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Iqbal Hossain Raju - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Software Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Stable product with good analytics features
Pros and Cons
  • "The product's most important feature is unloading data to S3."
  • "The product's performance could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Snowflake is good for analytical purposes when you have a lot of historical or sales data that you need to release and use for different types of analysis, such as tracking sales and measuring the performance of your sales team and product.

What is most valuable?

The product's most important feature is unloading data to S3. It provides a single syntax query to analyze data directly from a database to an S3 bucket.

What needs improvement?

The product's performance could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Snowflake for a couple of months. We are using the latest version.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not need to scale our Snowflake environment beyond what we needed. We have a fixed amount of traffic from a fixed number of clients. We know the load we need to handle, and based on that, our subscription is made.

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

Snowflake is cost-effective. The pricing is better than Firebolt. Firebolt is better when there is idle time. If we run Snowflake all the time, the cost will be higher.

What other advice do I have?

We are working on two solutions for Snowflake, one for the cloud and one for on-premises. It has good documentation. If someone goes through it, they will quickly understand how it works. However, Firebolt's documentation is more comprehensive. If I need faster results, I'll prefer the Firebolt; if I need performance, I'll use Snowflake.

Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2087382 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Data Architecture and Management at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
SQL-driven and suitable for massive compute, but has REST API limitations and doesn't support extensive writebacks
Pros and Cons
  • "It's user-friendly. It's SQL-driven. The fact that business can also go to this application and query because they know SQL is the biggest factor."
  • "Room for improvement would be writebacks. It doesn't support extensively writing back to the database, and it doesn't support web applications effectively. Ultimately, it's a database call, so if we are building web applications using Snowflake, it isn't that effective because there is some turnaround time from the database."

What is our primary use case?

We're using it more for data warehousing and distribution.

Snowflake is a SaaS platform, so I'm using whatever is the latest version.

How has it helped my organization?

It's definitely for compute. The best use case of Snowflake is massive compute. With the parallel reads that we can do from Snowflake, we can combine data from disparate sources, consolidate it, and provide it to end clients through custom stored procedures.

What is most valuable?

It's user-friendly. It's SQL-driven. The fact that business can also go to this application and query because they know SQL is the biggest factor. So, we can provide all the data, and the analysts, data scientists, and product strategists can go and analyze the data themselves.

What needs improvement?

Room for improvement would be writebacks. It doesn't support extensively writing back to the database, and it doesn't support web applications effectively. Ultimately, it's a database call, so if we are building web applications using Snowflake, it isn't that effective because there is some turnaround time from the database.

I'd like them to look into the limitations of REST API. Snowflake came up with this native API concept, but it has got a lot of limitations. I'd like to see it provide better service-based APIs so that it can provide data as a service.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used Snowflake for over three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is fine, but of late, I get loads of messages saying there's some sort of outage or some sort of issue in the application. I keep getting these notifications from Snowflake, which gives a false impression that something wrong is happening, and it might be underlying in the backend. It doesn't seem that stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is high. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of scalability.

At this time, we have no plans to increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is good.

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

Prior to Snowflake, it was a completely Greenfield requirement.

How was the initial setup?

It was very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

It required just two people. One from the Snowflake perspective, and one from my team members' perspective to get the configuration running. That's it.

What was our ROI?

We haven't yet seen a return on investment because some of the applications are yet to be fruitful and make revenue. We have used Snowflake for the past three years at this point, but we have not yet made great revenue.

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

It's expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Snowflake is very useful as a data lake and as a data warehouse. Also, it has a lot of features with respect to data science. We are not there yet, but if there are any specific use cases around compute, data distribution, and data sharing, then Snowflake is a tool to be considered.

I'd rate Snowflake a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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March 2025
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VipinGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Manager at Publicis Sapient
Real User
Standard and competitive pricing, excellent starting place, with straightforward in-house deployment
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the ability to work with a managed service on the cloud and that is easy to start with."
  • "From the documentation, the black box is not very descriptive. Snowflake does not reveal how exactly the data is processed or sourced."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is for building a database and data link.

What is most valuable?

I like the ability to work with a managed service on the cloud and that is easy to start with.

What needs improvement?

From the documentation, the black box is not very descriptive. Snowflake does not reveal how exactly the data is processed or sourced.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Snowflake for three years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is reliable and a standard product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good and we have around two hundred data sets currently operating.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. It is readily available and they are very responsive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

You can do the implementation in-house since it is a managed service and only takes a few hours.

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

The pricing is economical as compared to traditional solutions like Oracle and competitive pricing.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Snowflake a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Antonio Gouveia - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Analyst at Clarivate Analytics
Real User
Data storage and processing solution that facilitates the building of connectors between different data sources
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "This solution could be improved by offering machine learning apps."

What is our primary use case?

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. The ultimate goal is to provide reporting and analytics to all departments in the company.

What needs improvement?

This solution could be improved by offering machine learning apps. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used this solution for one year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This is a scalable solution. 

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

Before Snowflake, we used Azure.

What about the implementation team?

I worked with a Microsoft partner to set up the entire thing. This took three months. 

What was our ROI?

We have not yet experienced ROI. 

What other advice do I have?

Overall, this is a helpful tool with a friendly interface. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Biraja Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Principal Consultant at Genpact - Headstrong
MSP
Excellent support, good data loading speed, and built-in data security and compliance features
Pros and Cons
  • "The speed of data loading and being able to quickly create the environment are most valuable."
  • "If they could bring in some tools for data integration, it would be really great."

What is our primary use case?

We are silver or gold partners. The main use case is that we are building a data lake. We are creating a couple of downstream applications as well that will be used by data scientists. So, we will have a single data lake that will be used across the organization by different business domain users. The data is multi-source. We have data from SAP, JDE, and some Excel files.

What is most valuable?

The speed of data loading and being able to quickly create the environment are most valuable. 

For data, it provides built-in security and compliance with different standards, such as SOC 2, ISO, etc. So, we don't have to do a separate audit for compliance.

What needs improvement?

There are some gray areas. For example, there is no clarity on where the data sits exactly. That is their proprietary information, and they are not sharing those details. 

Its price should be improved. On the cost-side, it is more expensive than others.

If they could bring in some tools for data integration, it would be really great.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for almost two and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty stable. Its stability is excellent.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. As of now, there are 500 users, but slowly, we are planning to roll out to multiple regions. It is currently in Europe, and we will be rolling it out to the APAC and USA regions. By the year-end, there will be more than 1,000 users.

How are customer service and support?

They're perfect. They're excellent. It could be because we are partners.

How was the initial setup?

It is straightforward. It is not that complex.

What about the implementation team?

Our own team deploys it for customers, but the initial configuration is done only by the Snowflake team because that is their area. 

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

I have worked with multiple clouds, and cost-wise, it is a bit costlier than others, such as Redshift. Its price should be reduced.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1553778 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Stable and scalable, enables us to share the data, and addresses the challenges of traditional data warehouses
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business."
  • "They need to incorporate some basic OLAP capabilities in the backend or at the database level. Currently, it is purely a database. They call it purely a data warehouse for the cloud. Currently, just like any database, we have to calculate all the KPIs in the front-end tools. The same KPIs again need to be calculated in Snowflake. It would be very helpful if they can include some OLAP features. This will bring efficiency because we will be able to create the KPIs within Snowflake itself and then publish them to multiple front-end tools. We won't have to recreate the same in each project. There should be the ability to automate raised queries, which is currently not possible. There should also be something for Exception Aggregation and things like that."

What is our primary use case?

We are completely migrating to Snowflake, and we are in transition. It is primarily to combine all our data repositories into a single place. We have SAP BW and SAP HANA, and some of our business units have their own databases. We chose Snowflake to consolidate all of our data into a single place and then build enterprise data. We are then going to provide the data for our businesses in shared databases, on which they would do reporting. They will also have the ability to bring in their own data, which is currently not possible. They will also be able to do advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI in Snowflake, which is not fully possible on our current platforms. It will be used for all the operational reporting, such as sales, supply chain, appraising, and merchandising. We just started to do reporting related to sales and supply chain inventory.

We have its latest version. It is currently deployed on Amazon AWS, but we are moving to Google.

How has it helped my organization?

There are so many features that Snowflake offers to address the challenges that people have been facing in the traditional data warehouses for a long time. It allows us to have a single repository for all the data. Currently, we have data repositories all over the place, and we want to bring everyone onto one platform so that it can be utilized across the organization. Currently, we need database administrators and SAP administrators to manage multiple databases and platforms. With Snowflake, we don't need any admin, and there is zero maintenance. All we need is a platform architect who can just manage the Snowflake platform to create databases and security roles, and then you can share the data. By integrating everything into a single Snowflake platform, we have lowered the total cost of ownership quite a bit.

What is most valuable?

The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. 

Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities.

There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business.

What needs improvement?

They need to incorporate some basic OLAP capabilities in the backend or at the database level. Currently, it is purely a database. They call it purely a data warehouse for the cloud. Currently, just like any database, we have to calculate all the KPIs in the front-end tools. The same KPIs again need to be calculated in Snowflake. It would be very helpful if they can include some OLAP features. This will bring efficiency because we will be able to create the KPIs within Snowflake itself and then publish them to multiple front-end tools. We won't have to recreate the same in each project. 

There should be the ability to automate raised queries, which is currently not possible. There should also be something for Exception Aggregation and things like that.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is all cloud. It is really stable. We haven't seen any problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We can scale up or down based on our needs. We don't have tons and tons of data, but based on the quality feedback from our vendors, it can handle large volumes and has the competency. With the dynamic scale-up feature, we are confident that it is going to meet all our requirements.

Currently, our number of users is very limited because we have just started the migration. We don't have many users on the platform. All of our focus is on Snowflake because we're moving to Snowflake, and its usage will increase in the future.

How are customer service and technical support?

I do not directly interact with the support, but I believe our platform architect reached out, and he got a response.

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

We had SAP BW and SAP HANA as our main data platforms. We are slowly decommissioning SAP BW and SAP HANA and completely migrating to Snowflake. We wanted to have a single repository for all the data. The cost was also a factor.

How was the initial setup?

It is straightforward. To expose the data in the cloud, we had to go through our info security and legal, so that's the part that took time. After that is done, the process for setting up the platform, getting signed up with the initial free credits, and signing up the licensing for the credits was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We are working with a system integrator or vendor for this project. Our strategy is to work with an experienced vendor for the first project, and after that, we would be able to drive things forward.

Our experience with them is good. They're building the architecture of Snowflake. They have experience, and we have our own thoughts. We are working together and making sure that the architecture is for the long-term and not just for one project. Whenever we see that their focus is limited to the project, we are asking them questions to make sure that they are making the right decision.

In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require any maintenance, but you do require architects. We have three architects. One architect is responsible for the platform and takes care of creating security rules, grants, and users. We also have an integration architect who is responsible for data acquisition, ETL, and stuff like that. We have a data architect who is responsible for the overall data architecture in terms of what layers we need to establish and how do we model the data and publish that for consumption.

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

There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only pay for what you use. 

What other advice do I have?

The key part is skill set because Snowflake is all SQL-driven data warehousing. Internally, we have some SAP BW development resources, and they need to learn and move on to understanding SQL-based coding and custom data warehousing concepts.

I would rate Snowflake a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public 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
DBA Individual Contributor at Aristeia Capital
Real User
Good performance, straightforward to set up, and there is flexibility in pricing
Pros and Cons
  • "It's ultra-fast at handling queries, which is what we find very convenient."
  • "Snowflake has support for stored procedures, but it is not that powerful."

What is our primary use case?

Snowflake is used for very large data, such as in the case where tables might contain 600 to 700 million records.

What is most valuable?

It's ultra-fast at handling queries, which is what we find very convenient.

The pricing and licensing model is good.

What needs improvement?

Snowflake has support for stored procedures, but it is not that powerful. They have a lot of limitations. For example, it is really basic and there are limitations on subqueries.

The functions are not very good. Improving this would help to make sure data manipulation much easier. Right now, the inbuilt stored procedures and functions are all Java-based.

For how long have I used the solution?

I Have been using SnowFlake for about five months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have approximately 10 people in the organization who are using Snowflake.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is very good.

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

We use Snowflake in conjunction with Matillion, which is another AWS-based ETL tool. It is being used as a bridge between our on-premises data and Snowflake. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply log in and start using it.

When it comes to deployment, you can choose between the AWS and Azure cloud. We chose AWS.

What about the implementation team?

It is easy to create an instance and you can do it yourself if you have an AWS account. Snowflake will give you the connection ID and other relevant details.

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

The pricing is flexible in that, for example, if I run a query and it is slow then I can increase the processing power while it is still running, and they charge more for the time. The cost is on a per-query basis.

If you're running with a base processor, called a warehouse, the query might cost 1.0 cents. But, if my query is slow and I want to increase the speed, the next level adds a little more cost to that.

On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Recently, we have been doing a review of Redshift. However, we finally decided to go with Snowflake.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is considering Snowflake is that it is a really good product, especially if you are having issues with Big Data. It is not good for a typical OLTP environment, such as a small table.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public 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
Architect at Sony Corporation of America
Real User
Stable with good technical support, but the solution is expensive on longrun
Pros and Cons
  • "As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."
  • "There are some stored procedures that we've had trouble with. The solution also needs to fine-tune the connectors to be able to connect into the system source."

What is our primary use case?

Our aim was to migrate everything from on-premise, so we just migrated as it is and then we had issues. Some use cases that were running on-premises were not installed. We just went through each case and then finalized the issues with some of the packages that were not working or some users that were not getting what they were expecting. We did deep analysis on each and every case and then looked for options in Snowflake and are now working with the team to move everything over to Snowflake

What is most valuable?

The data warehouse is one of the great concepts of Snowflake. The coding plans are also a great feature. You can switch out the values or sizes. 

What needs improvement?

It would be helpful if implementation could be handled more on the user-side. We need to train the users on best practices and how to use the solution properly. It's a cost issue. If they don't run it properly then it'll end up costing more money.

There are some stored procedures that we've had trouble with. The solution also needs to fine-tune the connectors to be able to connect into the system source.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. We had only one failure, but that was because of AWS issues. Beyond that, I haven't seen anything else. From the Snowflake side, within 10 minutes they reported the AWS issue. It was under two hours of downtime because of the quick response.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As long as you don't need to worry about storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes. We've migrated about 400-450 dealers onto the solution so far. We do intend to expand usage so there will be more users and more data. The drawbacks we've had with on-premises was space being a constraint and the user code having limitations.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer support is good. There is always someone who's going to respond. They will let you know what can be done and what is possible.

How was the initial setup?

We did some testing and some comparisons, but it's all set up now and running fine. The deployment took about three months. Since we didn't want to disrupt the on-premises, or overload the system, we did most of the migrations on the weekend.

For maintenance, in the beginning, until you are through with training and performance tuning, you will need more people. You might need to start with seven or so, and then, for ongoing work, probably one or two people can manage it. 

What about the implementation team?

We had a Snowflake consultant on-site that assisted us with the implementation.

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

It's an expensive solution. We can't predict exactly how much until we've streamlined everything and the user requirements have been completed, but normally they charge on the storage, which depends upon the average storage amount used for the month.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at IBM because it also has on-premise solutions. We also looked at Azure as well as AWS.

What other advice do I have?

Because most of the issues you come across can be dealt with on the user's sites, it's important to educate the users and understand their requirements.

The best advice I can give is to understand the product and to try to stick to what is required. From the business side, you need to monitor usage and monitor the space because of on-premises constraints. If it gets filled up then you will have to react. However, this solution is very scalable. 

I would rate this solution between seven and eight out of ten. The solution still has some constraints that need to be addressed.

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: March 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Snowflake Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.