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Databricks vs Snowflake Analytics 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
6.6
Organizations experience mixed returns from Databricks, with benefits from cost savings and efficiency, but challenges in initial migration.
Sentiment score
6.4
Snowflake Analytics boosts ROI up to 50% by optimizing costs, improving performance, and enabling simultaneous team collaboration.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks customer service is generally effective with prompt responses, though some report issues mainly with third-party support channels.
Sentiment score
6.9
Snowflake Analytics' support receives mixed reviews; many praise responsiveness, while others face delays and struggle accessing direct help.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is praised for efficient scalability and cloud compatibility, allowing easy resource adjustment across diverse projects and industries.
Sentiment score
8.0
Snowflake Analytics excels in scalability, auto-scaling CPU/GPU resources efficiently, benefiting businesses with its adaptive cloud-based architecture.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
Storage is unlimited because they use S3 if it is AWS, so storage has no limit.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Databricks is stable and efficient for large data, with minor issues during updates and occasional connectivity challenges.
Sentiment score
8.5
Snowflake Analytics is highly rated for stability, offering reliable performance and minimal outages thanks to cloud-backed robustness.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks.
 

Room For Improvement

Databricks users desire improved UI, enhanced data visualization, better integration, clearer error messages, robust support, and comprehensive documentation.
Snowflake Analytics requires better orchestration, integration, performance, machine learning support, user interface, cost transparency, and AI-driven analytics capabilities.
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
If I could right-click to copy absolute paths or to read files directly into a data frame, it would standardize and simplify the process.
AIML-based SQL prompt and query generation could be an area for enhancement.
Navigating the user console can be challenging, particularly when looking for details like the account ID.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks pricing depends on usage, with flexibility in licensing, and can vary in competitiveness compared to other solutions.
Snowflake Analytics uses a flexible, consumption-based pricing model, balancing costs with usability for business analytics and streaming workloads.
Snowflake charges per query, which amounts to a very minor cost, such as $0.015 per query.
Snowflake is better and cheaper than Redshift and other cloud warehousing systems.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks provides a unified platform for data engineering, machine learning, seamless cloud integration, and robust data management capabilities.
Snowflake Analytics offers scalable, flexible, and secure data integration with standout features for large datasets and AI capabilities across major cloud platforms.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
Developers can share their notebooks. Git and Azure DevOps integration on the Databricks side is also very helpful.
Running a considerable query on Microsoft SQL Server may take up to thirty minutes or an hour, while Snowflake executes the same query in less than three minutes.
It is a data offering where I can see data lineage, data governance, and data security.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Snowflake Analytics
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Web Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Databricks is 8.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
KamleshPant - PeerSpot reviewer
Data ecosystem thrives with advanced governance and streaming capabilities
It is a data offering where I can see data lineage, data governance, and data security. Snowflake has a streaming capability to work with real-time streaming data and delta tables. Additionally, task management, job scheduling, and connecting multiple data sources unify my data across internal and external sources. The system ecosystem for analytics is enhanced, and AI capabilities are incorporated.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Retailer
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake Analytics?
Snowflake is better and cheaper than Redshift and other cloud warehousing systems. It's economical.
What needs improvement with Snowflake Analytics?
Most features are already available. Perhaps AIML integration might be further needed, or Snowflake is already implementing it. AIML-based SQL prompt and query generation could be an area for enhan...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Lionsgate, Adobe, Sony, Capital One, Akamai, Deliveroo, Snagajob, Logitech, University of Notre Dame, Runkeeper
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Snowflake Analytics and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,849 professionals have used our research since 2012.