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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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
16th
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
7.2
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud is 0.5%, up from 0.3% 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

FM
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…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The features I found most valuable with this solution are sharing options and built-in time zone conversion."
"The most valuable feature is the snapshot database. In one second, you can just take a snapshot of the database for test purposes."
"The ETL and data ingestion capabilities are better in this solution as compared to SQL Server. SQL Server doesn't do much data ingestion, but Snowflake can do it quite conveniently."
"Snowflake is an enormously useful platform. The Snowpipe feature is valuable because it allows us to load terabytes and petabytes of data into the data mart at a very low cost."
"The solution speeds up the process of onboarding."
"The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business."
"Data Science capabilities are the most valuable feature."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of use, the rapidness, how quickly the solution can be implemented, and of course that it's been very easy to move from the on-premise world to the Cloud world because Snowflake is based on SQL also."
 

Cons

"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."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"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."
"The cost efficiency and monitoring of this solution could be improved. It's easy to spend a lot on Snowflake and it does offer monitoring tools but they're pretty basic."
"It's not that flexible when compared to Oracle."
"The documentation could improve. They should provide architecture information."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to credit performance. The other thing I'd like to be improved is the warehouse facility."
"They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did."
"We would like to have an on-premises deployment option that has the same features, including scalability."
"I don't think that the AI tools in Snowflake are good."
"Maybe there could be some more connectors to other systems, but this is what they are constantly developing anyway."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"Snowflake goes by credits. For a financial institution where you have 5,000 employees, monthly costs may run up to maybe $5,000 to $6,000. This is actually based on the usage. It is mostly the compute cost. Your computing cost is the variable that is actually based on your usage. It is pay-per-use. In a pay-per-use case, you won't be spending more than $6,000 to $7,000 a month. It is not more than that for a small or medium enterprise, and it may come down to $100K per year. Storage is very standard, which is $23 a terabyte. It is not much for any enterprise. If you have even 20 terabytes, you are not spending more than $400 per month, which may turn out to be $2,000 to $3,000 per annum."
"Oracle is less expensive than Snowflake."
"It is pay-as-you-go. Its cost is in the medium range."
"Pricing is approximately $US 50 per DB. Terabyte is around $US 50 per month."
"Snowflake has consumption-based costs; users only pay for storage and computing."
"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."
"Part of the problem with the pricing is that it is very difficult for businesses to get an idea of how expensive it might be until they actually start using Snowflake."
"The solution is expensive but worth the cost because the quality is there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
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

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?
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side, rated as eight out of ten. If there were ways to reduce costs, it would be a positive improvement.
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 would be appreciated.
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Snowflake Computing
 

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: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.