# Apache Iceberg vs Azure Synapse Analytics

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Apache Iceberg

| Attribute | Apache Iceberg | Azure Synapse Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 62.2 (56% (medium)) | 50 (14% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 9,176 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 11,384,061 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Apache Iceberg is a table format that enables reliable, ACID-compliant SQL operations on big data. It allows multiple query engines—such as Spark, Trino, Flink, Hive, and Impala—to safely read and write the same tables concurrently, bringing traditional database semantics to analytics workloads. | Azure Synapse Analytics is a managed, cloud-based analytics platform that enables rapid analysis and insight generation across enterprise data warehouses and big data systems. It provides a unified solution for processing and analyzing data at scale. |
| features.capabilities | `{"deployment":"embedded","data_sharing":true,"license_class":"permissive","table_formats":"Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files)","semi_structured":"first_class","federation_query":true,"streaming_ingest":true,"concurrency_scaling":"automatic"}` | `{"deployment":"managed","license_class":"proprietary"}` |
| integrations.count | 20 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Spark"},{"name":"Trino"},{"name":"Presto"},{"name":"Flink"},{"name":"Hive"},{"name":"Impala"},{"name":"PyArrow"},{"name":"DuckDB"},{"name":"Polars"},{"name":"Pandas"},{"name":"Ray"},{"name":"Datafusion"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"SQLAlchemy"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"GCS"},{"name":"Azure Data Lake Storage"},{"name":"Hadoop"},{"name":"Kerberos"},{"name":"Thrift"}]` | - |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | - | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source, no licensing cost","sourceUrl":"https://iceberg.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:32:59.428Z"}` | - |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | - |
| release.cadence_days | 50 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.11.0","date":"2026-05-20T08:47:57Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.2","date":"2026-05-18T21:58:12Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.1","date":"2025-12-22T22:04:42Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.0","date":"2025-09-11T15:08:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.2","date":"2025-07-18T13:44:58Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.1","date":"2025-05-28T16:52:05Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.0","date":"2025-04-28T06:27:16Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.2","date":"2025-03-19T10:12:37Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.1","date":"2025-02-28T07:52:17Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.0","date":"2025-02-13T09:13:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.1","date":"2024-12-06T20:01:03Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.0","date":"2024-11-08T15:12:01Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.1","date":"2024-08-27T17:47:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.0","date":"2024-07-23T12:06:44Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.2","date":"2024-05-16T07:50:32Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.1","date":"2024-04-30T12:43:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.0","date":"2024-03-11T11:00:15Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.3","date":"2023-12-27T17:15:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.2","date":"2023-11-07T16:44:26Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.1","date":"2023-10-23T11:03:35Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.1"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.9 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=apache-iceberg&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Data Warehouse Software)

| Capability | Apache Iceberg | Azure Synapse Analytics |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Embedded | Managed cloud |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Architecture | - | - |
| Compute model | - | - |
| **Query** |  |  |
| SQL dialect | - | - |
| Federation / lakehouse query-in-place | ✓ | - |
| **Interoperability** |  |  |
| Table-format support | Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files) | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Concurrency scaling | Automatic | - |
| **Ingestion** |  |  |
| Streaming ingest | ✓ | - |
| **Data model** |  |  |
| Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT) | First-class | - |
| **Analytics** |  |  |
| ML / in-DB functions | - | - |
| **Sharing** |  |  |
| Data sharing / marketplace | ✓ | - |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:44:25.700Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*