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Snowflake vs Vertica 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
Ranking in Data Warehouse
1st
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
99
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

"I like the idea that you can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data."
"It helped us to build MVP (minimum viable product) for our idea of building a data warehouse model for small businesses."
"Very easy to use and easy to query."
"It is quite easy to manage."
"It is very fast and the performance is great."
"This is the advanced version of the cloud version, so it's really a flexible tool. If you have it implemented at home, you can access it from anywhere."
"The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power."
"The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user."
"Any novice user can tune vertical queries with minimal training (or no training at all)."
"For me, It's performance, scalability, low cost, and it's integrated into enterprise and big data environments."
"The Vertica architecture means it can process/ingest data in parallel to reporting and analyzing because of its in-memory Write-Optimized Storage sitting alongside the analytics optimized Read-Optimized Storage."
"The most valuable feature of Vertica is the unmatchable database performance."
"The performance is very good and the aggregate records are fast."
"The most valuable feature of Vertica is the ability to receive large aggregations at a very quick pace. The use case of subclusters is very good."
"The solution is quick, has good compression data, and is not expensive."
"Vertica uses advanced Azure technologies to compress raw data using indexing, allowing a large amount of data to be stored with minimal physical space. Advanced algorithms are employed in data compression."
 

Cons

"They should improve the reporting tools."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to credit performance. The other thing I'd like to be improved is the warehouse facility."
"For the Snowflake database, there should be some third-party features for the ETL. It would also be good to be able to use some kind of controls to get the data either from another database or a flat file. Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"It would benefit from an administration that allows you to be aware of your credit consumption once you have the service so that you may be sure how many credits you are consuming when you use the platform and to make sure that you are making the most efficient use of these resources. In other words, to improve their interface so that you may monitor the consumption of your credits on Cloud."
"Snowflake needs to improve its programming part. Though the tool has Snowpath, it doesn’t support all features like its competitor, Databricks. Snowflake doesn’t support external data ingestion capabilities. You need to have third-party tools for that. Also, the tool needs to incorporate data integration features in its future releases."
"They do have a native connector to connect with integration tools for loading data, but it would be much better to have the functionality built-in."
"Snowflake has support for stored procedures, but it is not that powerful."
"In a future release we would like to have a link which would allow us to connect to an external database and create certain views in your own database. This is because it is becoming hard for us to compare the data between multiple sources."
"Support is an area where it could get better."
"One feature, which has really benefited us, is the scalability offered by Vertica as it has enabled Pythian's clients to manage data with agility."
"Fact-to-fact joins on multi-billion record tables perform poorly."
"Vertica offers a platform-as-a-service version, but their software-as-a-service solution is only available on AWS. They need to get a SaaS version on Azure and GCP as fast as possible."
"In a future release, we would like to have artificial intelligence capabilities like neural networks. Customers are demanding this type of analytics."
"Whatever's out, the core is not always as great as the engine, especially their first version."
"Metadata for database files scale okay, but metadata related to tables/columns/sequences must be stored on all nodes."
"The geospatial functionality could be designed better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is costly, making it unsuitable for midsize organizations due to its price."
"I have not been billed yet, but it should be less. I'm still running the trial version, but it seems to be less than Databricks."
"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."
"There is a license needed to use this solution. There are a few licensing options available. They have a pay-as-you-go option, but it is recommended to pay upfront."
"It is hard to say because we're usually engaged in the transition as opposed to the long term. Their storage costs are easily within pennies of what AWS S3 would normally cost. Most of the clients I've been working with are in the financial sector, and they're relatively small. I would put them in an SMB connection. The first thing we have to bring up for people is that they're going to build this. They shouldn't store their data in S3. They should pipeline directly into Snowflake and use it on their storage. So, the cost is a big issue because these are small to medium size companies, and that is the biggest thing we had to price point for them."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price for the solution's license depends on the use cases."
"Vertica is an expensive tool."
"The solution is relatively cost-effective."
"Start with license per 1TB. Starting from hundreds of TB there is unlimited licensing to be considered. Move historical data to HDFS/S3 which are significantly cheaper or even free."
"It's free up to three nodes and 1TB, and then get in contact with their sales guys."
"From a cost perspective, the software is less than most of its competitors."
"The price could be cheaper and it is best to negotiate the price."
"The solution is free and we pay for the storage."
"Vertica has a perpetual license, but they are currently trying to convert all those licenses to subscription-based licenses on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.