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Infobright DB vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse comparison

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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

Infobright DB
Ranking in Data Warehouse
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (38th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Infobright DB is 2.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 3.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse3.5%
Infobright DB2.2%
Other94.3%
Data Warehouse
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user104457 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Apr 13, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

it_user708987 - PeerSpot reviewer
MySQL DBA at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Excellent reporting server that is compatible with MySQL
We ran into some quirks that Infobright had. We interacted with Infobright's support and were able to resolve them. There still are issues with data replication - Infobright is currently for one server (unless you buy the Infobright appliance). This would mean that redundancy is something you need to implement yourself.
reviewer2254953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Virtual machines have handled large data and supported growth but pricing still needs improvement
I believe the product is pretty fast. When I have used it, it is handy. The integration with other Azure products is good and integrates well. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's security measures help ensure our sensitive data protection during analysis through measures such as encryption. Its scalability is impressive as it scales up and down really well. We go from a couple of users to tons of users all the time, and it scales and handles things really well. One of the major benefits with this product is that it's Microsoft, which is one of the best ones, and it's just plug and play.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The high compression and the relatively fast load for a free product."
"A valuable feature was the use of a columnar database for large, ever-growing, big datasets."
"It is very straightforward and easy to work with."
"The performance of ad hoc aggregation queries is superior to any RDBMS that I have used and I have used them all."
"We now have multiple times faster queries in comparison to MS SQL."
"It has very amazing smart grid query feature for very fast aggregate queries across millions of rows"
"Infobright gave us the ability to avoid significant changes in our data structure and just use Infobright like BigDataMySql."
"Infobright allowed us to reduce the number of moving parts and complexity that we had while providing good performance to produce our reports."
"Most features on the SQL Server are quite useful to us."
"I'm very pro Microsoft because I think Microsoft products are highly intuitive and are widely used."
"One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL, as it is very easy to pull the data from it and also very easy to import data from CSV or Excel."
"It performs very well overall."
"The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first."
"The most valuable features are the performance and usability."
"This is a great product for big data analytics as it can challenge other MPPs quite well."
"The most valuable feature is the business intelligence (BI) part of it."
 

Cons

"We didn’t purchase the Enterprise Edition because it was too expensive for a product that wasn’t going to replace our main DWH database (Oracle), but was, somehow, only an addition for it."
"Only the data from the columns that reached 2GB will actually decrease. Other columns below 2GB in size do not leave the disk."
"MPP, distributed processing!!! And better integration with Hadoop."
"After all the re-work to our product to remove as much reliance on Infobright, and the extra hardware costs we had to absorb, there was definitely a negative return on investment."
"There was no scalability at all. Infobright didn't permit any changes in tables."
"On the contrary, we have switched back to the MS SSAS Tabular Model, because of pricing policy."
"There still are issues with data replication - Infobright is currently for one server (unless you buy the Infobright appliance)."
"When running a complex subquery, the system hangs without giving the user any response."
"The feature updates on the on-premise solution come very slowly, and it would be great if they came faster."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"It needs more compatibility with common BI tools."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"There were scalability issues in that there is a limit to 32 concurrent queries."
"I think that the error messages need to be made more specific."
"The product does not have all of the features that the native products have."
"More tools to help designers should be included."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our pricing was based on server instances and it was actually very cheap compared to Oracle. I guess you get what you pay for."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
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Answers from the Community

it_user104457 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014
I think hands down it's Exadata since for the front end apps it's just another Oracle database which means everything under the sun is compatible with it.
2 out of 3 answers
it_user89046 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Apr 10, 2014
Given we partner with many or all of the above, or can get to them as we access all data, I have the following opinion - InfoBright is very new and probable to be sold long term. It is also an expensive subscription so presents highest risk to me. Exidata is Oracle - if you like Oracle and their style, it maybe ok, but then it is Oracle. Microsoft is Microsoft - tends to be cheap to acquire and expensive to implement and maintain. Teradata is pricey but of the group presents the least risk and the greatest number of front end partners. The product I represent is unique as it is designed for high complexity large numbers of users and data and runs inside Teradata taking better advantage of the architecture. Disclosure: I work for Information Builders
it_user3309 - PeerSpot reviewer
Presenter at a consultancy
Apr 10, 2014
You are asking about front end tools but you do not mention which ones. What you have are "database backends" and each has different features. The utilization will depend on what kind of expertise you have available else you will end up trying to implement say, Teradata on Exadata which may not give you the best solution. What are your criteria for success? Based on these you will have to evaluate each solution -- I am sure each vendor will be happy to set up the environment and work with your set of sampl,e data to show you have they evaluate against your criteria.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
22%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.
 

Also Known As

Infobright
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

REZ-1, SonicWALL, IntegriChain, Fuseforward International Inc., Polystar, Live Rail, Mavenir Systems, JDSU Partners, Bango
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about Infobright DB vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.