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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
20th
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
105
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Analytics Platform System is 2.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 9.3%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake9.3%
Microsoft Analytics Platform System2.2%
Other88.5%
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 most valuable part of the product is that it is a system, with different tools for different services for different kinds of scenarios, making it a very rich, integrated, technology-rich platform whose total integration with the rest of Microsoft products creates flexibility and compatibility and makes the tool a very useful one."
"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"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."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"This is a well-integrated solution and that integration empowers results."
"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."
"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"A user-friendly and reliable solution."
"Its performance is a big advantage, and when you run a query, its performance is very good."
"Once you have finished your designs they can be easily imported to Snowflake and the information can be readily accessed without an IT expert."
"As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."
"I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
"The platform's most valuable features include its ability to effectively summarize and manage large datasets, allowing multiple teams to analyze and generate insights."
"Stability-wise, this product is good."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"However, centralized EDW tends to be extremely expensive and very inflexible."
"In general, I am not really very satisfied with the tutorials that are out there."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System could have better support."
"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."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"I think the biggest problem with the product is that it does a data ingest model, which is very expensive."
"The data sharing capabilities across business units within the organization should be better."
"It needs a bit more rigor and governance, which is something you don't get with newer tools. This makes it less enterprise scalable."
"If there is a need for scaling the setup is not so good."
"I would like to see more transparency in data processing, ATLs, and compute areas - which should give more comfort to the end-users."
"The pricing of the solution should be much easier to calculate or find by yourself."
"Although the UI has improved lately, they still need to work on their UiPath, the workspace area."
"Every product has room for improvement, although in this case, it needs some broadening of the functionality."
"Snowflake has to improve their spatial parts since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"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 initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"The pricing for Snowflake is competitive."
"On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month."
"There is a licensing for this solution and we purchased an enterprise license. Overall the solution is cost-effective."
"The solution is costly, making it unsuitable for midsize organizations due to its price."
"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."
"Comparing Snowflake to on-prem options such as Oracle or SAP, it seemed more cost-effective."
"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."
"I have worked with multiple clouds, and cost-wise, it is a bit costlier than others, such as Redshift. Its price should be reduced."
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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 Enterprise60
 

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: May 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.