Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP Datasphere

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Synapse Analytics
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Azure Synapse Analytics is described as the former Azure SQL Data Warehouse, evolved, and as a limitless analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. It gives users the freedom to query data using either serverless or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs.
$4,700
per month 5,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
SAP Datasphere
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
SAP Datasphere, the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, is a comprehensive data service that enables data professionals to deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data. It provides a unified experience for data integration, data cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, data federation, and data virtualization. SAP Datasphere enables users to distribute mission-critical business data — with business context and logic preserved — across the data…N/A
Pricing
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Editions & Modules
Tier 1
$4,700
per month 5,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
Tier 2
$9,200
per month 10,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
Tier 3
$21,360
per month 24,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
Tier 4
$50,400
per month 60,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
Tier 5
$117,000
per month 150,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
Tier 6
$259,200
per month 360,000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSAP Datasphere is available as a subscription or consumption-based model. The SAP Datasphere capacity unit (CU) offers an adaptable approach to pricing that enables any workload on any hyperscaler. The number of CUs required is determined by the unique workload, with the ability to tailor the combination of required services within SAP Datasphere utilizing a flexible tenant configuration. The services that contribute to CU consumption are the core application (compute and storage), data lake, BW bridge, data integration, and data catalog (crawling and storage).
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Considered Both Products
Azure Synapse Analytics
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
Synapse, in comparison has its ups and downs against the competitors. However, where it excels, and builds it's markets is the cheaper costs (compared to Redshift), low code platforms and an in house solution that does not need you to leave the Synapse workspace for end to end …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
Databricks is a complete product with new features constantly coming out. This can be both good or bad, with a lot of innovation comes a responsibility to keep your code and pipelines fresh.

Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
Our team evaluated multiple platform as I mentioned above , but we stacks up Azure Synapse Analytics because :
1. Easy UI and Unified platform advantage
2. Tight integrations with MS ecosystem.
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
They're all part of the Microsoft Azure family, so they are not exactly competitors. They overlap in functionality, but they're targeted at different levels of customers.
Azure Data Factory is an excellent stand-alone PaaS (included in Synapse Analytics) for writing, scheduling, …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
When client is already having or using Azure then it’s wise to go with Synapse rather than using Snowflake. We got a lot of help from Microsoft consultants and Microsoft partners while implementing our EDW via Synapse and support is easily available via Microsoft resources and …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
In comparing Azure Synapse to the Google BigQuery - the biggest highlight that I'd like to bring forward is Azure Synapse SQL leverages a scale-out architecture in order to distribute computational processing of data across multiple nodes whereas Google BigQuery only takes into …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
Azure Synapse Analytics stacks up well against the competitors I mentioned above. Technically, Azure SQL Datawarehouse is an upgraded version of the Azure SQL Database. So, the choice to move from one to the other depends on the processing needs of your company. If you need …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
We also looked at Oracle Data Warehouse as part of our short list of products to implement as a solution. Oracle's product turned out to have less support by way of easily accessible internet blogs. Oracle was also considerably more expensive and we would have needed to hire …
Chose Azure Synapse Analytics
SQL Data Warehousing is much easier to manage if you already have SQL Server experience and analysts who are familiar with its interface. We are currently piloting using NoSQL and Hadoop type databases but it is difficult to get set up properly. Additionally, we have to …
SAP Datasphere
Chose SAP Datasphere
It is an SAP tool. SAP and non-SAP integration. Reusable data products. The future roadmap is a data sphere with AI enhancements. It provides a cloud-based architecture.
Chose SAP Datasphere
We used SAP BW for modeling and loaded the data into SAP Analytics Cloud for reporting. In this scenario, we had to store data physically in SAC for reporting. Live Model reporting caused a performance issue when displaying data in SAC. After Datasphere came into the picture, …
Chose SAP Datasphere
with the support for SAP BW 7.5 ends by 2027 and extended support by 2030, also the support for BW/4HANA ends by 2040. Every organization is looking towards modernizing their data warehousing solution. SAP Datasphere stands tall as a solution for this and well suited if …
Chose SAP Datasphere
it is use d to öodernize our bw stack
Chose SAP Datasphere
Our organization selected SAP Datasphere Because, in our experience, this is a compliant way of getting data out
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP Datasphere is cloud based, also it is designed for Logical data modeling where no much ETL needs to be used, also it has faster onboarding of business use cases, it can integrate with S4HANA CDS views with real time data extraction. Datasphere complements BW4HANA rather …
Chose SAP Datasphere
Snowflake, Databricks, Azure Data Factory... why do we choose? Strong SAP landscape, single source of truth for sensitive data, cloud capabilities, etc.
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAC with SAP Datasphere works like a charm, and it uses the Live connectivity. Negative side:-Clients cannot use SAC for regulatory reports, or they have to download the entire Data for sending it to government agencies.
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP BW was the old world tool from on on-prem world. It lacks the cloud tool integration. Very limited scalability option. Even with robust modelling options, AIML scenarios were not possible. It was a tool for the past. Now DSP has evolved and taken over the place of BW in all …
Chose SAP Datasphere
Better data integration and less manual handling
Chose SAP Datasphere
Microsoft Asure database is the source for Databricks dataproduct for one of our projects. SAP Datasphere uses this source to develop Graphical view combined with the other data products to get the reports from Analytical Models. Also data is combined from various source in SAP …
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Business Warehouse and SAP HANA Cloud
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP Datasphere is much more mature than the alternative, in particular for a data warehouse focused on enterprise level modeling and governance.
Chose SAP Datasphere
Informatica Cloud API & App Integration and Talend Data Integration
Chose SAP Datasphere
There is hard to compare, because some things are missing and some are better.
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP Ariba, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP HANA Cloud, Snowflake and Azure Databricks
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP Datasphere is an exciting way to modernize our data stack, and what clinched it for us was how deep we're already in with SAP - it only made sense to try and leverage the synergies between Datasphere and our other SAP products.
Chose SAP Datasphere
SAP Data Intelligence, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW/4HANA, SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Data Services
Best Alternatives
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Small Businesses
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.7 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Synapse AnalyticsSAP Datasphere
Likelihood to Recommend
In terms of a well-suited scenario - the Azure Synapse can be used to capture data from multiple sources (especially from onPrem sources apart from Dataverse) and update the transformed data based on the given conditions (eg: refresh data based on the specified date/time ranges). Also, the transformed data can simply be transferred to Azure Data Lake for further processing by utilizing other analytics tools such as PowerBI.
Read full review
SAP Datasphere is well suited for scalable cloud based data integration scenarios which also opens up the doors for AI driven insights which are much harder to achieve with on-prem data warehouses. Considering the licensing model of SAP Datasphere being based on consumption driven capacity units cost can be a big consideration for organizations with large volumes of data that can be a pre-requisite for data mining and AI use cases. So this can be a bottleneck or not so well adopted scenario for SAP Datasphere.
Read full review
Pros
  • The combination of SQL/unstructured data
  • Keeping things "complicated, but simple"; [heterogeneous] data formats seen as just SQL tables to business experts used to use Power BI, Excel, and any other traditional SQL-oriented BI tools
  • Integration options using "Synapse pipelines", the application of ADFs
  • The greatly integrated solution of independent things (Spark MPP cluster, MPP SQL Servers, ADFs) - all sitting under one roof. Great job!
  • Integration with super-fast, globally replicated data. I really appreciate the integration of NoSQL databases (namely Core API and Mongo API under Cosmos DB) with purely batch-processed BI data
Read full review
  • SAP Data Warehouse Cloud offers free trial for 90 days with free 128 GB of storage and 64 GB memory.
  • Availability of self-service data modeling and analytics on SAP Data Warehouse Cloud enables users to access and analyze data without getting support from the IT team.
  • Without zero coding while collecting, connecting, analyzing and modeling data, it saves us time and operational costs of partnering with external IT support experts.
Read full review
Cons
  • With Azure, it's always the same issue, too many moving parts doing similar things with no specialisation. ADF, Fabric Data Factory and Synapse pipeline serve the same purpose. Same goes for Fabric Warehouse and Synapse SQL pools.
  • Could do better with serverless workloads considering the competition from databricks and its own fabric warehouse
  • Synapse pipelines is a replica of Azure Data Factory with no tight integration with Synapse and to a surprise, with missing features from ADF. Integration of warehouse can be improved with in environment ETl tools
Read full review
  • SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is quite complex, therefore, some extra orientation or training might be essential, more so on cloud.
  • Secondly, SAP Data installation fee, and the monthly subscription amounts is slightly demanding, and the developer should refocus on changing them.
  • Nonetheless, SAP Data rectified other challenges like flexibility and customization, making us happy clients.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Datasphere can come with its own challenges which can feel like a mountain to get over. However, once one has an understanding of how the product works it becomes easier to use. Once the time is spent to get it setup and working correctly very little is needed to keep it running smoothly. Its a great tool it just takes time to learn.
Read full review
Usability
The data warehouse portion is very much like old style on-prem SQL server, so most SQL skills one has mastered carry over easily. Azure Data Factory has an easy drag and drop system which allows quick building of pipelines with minimal coding. The Spark portion is the only really complex portion, but if there's an in-house python expert, then the Spark portion is also quiet useable.
Read full review
SAP has suggested that BW 7.5 will be sunset soon. Usability is good in SAP BW Modernization. Instead of going with other non-SAP tools, staying with SAP will be suitable for existing users. Across the board, many of them are moving to DataSphere.
Read full review
Support Rating
Microsoft does its best to support Synapse. More and more articles are being added to the documentation, providing more useful information on best utilizing its features. The examples provided work well for basic knowledge, but more complex examples should be added to further assist in discovering the vast abilities that the system has.
Read full review
I would greatly acknowledge the services of Sap Data [warehouse Cloud] because we were struggling before its arrival where we used to get manual data connections and this used to consume a lot of time but after its use, we now are able to connect data easily saving a lot of time and finances.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
They're all part of the Microsoft Azure family, so they are not exactly competitors. They overlap in functionality, but they're targeted at different levels of customers. Azure Data Factory is an excellent stand-alone PaaS (included in Synapse Analytics) for writing, scheduling, and monitoring pipelines. Azure SQL Database (and all the Azure SQL family) is excellent for traditional, SQL-based data warehouses, especially if you're migrating from on-premises. Combined with Azure Data Factory (that can run SSIS packages), it's a perfect solution for a simple path to the cloud. Azure Databricks is effectively the only internal "competitor" to Synapse Analytics but targeted more to a "platform-agnostic" audience. On the other hand, Synapse is more of a proprietary mix of products that are more tightly related to Microsoft technologies.
Read full review
Each of these listed software has its own unique strength and capacity that scales well. SAP Datasphere on its end up against them with more suitability for large establishments with complex data ecosystems with scalability support. Also, it avails a pay-as-you-go pricing for users, and it is widely up for data quality, data governance, and data discovery.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • It definitely has a positive impact on ROI. We are able to use it to generate MORE revenue through predictive analytics and pricing optimization.
  • Because of the SQL Data Warehouse design, we're able to set up some self service reporting tools which allow our users to generate reports ad hoc instead of having a full time employee creating these by hand.
  • Having visibility into the data is very useful for management to make good business decisions.
Read full review
  • Enhanced our report generation process due to presence of holistic data.
  • Centralized data from all our platforms. This has helped us visualize and analyze all data much more efficiently.
  • It is more on the expensive side from both cost and training perspective.
Read full review
ScreenShots