Azure Data Factory vs Snowflake comparison

Microsoft and Snowflake Computing are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Microsoft holds a 5.8% mindshare in CDW, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 16.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Snowflake Computing users who would recommend it.

Azure Data Factory

Read 93 Azure Data Factory reviews

11,197 Views
1,903 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 103 Snowflake reviews

8,769 Views
5,875 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Azure Data Factory

Snowflake

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 26, 2025

Snowflake and Azure Data Factory are key players in the cloud data solutions space, with Snowflake gaining a competitive edge through its flexibility, scalability, and advanced data warehousing capabilities.

Features: Snowflake is renowned for its scalability, performance, and flexibility in handling large datasets and multi-format accessibility. Its architecture supports separation of storage and compute resources, providing efficiency and ease of data management. Snowflake's Snowpipe feature simplifies data ingestion. On the other hand, Azure Data Factory stands out with its extensive data orchestration capabilities and seamless connectivity to numerous data sources, which integrates well within the Azure ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could enhance its geospatial query functionalities, integration tools, and pricing transparency. Users would also benefit from improved built-in analytics and on-premises deployment options. Azure Data Factory users have expressed the need for better third-party system integration, more competitive pricing models, and clearer documentation for processing large data volumes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake offers significant cloud deployment flexibility across private and public environments, simplifying scalability and management. Its customer service is generally responsive but lacks SLAs. Azure Data Factory is well-integrated within Azure services, aiding in deployment within mixed cloud infrastructures. Customer support is helpful, though response times can vary.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake’s pricing model is pay-per-use and flexible yet can be challenging to estimate. It is competitive in the cloud market and often yields a positive ROI for large-scale operations. Azure Data Factory’s cost-effectiveness aligns with market standards but could result in unpredictable expenses without careful management. It is noted for lower initial costs, contributing to value addition.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,927 peers since 2012

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

6.4

Azure Data Factory offers significant ROI, efficiency, and cost savings, with users highlighting benefits in data integration and migration.

Sentiment score

6.2

Users find Snowflake challenging for ROI calculation, but it offers productivity gains, cost reduction, and valuable insights.

Our stakeholders and clients have expressed satisfaction with Azure Data Factory's efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Deena Thayalan

Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Azure Data Factory support is generally satisfactory, with responsive assistance and strong community resources enhancing user satisfaction.

Sentiment score

5.7

Snowflake customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though improvements in timeliness and service-level agreements are suggested.

The technical support from Microsoft is rated an eight out of ten.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics

The technical support is responsive and helpful

Joy Maitra

Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited

The technical support for Azure Data Factory is generally acceptable.

Rama Subba Reddy Thavva

Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

I am satisfied with the work of technical support from Snowflake; they are responsive and helpful.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

The technical support from Snowflake is very good, nice, and efficient.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

Azure Data Factory offers scalable cloud-based solutions for diverse operations, despite some third-party integration limitations and use case challenges.

Sentiment score

7.7

Snowflake offers seamless, flexible scalability for storage and computing, supporting diverse business needs with automatic cloud-based infrastructure scaling.

Azure Data Factory is highly scalable.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Recently, Snowflake has introduced streaming capabilities, real-time and dynamic tables, along with various connectors.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.8

Azure Data Factory is considered highly stable and reliable, though minor issues can occur, mostly in development environments.

Sentiment score

8.2

Snowflake offers reliable, fast performance and high stability, with users praising its dependability and minimal disruptions.

The solution has a high level of stability, roughly a nine out of ten.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Room For Improvement

Azure Data Factory needs better integration, UI, documentation, data handling, pricing transparency, real-time processing, connectivity, and scheduling.

Snowflake needs better UI, analytics, integration, documentation, governance, AI features, and cost management solutions to address user concerns.

Incorporating more dedicated API sources to specific services like HubSpot CRM or Salesforce would be beneficial.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics

Sometimes, the compute fails to process data if there is a heavy load suddenly, and it doesn't scale up automatically.

Joy Maitra

Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited

There is a problem with the integration with third-party solutions, particularly with SAP.

Rama Subba Reddy Thavva

Solution Architect at Mercedes-Benz AG

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

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.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

What things you are going with to ask the support and how we manage the relationship matters a lot.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Setup Cost

Azure Data Factory's pricing is pay-as-you-go, with costs based on usage, offering competitive and cost-effective solutions.

Snowflake's pricing model offers affordability and flexibility but challenges with cost predictability and potential high processing fees.

The pricing is cost-effective.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics

It is considered cost-effective.

Joy Maitra

Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Valuable Features

Azure Data Factory offers scalable ETL processes with easy integration, user-friendly interface, and strong orchestration, security, and automation features.

Snowflake is scalable and flexible with features like zero-copy cloning, time travel, and integrated security, enhancing efficiency and accessibility.

It connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier.

Joy Maitra

Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited

The platform excels in handling major datasets, particularly when working with Power BI for reporting purposes.

Deena Thayalan

Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies

Regarding the integration feature in Azure Data Factory, the integration part is excellent; we have major source connectors, so we can integrate the data from different data sources and also perform basic transformation while transforming, which is a great feature in Azure Data Factory.

KandaswamyMuthukrishnan

Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Data Factory report

We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

I have used the Snowflake Zero-Copy Cloning feature in the past while prototyping data in lower environments. This feature is helpful as it saves a lot of time during the data replication process.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Categories and Ranking

Azure Data Factory

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (3rd)

Snowflake

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (5th), AI Software Development (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 5.8%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 16.1%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Snowflake	16.1%
Azure Data Factory	5.8%
Other	78.1%

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

KandaswamyMuthukrishnan

Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Integrates diverse data sources and streamlines ETL processes effectively

Regarding potential areas of improvement for Azure Data Factory, there is a need for better data transformation, especially since many people are now depending on DataBricks more for connectivity and data integration. Azure Data Factory should consider how to enhance integration or filtering for more transformations, such as integrating with Spark clusters. I am satisfied with Azure Data Factory so far, but I suggest integrating some AI functionality to analyze data during the transition itself, providing insights such as null records, common records, and duplicates without running a separate pipeline or job. The monitoring tools in Azure Data Factory are helpful for optimizing data pipelines; while the current feature is adequate, they can improve by creating a live dashboard to see the online process, including how much percentage has been completed, which will be very helpful for people who are monitoring the pipeline.

Read full review

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

Have prioritized security while managing multi-agent data migration and cloud adoption

We utilize Time Travel with Snowflake because this is a very useful feature. Everyone finds it crucial because in conventional data platforms, it's very difficult to handle these kinds of things. This feature is essential, though I don't have the use cases currently; it is just there for implementation. Regarding Snowflake's automated scaling and suspension features, this auto-scaling is very significant. We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	57

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?

AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.

See all answers

How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?

Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...

See all answers

How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?

Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...

See all answers

What do you like most about Snowflake?

The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

It is complicated to understand how requests impact warehouse size. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Databricks ( /products/databricks-reviews ), Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Snowflake is currently stable, but it can be improved further. They have a couple of information schemas that can track account usage. If more connectors were brought in and more visibility feature...

See all answers

Comparisons

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 5% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 5% of the time

FME vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 4% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Data Factory Competitors

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Data Factory

January 2026

Download Azure Data Factory product report

Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

December 2025

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

Overview

Azure Data Factory efficiently manages and integrates data from various sources, enabling seamless movement and transformation across platforms. Its valuable features include seamless integration with Azure services, handling large data volumes, flexible transformation, user-friendly interface, extensive connectors, and scalability. Users have experienced improved team performance, workflow simplification, enhanced collaboration, streamlined processes, and boosted productivity.

Microsoft

Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.

Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.

What are Snowflake's Key Features?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to handle growing data volumes.
Seamless Integration: Works with a wide range of platforms.
Consumption-Based Costs: Pay only for what you use.
Time Travel: Access historical data effortlessly.
Data Sharing: Secure and efficient sharing of datasets.
Time Zone Conversion: Built-in feature for global operations.
Security: Robust measures to protect sensitive information.
Compute and Storage Separation: Independent scaling for optimal performance.

What Benefits Should You Look for?

Cost Efficiency: Optimized pricing models for minimal waste.
Enhanced Performance: Fast queries and processing times.
Flexibility: Handles both structured and semi-structured data.
Analytics Capabilities: Supports advanced data analysis and reporting.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.

Snowflake Computing

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops

Buyer's Guide

Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake

December 2025

Free Report: Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Azure Data Factory vs. Snowflake report.

See our list of best Cloud Data Warehouse vendors.

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.