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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
104
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 Cube Solution is quite different when compared to the rest of the competition and has unique functionality for advanced analytics."
"It is closely integrated with other products in the MS portfolio."
"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"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."
"We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services."
"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 solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"I think Microsoft Stack offers the end-to-end solution I need."
"I like the ability to work with a managed service on the cloud and that is easy to start with."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"The most valuable feature has been the Snowflake data sharing and dynamic data masking."
"I think this solution provides the best potential of any data warehousing product where they choose to use Snowflake instead of Oracle or DBII."
"There are a lot of good features, it's a very sophisticated, cutting edge technology and is super easy to use."
"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."
"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."
"Its performance is a big advantage, and when you run a query, its performance is very good."
 

Cons

"Functionality needs to be more up-to-date with competing products."
"The flexibility of this solution needs to be improved because you cannot make changes at every one of the different steps."
"The flexibility of this solution needs to be improved because you cannot make changes at every one of the different steps."
"Machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities need to be more friendly for beginning users."
"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"However, centralized EDW tends to be extremely expensive and very inflexible."
"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."
"Hybrid environments are complex to manage."
"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."
"The stability has been phenomenal up until lately. We haven't had any issues until the last month."
"I don't think that the AI tools in Snowflake are good."
"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 solution should offer an on-premises version also."
"Support needs improvement, as it can take several days before you get some initial support."
"We would like to be able to do modeling with Snowflake. It should support statistical modeling."
"We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"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 pricing part is based on the computing and storage. The costs are different and then there are services costs as well."
"Comparing Snowflake to on-prem options such as Oracle or SAP, it seemed more cost-effective."
"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."
"Currently, we have a trial account, so we don't need a license. After our project starts, we would need a permanent license."
"There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only pay for what you use."
"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."
"The price for the solution's license depends on the use cases."
"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
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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.
892,776 professionals have used our research since 2012.