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AWS Snowball vs Palantir Foundry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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 Data Migration Appliances
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (12th)
Palantir Foundry
Ranking in Data Migration Appliances
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (11th), IT Operations Analytics (10th), Supply Chain Analytics (1st), Cloud Data Integration (11th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (1st), Data and Analytics Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Migration Appliances category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 34.4%, down from 41.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palantir Foundry is 5.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Migration Appliances Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Snowball34.4%
Palantir Foundry5.8%
Other59.800000000000004%
Data Migration Appliances
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
BA
Associate Vice President at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Unified data workflows have empowered collaborative analytics and streamlined AI development
Regarding points for improvement for Palantir Foundry, I see that they are improving day by day. In the last one to two years, I have seen many improvements compared to the two years that I have worked on Palantir Foundry. There are many things that come up, but a few things are not intuitive enough. Now that we are in this AI phase, Palantir Foundry has created some wrappers around the models, allowing us to create using a no-code application, chatbots, and LLM functions. The problem is that interaction with outside applications can be difficult with the current setup that Palantir Foundry has. There are ways to do that, but it is not that intuitive, which is what I feel.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS offers managed services which save time and reduce administrative overhead."
"If you have a large amount of data, it's a perfect way to move it to the cloud."
"The solution is elastic."
"The flexibility of AWS Snowball is valuable. Its security allows for the ability to move and secure data without concern if the device is lost and the option to trace it back to AWS data centers."
"AWS helps save time and costs, being a managed cloud provider with evolving services."
"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."
"The support team's awesome, and they've always been very responsive."
"Great features available in one tool."
"It's scalable."
"The AI engine that comes with Palantir Foundry is quite interesting."
"It is easy to map out a workflow and run trigger-based scripts without having to deploy to another server."
"Based on my huge experience with Palantir Foundry, I find that starting from the data connection to the end user application, there is a tool for everyone."
"Palantir Foundry is a robust platform that has really strong plugin connectors and provides features for real-time integration."
"I like the data onboarding to Palantir Foundry and ETL creation."
"The interface is really user-friendly."
 

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."
"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but if you're a professional, it's easy to understand."
"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."
"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."
"AWS support could be more responsive."
"It does have room for improvement. The ability to better ingest some of the big data."
"The costs of services the customer needs also matter, such as storage requirements and whether storage is rational."
"It requires a lot of manual work and is very time-consuming to get to a functional point."
"The solution's visualization and analysis could be improved."
"The solution’s data security could be improved."
"The data lineage was challenging. It's hard to track data from the sources as it moves through stages. Informatica EDC can easily capture and report it because it talks to the metadata. This is generated across those various staging points."
"It would be helpful to build applications based on Azure functions or web apps in Palantir Foundry."
"The solution could use more online documentation for new users."
"Compared to other hyperscalers, Palantir Foundry is complex and not so user-intuitive."
"The startup pricing is high, causing concern despite being cost-effective in terms of total cost of ownership."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."
"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 expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"Palantir Foundry is an expensive solution."
"Palantir Foundry has different pricing models that can be negotiated."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
 

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. ...
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 ...
What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?
It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...
What needs improvement with Palantir Foundry?
Apart from the pricing and offline availability issues, improvements are needed in Palantir Foundry's costing factor. Cost-wise, it is not open for everybody, and they are not exposing anything out...
What is your primary use case for Palantir Foundry?
One of the leading European manufacturing plants uses Palantir Foundry for manufacturing interior parts of various car brands such as Honda, Hyundai, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. This involves hig...
What advice do you have for others considering Palantir Foundry?
Palantir Foundry is an excellent product for data engineering. On a scale of one to 10, I would rate Palantir Foundry a 9.
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess
Merck KGaA, Airbus, Ferrari,United States Intelligence Community, United States Department of Defense
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Snowball vs. Palantir Foundry and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.