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Microsoft Analytics Platform System 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

Microsoft Analytics Platfor...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
19th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snowflake
Ranking in Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (2nd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Analytics Platform System is 2.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 9.5%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake9.5%
Microsoft Analytics Platform System2.3%
Other88.2%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

MahmoudMohamed1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at Tatweer Educational Technologies Company - TETCO
Offers smooth data integration between systems, but requires better real-time analytics capabilities
We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services. This lets us continue using private databases without paying additional licensing fees. Additionally, the license includes Analytics services and Power BI, which work on-premises, unlike most other technologies that require cloud solutions.
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

"The Cube Solution is quite different when compared to the rest of the competition and has unique functionality for advanced analytics."
"I think Microsoft Stack offers the end-to-end solution I need."
"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"The result is a highly flexible, affordable, and scalable platform that makes large-scale Hub and Spoke EDW architectures a practical reality."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System's most valuable feature is its ecosystems and seamless integration with other Microsoft reporting platforms and databases."
"We help customers in many ways from customized analysis for detection of anomalies in tax, operations, customer relationship, and marketing campaigns, and we also use mining and ML to help them discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"It is closely integrated with other products in the MS portfolio."
"We were able to implement the entire data eco-system in less than five months, from data integration, data warehousing, ELT, producing fact and dimensional tables, and finally reports."
"Everything is automatic, and I don't have to do any maintenance."
"The cloning functionality has been the most valuable. I have been able to completely copy databases. The data sharing concept is also useful. As compared to, for example, SAP, Snowflake is a lot more open, and it allows a lot more connectivity for other providers than an SAP ecosystem."
"I have found the solution's most valuable features to be storage, flexibility, ease of use, and security."
"Snowflake's most valuable features are data enrichment and flattening."
"Snowflake has evolved significantly over time. Initially, they started with scalability, but more recently, they have introduced streaming capabilities, real-time and dynamic tables, along with various connectors."
"We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing."
"The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user."
 

Cons

"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"We need better real-time analytics capabilities. It's a bit challenging for us."
"The flexibility of this solution needs to be improved because you cannot make changes at every one of the different steps."
"​Hybrid environments are complex to manage."
"However, centralized EDW tends to be extremely expensive and very inflexible."
"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"Machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities need to be more friendly for beginning users."
"The data science functionality could be improved in terms of the machine learning process."
"For the Snowflake database, there should be some third-party features for the ETL."
"They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did."
"The solution needs to offer more functionality related to machine learning and artificial intelligence."
"There are some challenges with loading unstructured data and integrating some message queues or brokers. In one project, we had a problem connecting to one of the message queues and we had to take a different route altogether on Microsoft Azure."
"The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it."
"The complexity of the initial setup of Snowflake depends on the use case. However, it does tend to get complex because we have a lot of semi-structured data which we need to handle in Snowflake."
"The data sharing capabilities across business units within the organization should be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently paying $200,000 a year for all the different parts of the suite during an ingest model Microsoft now charges us $700,000 a year."
"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"I have worked with multiple clouds, and cost-wise, it is a bit costlier than others, such as Redshift. Its price should be reduced."
"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."
"Pricing is based on usage. It is the most expensive of our data tools."
"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."
"Oracle is less expensive than Snowflake."
"We used Snowflake to see if it is cheaper than using BigQuery. It was just to maintain the cost or the KPI regarding the cost of connectivity by users. Snowflake wasn't cheaper than BigQuery, and its affordability was the main issue."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
For pricing, setup cost, and licensing, everything is managed smoothly. Regarding licensing, it is inexpensive. The setup cost is low, mainly due to AWS Marketplace; we only need to pay for serverl...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Snowflake is already quite improved, but they have recently introduced AI features. AI integration would be beneficial for direct data capturing from systems such as SAP and Salesforce to Snowflake...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake?
Snowflake is primarily used to handle the data warehousing part, for creating data modeling, and also keeping the raw data and creating reporting data so that it is further used for data analytics....
 

Also Known As

Microsoft APS, MS Analytics Platform System
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Transport for London, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Prometeia, Tangerine, SSM Health Care, Service Corporation International
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
891,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.