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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 (10th)
 

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

"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"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."
"This is a well-integrated solution and that integration empowers results."
"We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services."
"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"By combining both Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) and unstructured Hadoop analytical capabilities in a single, easy-to-manage EDW appliance, Microsoft APS is well positioned to help organizations use information to enhance their competitive position."
"It is closely integrated with other products in the MS portfolio."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"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."
"It is a cloud solution with many useful features, has data science capability, and can transform and prepare data for a data science project with scalability."
"Snowflake is user-friendly and reliable in creating the data warehouse and carrying out data modeling."
"The platform's most valuable features include its ability to effectively summarize and manage large datasets, allowing multiple teams to analyze and generate insights."
"Time travel is one feature that really helps us out."
"It is a very good platform; it can handle structured and semi-structured data, be used for your data warehouse or data lake, load and deal with any data that you have, extract data from an on-premises database or a website and make it available in the cloud, and there is no need for the DBA to manage or do the day-to-day DBA tasks, which is one of the greatest things about it."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"Snowflake is a database, and it is very good and useful. The most interesting part is that memory management is very good in Snowflake. For a business intelligence project, SQL Server is taking a lot of time for reporting services. There are a lot of calculations, and the reporting time is shown as two minutes, whereas Snowflake is taking just two seconds for the same reporting services."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Analytics Platform System could have better support."
"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product overall as a five. This is probably because there is still a lot of room for improvement, features that other products have that are missing, and a lot of open-source technology nowadays that are very good and people can use instead."
"In general, I am not really very satisfied with the tutorials that are out there."
"Functionality needs to be more up-to-date with competing products."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"Hybrid environments are complex to manage."
"I think the biggest problem with the product is that it does a data ingest model, which is very expensive."
"They need to incorporate some basic OLAP capabilities in the backend or at the database level."
"For the Snowflake database, there should be some third-party features for the ETL."
"The solution could use a little bit more UI."
"The documentation could improve."
"The data sharing capabilities across business units within the organization should be better."
"Snowflake has to improve their spatial components since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries."
"I think that Snowflake could improve its user interface. The current one is not interactive."
"I don't think that the AI tools in Snowflake are good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"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."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"The pricing part is based on the computing and storage. The costs are different and then there are services costs as well."
"It is pay-as-you-go. Its cost is in the medium range."
"Snowflake is a cost-effective solution."
"Snowflake licensing is more flexible and it is cheaper than other solutions. I can use it for only 10 days for MVP, or three years, and for flexible models. I can scale up, or down, and the pricing is based on the volume and duration. There are many licensing permutation combinations available."
"Currently, we have a trial account, so we don't need a license. After our project starts, we would need a permanent license."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

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.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.