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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snowflake
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (2nd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 15.9%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Snowflake15.9%
IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud1.8%
Other82.3%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
SunilPatil1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The adaptation to development languages is most valuable. Our developers can SQL code or something else. It has been convenient in that regard."
"The most valuable feature has been the Snowflake data sharing and dynamic data masking."
"Its speed and performance were the most valuable. Easy configuration of Snowflake in any cloud was also a benefit."
"It has great flexibility whenever we are loading data and performs ELT (extract, load, transform) techniques instead of ETL."
"The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power."
"The features I found most valuable with this solution are sharing options and built-in time zone conversion."
"For us, the virtual warehousing is likely the most valuable aspect."
"The solution is easy to use."
 

Cons

"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"I would like to see more transparency in data processing, ATLs, and compute areas - which should give more comfort to the end users."
"I am still in the learning stage. It has good security, but it can always be more secure."
"These aren't as crucial, but there are common errors sometimes where the database is down, or a table is nullified and a new table is added and you are not given access to that. With those errors, you don't have permissions."
"It would benefit from an administration that allows you to be aware of your credit consumption once you have the service so that you may be sure how many credits you are consuming when you use the platform and to make sure that you are making the most efficient use of these resources. In other words, to improve their interface so that you may monitor the consumption of your credits on Cloud."
"They need to improve its ETL functionality so that Snowflake becomes an ETL product. Snowpipe can do some pipelines and data ingestion, but as compare to Talend, these functionalities are limited. The ETL feature is not good enough. Therefore, Snowflake can only be used as a database. You can't use it as an ETL tool, which is a limitation. We have spoken to the vendor, and they said they are working on it, but I'm not sure when they will bring it to production."
"There are a lot of features that they need to come up with. A lot of functions are missing in Snowflake, so we have to find a workaround for those. For example, OUTER APPLY is a basic function in SQL Server, but it is not there in Snowflake. So, you have to write complex code for it."
"The data sharing capabilities across business units within the organization should be better."
"The addition of more AI capabilities in Snowflake would help us more."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"They give a different price for every single company. I don't know if I negotiated that well, but we got the enterprise tier for $3 a credit, and the other two were a dollar-ninety a credit. I suspect we don't have almost zero compute usage, but I know that our annual contract packages are below all of their minimums."
"The product's price range falls between average to a bit expensive range. I think the tool is worth the money if you use it properly."
"On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month."
"Pricing can be confusing for customers."
"The whole licensing system is based on credit points. You can also make a license agreement with the company so that you buy credit points and then you use them. What you do not use in one year can be carried over to the next year."
"We're based on credits. So, we're paying four and a half dollars of credit. There are no additional costs. I would rate it a two out of five in terms of pricing."
"It is hard to say because we're usually engaged in the transition as opposed to the long term. Their storage costs are easily within pennies of what AWS S3 would normally cost. Most of the clients I've been working with are in the financial sector, and they're relatively small. I would put them in an SMB connection. The first thing we have to bring up for people is that they're going to build this. They shouldn't store their data in S3. They should pipeline directly into Snowflake and use it on their storage. So, the cost is a big issue because these are small to medium size companies, and that is the biggest thing we had to price point for them."
"Snowflake is cost-effective. However, the cost can depend on how it's being used and how efficiently the code is written. If engineers don't write efficient code and usage is billed based on processing, it can become costly. If they write optimal code and choose the best solution, it can reduce costs in comparison to other options, such as Oracle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
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?
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.