AWS Snowball vs Densify comparison

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80% willing to recommend

AWS Snowball

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Densify and AWS Snowball operate within the cloud optimization and data transfer sectors, respectively. Densify tends to have the upper hand in resource management due to its cost optimization and dynamic allocation expertise, while AWS Snowball excels in secure data transfer.

Features: Densify focuses on predictive analytics to optimize cloud resources, offers integration with various platforms, and delivers smart resource scaling. AWS Snowball provides rapid and secure solutions for transferring large-scale data, incorporating advanced encryption and physical security measures, making it crucial for enterprises requiring high-volume data migration.

Room for Improvement: Densify could enhance its reporting capabilities and increase ease of use for new users. It might also benefit from expanding its AI functionalities for more precise predictions. AWS Snowball might improve by offering more flexible storage capacities and reducing deployment time. Enhancements in real-time tracking could also add value.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Snowball requires a hands-on deployment process as it involves shipping physical devices; however, it provides comprehensive online resources for assistance. Densify integrates seamlessly into existing environments due to its software-centric design, simplifying deployment. Densify focuses on cloud optimization support, whereas AWS Snowball's support is centered on data transfer facilitation.

Pricing and ROI: Densify's pricing reflects its capability to deliver ongoing financial savings through continuous cloud resource optimization, offering significant ROI by optimizing spending. AWS Snowball provides a cost-effective means for large data transfers in comparison to traditional network options, showing quick ROI from reduced migration time and expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Snowball vs. Densify Report (Updated: June 2025).

AWS Snowball vs. Densify

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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

AWS Snowball

Ranking in Cloud Migration

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Migration Appliances (1st)

Densify

Ranking in Cloud Migration

16th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (35th), Virtualization Management Tools (11th), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Cloud Cost Management (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Densify is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis

Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden

Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes

I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.

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Amit Kantia

Infrastructure capacity & demand manager at Kyndryl

Its most valuable feature is the ability to capture attributes in the console, but it is not a stable solution

I recommend others to use Densify. They can not only use it for reporting but for automation as well. They can implement the policies on the console easily during the build-out procedure. Stability is the primary concern to us as it is causing lots of problems. We can only make significant decisions if Densify allows us, and it takes lots of time. Thus, I rate the tool as a six out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I like best are the tool's high capacity, scalability, end-to-end encryption for data security, ease of use, durability, and cost-effectiveness. It's particularly cost-effective for transferring large amounts of data compared to high-speed internet transfers."

"The solution is elastic."

"AWS offers managed services which save time and reduce administrative overhead."

"You are able to scale the solution vertically. It's very scalable."

"The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility."

"The support team's awesome, and they've always been very responsive."

"I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in."

"AWS helps save time and costs, being a managed cloud provider with evolving services."

More AWS Snowball pros

"The solution's tech support is excellent."

"The tool will come back and tell us that we can operate with 1,000 minutes as an example, save 90% on the contractual rate and not run into any issues."

"Densify's ability to aggregate multiple on-premise vCenters and multiple cloud accounts, gives it a level of visibility not found in many places."

"The ability to increase server density inside of my environment, which has helped me drive reduction in costs."

"The Control Console provides a very easy to read dashboard of "too little/just right/too much" resources both for current data and on a historical or predictive basis."

"One would be the automatic rebalancing of the environment. That was one feature which helped. With that, we could improve our efficiency of our VMware infrastructure."

"The Densify Control Console, and Environment Status."

"The Control Console is an incredible way to give a quick view of current capacity utilization allowing technical people to drill down quickly and allowing business/management people to get a quick overview of the environment."

More Densify pros

Cons

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."

"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."

"The costs of services the customer needs also matter, such as storage requirements and whether storage is rational."

"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."

"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but If you're a professional, it's easy to understand."

"There's always room for improvement as you use the service more and gain expertise. Some challenges I've faced include the time factor (data transfer can be time-consuming), data validation after the transfer, risks associated with physical handling and shipping of the device, and ensuring data security during transit."

"It's not cheap."

"If AWS Snowball is intercepted, there is a potential risk of unauthorized access to the data."

More AWS Snowball cons

"In terms of integration, the tool has great data. However, it's not always meaningful because the true business attributes of how most Fortune 500 companies operate are not maintaining in one tool, they're in a school of many tools."

"Unfortunately the tools and mechanisms which really came to maturity in the cloud, and were not mainstream on-premise, are still not implemented."

"The solution's stability is the primary concern for me."

"Some parts of the interface are rather complex and require a bit of time to navigate, but this has never stopped us as a Densify advisor is readily available to help with our "how to" queries."

"Normalization of CPU utilization is required. At present, the data is available based on entitlement level."

"It seems that the mechanism for integration is, it goes so far but I think there could be some standard integration to normal remedy service now etc. I think that should be out of the box."

"A closer integration to the service management processes."

"Initially we talked about some custom reporting, wherein our customer expected certain reports on a few areas, like how the storage is allocated, how the network performance is doing, and how the network utilization is happening for a virtual machine."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."

"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."

"Densify has licensing setup so you can collect data without licensing. It gives you the ability to collect on everything, then choose later what you would like to license."

"There was some sticker shock, as this is not just another software product to spit out graphs."

"Cost is always involved, but then I feel that this solution is better than other products that we have."

"Setup cost is negligible, as it scales fairly well."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?

Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...

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What do you like most about AWS Snowball?

The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?

Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...

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Comparisons

Google Transfer Appliance vs AWS Snowball

Compared 49% of the time

Microsoft Azure Data Box vs AWS Snowball

Compared 42% of the time

IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration vs AWS Snowball

Compared 5% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs AWS Snowball

Compared 3% of the time

AWS Snowball Edge vs AWS Snowball

Compared 1% of the time

More AWS Snowball Competitors

Cloudability vs Densify

Compared 36% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Densify

Compared 32% of the time

Intel Granulate vs Densify

Compared 18% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Densify

Compared 14% of the time

More Densify Competitors

Product Reports

AWS Snowball

Download AWS Snowball product report

Download Densify product report

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball

No data available

Overview

Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses devices designed to be secure to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS Cloud. Using Snowball addresses common challenges with large-scale data transfers including high network costs, long transfer times, and security concerns. Customers today use Snowball to migrate analytics data, genomics data, video libraries, image repositories, backups, and to archive part of data center shutdowns, tape replacement or application migration projects. Transferring data with Snowball is simple, fast, more secure, and can be as little as one-fifth the cost of transferring data via high-speed Internet.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Densify is a hybrid cloud and container resource management platform that makes workloads self-aware of their precise resource requirements and automates the resource management and selection process. This solution helps you control your cloud spend and also helps your apps perform and scale better. Densify enables you to match your cloud requirements with the optimal cloud supply. Additionally, Densify is the only technology that leverages patented, predictive machine learning-powered analytics to perform advanced modeling of workload patterns, and provide precise optimization directives. It is ideal for cloud engineers, container platform owners, and IT finance.

Densify works by:

Establishing application demand patterns that are based on business cycles, seasonality, peaks, valleys, and other variables.
Building normalized models of cloud supply and ingesting the entire cloud catalog and latest technologies.
Considering numerous factors, such as performance benchmarks, cost, technical rules, tags, and policies. The solution uses business and functional tags, operational realities, and granular policy control.

Densify Features

Densify has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Integration with management and provisioning systems
Machine learning-based analytics
Automated resource optimization
App owner collaboration
Tailored efficiency reports
Observability
Controllability
Capacity optimization
Policy driven, automated governance
VM placement
Predictive analytics

Densify Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Densify. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Automated resource management: Densify provides your organization with automated resource management at scale, with elasticity at an affordable low cost.

Full stack visibility: The Densify solution offers full stack visibility with improved efficiency by determining container size and node resources.

Financial visibility: In addition to full stack visibility, one of Densify’s other advantages is that it offers full financial visibility and cost intelligence for both reporting as well as chargebacks.

Resizing and rebalancing: Densify analyzes your private cloud infrastructure, providing resizing and rebalancing recommendations.

Helps you choose the right host environment: Densify automatically routes workloads to the best hosting environment based on detailed workload requirements. For workloads not requiring immediate placement, it reserves capacity to ensure it is available when required.

A true SaaS implementation: Because Densify is a true SaaS implementation, there is no software to maintain or to learn.

Better for IT finance: The solution is good for IT finance because it collects and analyzes your detailed billing data, giving you visibility into your spending, what services you’re buying, and how to better manage your costs. In addition, it can also generate reports that cover your spending and your utilization of reservations and reserved instances and savings plans.

Reduce risk and costs: Machine learning-based analytics help your organization optimize consumption to eliminate waste and overprovisioning while ensuring performance.

Cost-efficient: The Densify solution is cost-efficient, helping you drastically reduce per-processor software license costs by placing workloads intelligently.

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess

AIG, Bank of America, Cigna, Citi

AWS Snowball vs. Densify