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Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
Amazon Redshift offers mixed returns; beneficial for high data volumes, but concerns arise over rising costs and limited data effectiveness.
Sentiment score
7.0
Users experienced positive ROI with Azure Synapse, citing cost reductions, improved data efficiency, and flexibility over traditional solutions.
Sentiment score
6.8
Snowflake users experience mixed ROI; challenges in calculation exist, but long-term benefits include cost reduction and improved data management.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon Redshift's support is responsive but costly, with quick responses for routine issues, though advanced support can be inconsistent.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics support quality varies; larger accounts receive better service, but smaller customers experience challenges.
Sentiment score
7.3
Snowflake's customer service is praised for expertise and helpfulness, though some note delays and lack of SLAs.
It's costly when you enable support.
They are slow to respond and not very knowledgeable.
I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.
The technical support from Snowflake is very good, nice, and efficient.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon Redshift is generally praised for scalability, though experience varies with larger clusters and specific configurations.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers high scalability, enabling easy scaling for diverse industries despite potential high costs.
Sentiment score
7.8
Snowflake is praised for scalability and efficiency, but concerns exist regarding cost-effectiveness in medium to large-scale organizations.
The scalability part needs improvement as the sizing requires trial and error.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable, offering numerous opportunities for scalability.
The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.
Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Amazon Redshift is praised for stability, high availability, and performance, despite occasional challenges with complex queries and environment changes.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is stable, commendable in performance, but some users desire improvements for large data handling reliability.
Sentiment score
8.2
Snowflake is praised for stability and reliability, with users noting excellent performance, quick issue resolution, and robust architecture.
Amazon Redshift is a stable product, and I would rate it nine or ten out of ten for stability.
I find the service stable as I have not encountered many issues.
Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.
Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Redshift faces challenges in performance, integration, cost, and compatibility, needing improvements in speed, security, and serverless options.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics needs improvements in pricing, usability, integration, performance, and advanced features for enhanced overall functionality.
Snowflake users seek improved UI, pricing transparency, analytics, integrations, AI features, and enhanced support, ETL, and machine learning capabilities.
They should bring the entire ETL data management process into Amazon Redshift.
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.
Enhancements in user experience for data observability and quality checks would be beneficial, as these tasks currently require SQL coding, which might be challenging for some users.
Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Redshift offers competitive pricing for large enterprises, but smaller organizations might find it more costly than alternatives.
Enterprise users of Azure Synapse Analytics find pricing variable, ranging from affordable to expensive, with concerns over billing unpredictability.
Snowflake's pricing offers flexibility but can be unpredictable and expensive compared to Redshift or BigQuery, with room for transparency improvements.
The cost of technical support is high.
It's a pretty good price and reasonable for the product quality.
The pricing of Amazon Redshift is expensive.
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.
Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Redshift provides scalable, efficient data processing with AWS integration, offering robust analytics, security, and user-friendly features.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers scalability, seamless integration, user-friendly design, robust security, and efficient data processing for businesses.
Snowflake excels in scalable, secure data processing with fast queries, multi-format support, and seamless third-party integration for AI/ML.
Scalability is also a strong point; I can scale it however I want without any limitations.
Amazon Redshift's performance optimization and scalability are quite helpful, providing functionalities such as scaling up and down.
Security configurations are implemented across all processes, such as AWS Config and GuardDuty.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers significant visibility, which helps us understand our usage more clearly.
One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations.
The scalability options it provides, addressing issues without tying workloads into one virtual machine, enhance functionality.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon Redshift is 7.2%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.5%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 20.5%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Ved Prakash Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Works as a data warehouse system and collects data from different sources
In terms of improvement, I believe Amazon Redshift could work on reducing its costs, as they tend to increase significantly. Additionally, there are occasional issues with nodes going down, which can be problematic. We often encounter issues like someone dropping a column or changing the order of columns, which can cause synchronization problems when pushing data through our pipeline. It's a minor issue, but it can be annoying.
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,…
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
63%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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 Amazon Redshift?
The tool's most valuable feature is its parallel processing capability. It can handle massive amounts of data, even w...
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?
We use an enterprise-level subscription for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. I would rate our satisfaction with the...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. T...
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?
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side, rated as eight out of ten. If there were ways to reduce costs, it would be...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve. The product is not very cheap, and a reduction in costs...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Liberty Mutual Insurance, 4Cite Marketing, BrandVerity, DNA Plc, Sirocco Systems, Gainsight, Blue 449
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
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: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.