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Snowflake vs Vertica comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
Ranking in Data Warehouse
1st
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
AI Synthetic Data (3rd)
Vertica
Ranking in Data Warehouse
5th
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Snowflake is 15.2%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 8.6%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

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.
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Working with Parquet files is support out of the box and it makes large dataset processing much easier."
"The integration capabilities of the product are good and you get what you pay for when it comes to Snowflake."
"The querying speed is fast."
"I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
"The Mbps they have established is quite a bit faster than any other data warehouse."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the ease of use, the rapidness, how quickly the solution can be implemented, and of course that it's been very easy to move from the on-premise world to the Cloud world because Snowflake is based on SQL also."
"It is a very well-distributed system. It has different data engines for different applications. Many applications can use different computational engines at the same time. In terms of data processing, the feeling was similar to working with a relational database but in a scalable way."
"The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user."
"It maximizes cloud economics with Eon Mode by scaling cluster size to meet variable workload demands."
"Initiate on one node, and the RPM propagates automatically to all other nodes. ​"
"I like the projection feature, which increases query performance."
"The most valuable feature of Vertica is the unmatchable database performance."
"Speed and resiliency are probably the best parts of this product."
"Integrated R and geospatial functions are helping us improve efficiency and explore new revenue streams. ​"
"The solution has great capabilities. The tool that instructs the internal database forward is easy to use and is very powerful."
"It has improved my organization's functionality and performance."
 

Cons

"To ensure the proper functioning of Snowflake as an MDS, it relies heavily on other partner tools."
"The UI could improve because sometimes in the security query the UI freezes. We then have to close the window and restart."
"Sometimes it can be tricky to manage multiple environments if you're purely using Snowflake as your scripting and pipeline environment."
"We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level."
"There are three things that came to my notice. I am not very sure whether they have already done it. The first one is very specific to the virtual data warehouse. Snowflake might want to offer industry-specific models for the data warehouse. Snowflake is a very strong product with credit. For a typical retail industry, such as the pharma industry, if it can get into the functional space as well, it will be a big shot in their arm. The second thing is related to the migration from other data warehouses to Snowflake. They can make the migration a little bit more seamless and easy. It should be compatible, well-structured, and well-governed. Many enterprises have huge impetus and urgency to move to Snowflake from their existing data warehouse, so, naturally, this is an area that is critical. The third thing is related to the capability of dealing with relational and dimensional structures. It is not that friendly with relational structures. Snowflake is more friendly with the dimensional structure or the data masks, which is characteristic of a Kimball model. It is very difficult to be savvy and friendly with both structures because these structures are different and address different kinds of needs. One is manipulation-heavy, and the other one is read-heavy or analysis-heavy. One is for heavy or frequent changes and amendments, and the other one is for frequent reads. One is flat, and the other one is distributed. There are fundamental differences between these two structures. If I were to consider Snowflake as a silver bullet, it should be equally savvy on both ends, which I don't think is the case. Maybe the product has grown and scaled up from where it was."
"These aren't as crucial, but there are common errors sometimes where the database is down, or a table is nullified and a new table is added and you are not given access to that. With those errors, you don't have permissions."
"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."
"The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template."
"I believe the installation process could be streamlined."
"I would personally like to see extended developer tooling suited to Vertica – think published PowerDesigner SQL dialect support."
"They could improve the integration and some of the features in the cloud version."
"Whatever's out, the core is not always as great as the engine, especially their first version."
"In my opinion, Vertica's documentation could be improved. Currently, there is not enough documentation available to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platform."
"Vertica seems to scale well, except for one use case where you are on a multi-node cluster. For example, if you had a nine-node cluster, one node goes down, then the eight nodes don't scale, because the absence of the node is very apparent, which is a problem. If you have nine nodes or multiple nodes, the whole idea is that if one of those nodes goes down, then you should not see an impact on the system if you have enough capacity. Even though we have enough capacity, you can still see the impact of the one node going down."
"The documentation of Vertica is an area with shortcomings where improvements are required."
"It's hard to make it slow for a small data volume. For large volumes, it's hard to make it work. It's also hard to make it faster, and to make it scale."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is expensive but worth the cost because the quality is there."
"The pricing for Snowflake is competitive."
"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."
"The pricing is economical as compared to traditional solutions like Oracle and competitive pricing."
"Pricing is based on usage. It is the most expensive of our data tools."
"We use Snowflake pretty heavily. We pay a significant amount of money for the tool. I'd say we pay $300k to $400K every year."
"It's expensive."
"It's an expensive product"
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
"It is fast to purchase through the AWS Marketplace."
"I think it's starting to get a little expensive. Open source products are starting to get more robust, so I think that's something that they need to start looking at in terms of licensing."
"The solution is free and we pay for the storage."
"Read the fine print carefully."
"I am aware that we have licensed it, but I have no knowledge of its cost."
"The pricing depends on the license model because there are several. It depends on the client, but it's cheaper than other solutions. I think it's cheap for all the functionality and robustness. It's not very expensive to deploy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Snowflake Computing
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.