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reviewer2179353 - PeerSpot reviewer
Soullution Architech at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Has good stability and processes the data efficiently
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's customer service is good."
  • "Its transaction application needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for data storage and integration purposes.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable feature is path application.

What needs improvement?

They should improve the performance of the solution's transaction application.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

Buyer's Guide
Snowflake
November 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 20-30 solution users in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's customer service is good.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup was very straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price for the solution's license depends on the use cases.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend the solution to others and rate it as a nine. It efficiently processes the data and gets reports as well.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director - Data Analytics at Sunera Technologies
MSP
Great performance, good technical and community support, and resizable according to your needs
Pros and Cons
  • "Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake."
  • "There are a lot of features that they need to come up with. A lot of functions are missing in Snowflake, so we have to find a workaround for those. For example, OUTER APPLY is a basic function in SQL Server, but it is not there in Snowflake. So, you have to write complex code for it."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for a migration from on-prem to cloud.

What is most valuable?

Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake. 

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of features that they need to come up with. A lot of functions are missing in Snowflake, so we have to find a workaround for those. For example, OUTER APPLY is a basic function in SQL Server, but it is not there in Snowflake. So, you have to write complex code for it.

For how long have I used the solution?

It has been almost two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

A great feature of Snowflake is that you can resize your warehouse according to your needs. Whenever we are expecting a huge amount of data, we can scale it up. It does that automatically as well, which is the best thing. We don't have to worry about that, and there is also no need for a database administrator. We do not need any DBA for this.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have contacted them only for the basic setup. Most of the time, we were able to get the right solution at the right time. We got great support from them.

They're doing a pretty great job in providing all the information. They have a great community and great coverage, and there is a lot of information available over the internet.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup was quite straightforward. I did not find any complexity with that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am not much aware of the price, but based on what I have analyzed so far, its cost is reasonable as compared to on-prem data warehouse solutions. It provides a great deal for production.

What other advice do I have?

One of the concerns related to Snowflake is about longevity in terms of how long can we use Snowflake. It is a big question in the market. It is a new baby in the market, and we don't know for how long will it trend. It has some big competitors. Firebolt claims to be the number one in this area. They have much better features than Snowflake. I would not say that Snowflake is the best and in the right position at this point in time. Snowflake is good for the next year, but Firebolt is going to bring it down.

I would rate Snowflake an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Snowflake
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Snowflake. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1593564 - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager of Data Science at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Good data ingestion capability, scalable based on the requirement, and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The ETL and data ingestion capabilities are better in this solution as compared to SQL Server. SQL Server doesn't do much data ingestion, but Snowflake can do it quite conveniently."
  • "They need to improve its ETL functionality so that Snowflake becomes an ETL product. Snowpipe can do some pipelines and data ingestion, but as compare to Talend, these functionalities are limited. The ETL feature is not good enough. Therefore, Snowflake can only be used as a database. You can't use it as an ETL tool, which is a limitation. We have spoken to the vendor, and they said they are working on it, but I'm not sure when they will bring it to production."

What is most valuable?

The ETL and data ingestion capabilities are better in this solution as compared to SQL Server. SQL Server doesn't do much data ingestion, but Snowflake can do it quite conveniently.

What needs improvement?

They need to improve its ETL functionality so that Snowflake becomes an ETL product. Snowpipe can do some pipelines and data ingestion, but as compare to Talend, these functionalities are limited. The ETL feature is not good enough. Therefore, Snowflake can only be used as a database. You can't use it as an ETL tool, which is a limitation. We have spoken to the vendor, and they said they are working on it, but I'm not sure when they will bring it to production.

They should also make its initial setup easier. Its customization and configuration are not very straightforward.

Their technical support is awesome, but it is just too expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about two years. I am currently using its latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very simple to scale up and down depending on the project or situation, which is an advantage.

How are customer service and technical support?

They are fantastic but just too expensive. They charge hourly rates and are very expensive.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is not very straightforward. Its customization and configuration are not very straightforward. For two large data factories, the configuration is too complicated. They should work on it.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good solution. At the moment, I can't find another product that is better than Snowflake, but it needs better ETL functionality, easier configuration, and cheaper support. All products have got some limitation.

I would rate Snowflake an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Padmanesh NC - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Solution Architect - Spatial Data Specialist at SCIERA, INC
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
The distributed architecture of Snowflake has the capacity to process huge datasets faster and allows us to scale up and down according to our needs
Pros and Cons
  • "The distributed architecture of Snowflake has the capacity to process huge datasets faster and allows us to scale up and down according to our needs."
  • "Snowflake has to improve their spatial parts since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries."

How has it helped my organization?

We were using MySQL and MongoDB for our regular operations but when we grew, we were forced to handle a huge number of datasets. We could have petabytes of data in and out on a regular basis. We struggled a lot to complete the operations in a timely manner. With Amazon Redshift, we gained a lot in terms of timing, as well as project completion. Even-through we are happy with Redshift, in terms of pricing and availability of nodes, I am more comfortable with Snowflake. Some of the scoring mechanism really works well in the distributed architecture of Snowflake.

What is most valuable?

  • Scalability. This solution has the ability to load a huge number of datasets (I have experience with petabytes of data) and process them. Storage is not limited, and we can increase what we want.
  • Performance. The distributed architecture of Snowflake has the capacity to process huge datasets faster and allows us to scale up and down according to our needs.
  • Flexibility. This feature is helpful for the user to increase the node size and config depending on their need. There is no need to wait for hardware to be in place whenever we increase the dataset. Snowflake provides the option to increase the node or cluster size whenever required.
  • Multi-formatted accessibility. The Snowflake engine has the capability to read the following file formats: CSV, DELIMITER, FIXEDWIDTH, AVRO, JSON, BZIP2, GZIP, LZOP. The user can choose which format is best for their requirements.
  • Configuration. Even though its running in the AWS platform, it beats their platform product. I feel more flexible with this solution than I do with Redshift.
  • Snowpipe. Snowpipe is a better system to feed stream data to the Snowflake database.

What needs improvement?

Snowflake has to improve their spatial components since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No

How are customer service and technical support?

It's really good. I am happy with the product and the service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

With Amazon Redshift, we gained a lot in terms of timing as well as project completion. Even through we are happy with Redshift, in terms of pricing and availability of nodes, I am more comfortable with Snowflake.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Snowflake is very simple and straightforward. We do not need to read or understand any of the technical documentation. It is a plug-and-play service or platform.

What about the implementation team?

I have implemented this solution through an in-house team.

What was our ROI?

I can't directly convey ROI because we are not using only Snowflake. We are using multiple products to increase our revenue and decrease time consumption. This makes it difficult to calculate ROI.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have experience working in Hadoop & Redshift as well. When I compare the three (Snowflake, Hadoop, and Redshift), Snowflake is more user-friendly in terms of configuration and maintenance.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Enterprise architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Ease to use, highly secure, and flexible
Pros and Cons
  • "I have found the solution's most valuable features to be storage, flexibility, ease of use, and security."
  • "There is a need for improvements in the documentation, this would allow more people to switch over to this solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for data warehouses and data modeling.

What is most valuable?

I have found the solution's most valuable features to be storage, flexibility, ease of use, and security.

What needs improvement?

There is a need for improvements in the documentation, this would allow more people to switch over to this solution. I would like to see in the future a wizard for data modelization automation.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found the solution to be scalable. We have a few employees working on this solution in my organization.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is a SaaS, it can be installed and managed by your provider. The installation setup is not difficult in this case. However, the configuration took us a couple of days.

What about the implementation team?

We did the configuration of the solution ourselves. You need a data engineer and modeler for the movement of information into the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is a licensing for this solution and we purchased an enterprise license. Overall the solution is cost-effective.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate some other solutions previously, such as Snap Analytics. All the different solution have their pros and cons. However, many are moving to this solution because it is in the cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others and we are going to keep using the solution in the future.

I rate Snowflake an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1225515 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Data Analyst at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Feature-wise complete, good speed and performance, and easy to configure
Pros and Cons
  • "Its speed and performance were the most valuable. Easy configuration of Snowflake in any cloud was also a benefit."
  • "Its pricing or affordability is one of the big challenges. Pricing was the only thing that we didn't like about Snowflake. In terms of technical features, it is a complete solution."

What is our primary use case?

It was only a workshop with training to know the tool. We were just testing the technology, and it was just a demo of the tool. We wanted is to connect switches with IoT and use Snowflake as an engine to process all the big data. It was on top of AWS, but our infrastructure is on top of the Google Cloud Platform.

The intention was to see if we can process on the front-end that we have. We have a console that processes a big amount of data. Instead of using BigQuery, we used Snowflake to see if it is cheaper than using BigQuery, but Snowflake wasn't cost-effective. In the end, we didn't go for this solution. We just saw how it can be implemented, but we never bought anything.

How has it helped my organization?

We don't have a metric, but I would say that the processing time was a key benefit and value-add. It provided on-time processing.

What is most valuable?

Its speed and performance were the most valuable. Easy configuration of Snowflake in any cloud was also a benefit.

What needs improvement?

Its pricing or affordability is one of the big challenges. Pricing was the only thing that we didn't like about Snowflake. In terms of technical features, it is a complete solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is great. We have data processing of one terabyte per month.

How was the initial setup?

It was not complex. Our implementation strategy was to put Snowflake on top of Google Cloud solutions instead of BigQuery, but BigQuery was better in price. So, BigQuery won in this case instead of Snowflake.

What about the implementation team?

We got the guidance directly from Snowflake. They have a technical expert for Latin America.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We used Snowflake to see if it is cheaper than using BigQuery. It was just to maintain the cost or the KPI regarding the cost of connectivity by users. Snowflake wasn't cheaper than BigQuery, and its affordability was the main issue. 

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to consider Snowflake when you have more customers. I wouldn't consider Snowflake until I have sufficient customers. 

Whether we will consider Snowflake in the future depends on how BigQuery behaves. If the cost of BigQuery starts increasing and becomes similar to Snowflake, we're going to switch. If not, we're going to remain with BigQuery. 

We might also consider other similar solutions, such as Yellowbrick, or switch to another cloud solution, such as Azure or AWS, depending on the price. Right now, we are paying about $2,000 per month. Our goal is to have the total cost of everything to be around $3,000 per month. It is more or less our goal for KPI kind of thing.

I would rate Snowflake an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Data Architect - Europe at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Data sharing and data marketplace aspects are amazing, but it should support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services
Pros and Cons
  • "We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing."
  • "There is a scope for improvement. They don't currently support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services. It would be good if they can enhance their product to integrate with these services."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it as a data lake. We are using it as a data warehouse and a data mart. It is basically the entire BI and analytics platform.

I am using its latest version.

What is most valuable?

We find the data sharing and data marketplace aspects of Snowflake absolutely amazing.

What needs improvement?

There is a scope for improvement. They don't currently support integration with some of the Azure and AWS native services. It would be good if they can enhance their product to integrate with these services.

It would also be great if it can support stored procedures.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with it for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a seven out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
reviewer1467771 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology & Innovation at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Real User
Reasonably-priced, scalable, and the technical support is good
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user."
  • "Every product has room for improvement, although in this case, it needs some broadening of the functionality."

What is our primary use case?

We are a management consulting firm and do not use this product for ourselves. Rather, it is a service for our clients.

What is most valuable?

The overall package is quite nice, and there is not one specific feature that I have found more valuable than the others.

The vendor is quite willing to implement requests for development, in particular for larger clients. It is a nice company to work with.

What needs improvement?

Every product has room for improvement, although in this case, it needs some broadening of the functionality. They could become more complete.

Including more AI functionality would be nice. Microsoft does have more in this regard, although that also has to do with the size of the company.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Snowflake for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Snowflake is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is definitely a scalable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is pretty good, particularly if you are a more technical user. The people they have are quite technical, so compared to a lot of other companies where you first get somebody on the phone who has never seen the product, but he or she just works at the center and has to answer the first calls, if you connect with Snowflake, you immediately get somebody who is actually at the proper level.

It also means that if you have less experienced users, it's not that they find it difficult, but then they may get some questions to resolve the issue, which they don't really know the answer to. Sometimes, users may find themselves a bit lost because they don't know how to answer those questions. However, it's not in a negative way. It's more like you get a proper engineer to respond to your issues with Snowflake.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Snowflake is quite reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

Personally, if I have the choice, I would rather recommend Snowflake to my clients over a product from Microsoft, for example. They have some overlapping functionality, but they also have some separate stuff. Snowflake does not have the size to develop at that pace but personally, I find them a more sympathetic company than Microsoft.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.