improved is the schema management."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's overall integration within the Azure ecosystem could improve. The native Microsoft solution versus another solution, such as Databricks, there are areas where there could be some improvements."
"It's stable, but its stability could be better. However, we understand that it's in production, and new features are getting added and upgraded, so you do get hiccups sometimes."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"They should automate some of the features. There are some things, such as the creation of external tables, that you have to do manually. They should be automated."
"Product activation queries can't be changed while executing."
"We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level."
"I would like to see more transparency in data processing, ATLs, and compute areas - which should give more comfort to the end users."
"The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system."
"From the documentation, the black box is not very descriptive. Snowflake does not reveal how exactly the data is processed or sourced."
"Its pricing or affordability is one of the big challenges. Pricing was the only thing that we didn't like about Snowflake. In terms of technical features, it is a complete solution."
"The design of the product is easily misunderstood."
"I think that Snowflake could improve its user interface. The current one is not interactive."
More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is ranked 2nd in Cloud Data Warehouse with 85 reviews while Snowflake is ranked 1st in Cloud Data Warehouse with 92 reviews. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is rated 7.8, while Snowflake is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics writes "No competitors provide the entire solution to one place ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Snowflake writes "Good usability, good data sharing and elastic compute features, and requires less DBA involvement". Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is most compared with Azure Data Factory, SAP BW4HANA, Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse, Teradata and Amazon Redshift, whereas Snowflake is most compared with BigQuery, Azure Data Factory, Teradata, Vertica and SAP BW4HANA. See our Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Snowflake report.
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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.