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Snowflake vs VAST Data comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Snowflake
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (3rd)
VAST Data
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (21st), File and Object Storage (9th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Snowflake and VAST Data aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Snowflake is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 22.0%, down 22.3% compared to last year.
VAST Data, on the other hand, focuses on NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays, holds 5.9% mindshare, down 6.9% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that is really striking is the ability to translate the SQL workloads into the NoSQL version that can be used by Snowflake."
"Once you have finished your designs they can be easily imported to Snowflake and the information can be readily accessed without an IT expert."
"The solution is very stable."
"I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
"We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing."
"The overall ecosystem was easy to manage. Given that we weren't a very highly technical group, it was preferable to other things we looked at because it could do all of the cloud tunings. It can tune your data warehouse to an appropriate size for controlled billing, resume and sleep functions, and all such things. It was much more simple than doing native Azure or AWS development. It was stable, and their support was also perfect. It was also very easy to deploy. It was one of those rare times where they did exactly what they said they could do."
"My company wanted to have all our data in one single place and this what we use Snowflake for. Snowflake also allows us to build connectors to different data sources."
"It requires no maintenance on our part. They handle all that. The speed is phenomenal. The pricing isn't really anything more than what you would be paying for a SQL server license or another tool to execute the same thing. We have zero maintenance on our side to do anything and the speed at which it performs queries and loads the data is amazing. It handles unstructured data extremely well, too. So, if the data is in a JSON array or an XML, it handles that super well."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
 

Cons

"Sometimes it can be tricky to manage multiple environments if you're purely using Snowflake as your scripting and pipeline environment."
"The cost is a bit high."
"Snowflake needs transparency over costs and pricing."
"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."
"Snowflake has support for stored procedures, but it is not that powerful."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced."
"They have a new console, but I couldn't figure out anything in the new console. So, if I shift to the old console, I can figure out where to create the database schema and other things, but I have no idea where to go in the new console. That's one thing they can improve. I don't know why they created a new console to confuse. The old, classic console is much better."
"I have heard people having difficulty with the machine learning model, so there may be room for improvement."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month."
"Pricing is based on usage. It is the most expensive of our data tools."
"The solution is costly, making it unsuitable for midsize organizations due to its price."
"You need to be aware of the bloating costs. It is easy to use, but if you don't use it wisely, then your monthly bill can bloat a lot. You need to be a bit aware of its consumption cost."
"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."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"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 acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
38%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about VAST Data?
The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?
Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.
What needs improvement with VAST Data?
The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Snowflake Computing
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: February 2025.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.