BigQuery vs Snowflake comparison

Google and Snowflake Computing are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Google is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Google holds a 7.0% mindshare in CDW, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 17.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Snowflake Computing users who would recommend it.

BigQuery

Read 41 BigQuery reviews

2,974 Views
2,587 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 101 Snowflake reviews

10,613 Views
7,747 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

BigQuery

Snowflake

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2025

Snowflake and BigQuery are major competitors in the data warehousing category. Snowflake has the upper hand in scalability and flexibility, while BigQuery offers cost-efficient performance.

Features: Snowflake enables dynamic scaling without downtime and supports various file formats, making it suitable for high-performance tasks. Snowpipe enhances its real-time data processing ability, while the zero-copy cloning feature facilitates easy creation of test environments. BigQuery stands out with its serverless architecture and rapid query performance, making it ideal for handling large datasets. Its machine learning integration and flexible pricing models appeal to businesses seeking cost efficiencies.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could improve its geo-spatial query capabilities and provide clearer pricing structures for better cost management. Enhancing its user interface and developing embedded analytics would also be beneficial. BigQuery requires more flexibility in data caching for external tables and better special character recognition. It would also benefit from improvements in machine learning features and local data residency options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake offers deployment on public, private, and hybrid clouds, which BigQuery does not. Snowflake users generally appreciate its rapid support, although SLAs are absent. BigQuery's customer service is perceived to be slower, with reported delays, but both platforms have robust documentation and community support to aid user experience.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake's flexible credit-based model allows users to pay for actual usage, though its pricing transparency is often questioned, leading to potential consumer confusion. BigQuery's pricing model, based on data processing and storage, is considered cost-effective for extensive queries. Both platforms have demonstrated positive ROI potential with proper optimization and usage.

To learn more, read our detailed BigQuery vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. Snowflake

July 2025

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Helped 865,164 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

7.4

Organizations experienced improved performance and cost savings after adopting BigQuery, achieving a 75% cost reduction and efficient data management.

Sentiment score

6.8

Snowflake users praise its scalability and ease of use, though financial gains vary and may require longer usage periods.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.2

Customers generally find BigQuery support helpful, but integration challenges and resource availability need improvement despite positive responsiveness.

Sentiment score

5.7

Snowflake support is responsive and helpful, with high user satisfaction, despite occasional slower response times and ticketing reliance.

rating the customer support at ten points out of ten

Jitesh Rathod

Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch

I have been self-taught and I have been able to handle all my problems alone.

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

The technical support from Snowflake is very good, nice, and efficient.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.0

BigQuery offers impressive scalability and efficiency for large data, but may be costly and present integration challenges for smaller users.

Sentiment score

7.8

Snowflake offers excellent scalability, adaptable to varying needs, with minimal challenges but requires cost and resource management attention.

It is a 10 out of 10 in terms of scalability.

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

The scalability is definitely good because we are migrating to the cloud since the computers on the premises or the big database we need are no longer enough.

reviewer2641596

Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.5

BigQuery is highly stable and reliable for cloud data analytics, efficiently handling large volumes with minor issues.

Sentiment score

8.2

Snowflake offers high stability and reliability with minimal downtime, rapid recovery, and seamless failover across platforms, especially AWS.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Room For Improvement

BigQuery users face challenges with migration, integration, cost, scaling, user interfaces, and call for better machine learning capabilities.

Snowflake needs interface improvements, better ETL, machine learning features, pricing clarity, advanced tools, and enhanced documentation and security.

BigQuery is already integrating Gemini AI into the data extraction process directly in order to reduce costs.

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming.

Jitesh Rathod

Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch

In general, if I know SQL and start playing around, it will start making sense.

reviewer2641596

Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

Enhancements in user experience for data observability and quality checks would be beneficial, as these tasks currently require SQL coding, which might be challenging for some users.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Setup Cost

BigQuery offers flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing based on data usage, with low storage costs and adaptable enterprise plans.

Snowflake offers competitive pay-as-you-go pricing with some concerns over transparency, predictability, and potential cost escalation.

Being able to optimize the queries to data is critical. Otherwise, you could spend a fortune.

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

The price is perceived as expensive, rated at eight out of ten in terms of costliness.

Jitesh Rathod

Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Valuable Features

BigQuery excels in scalability, performance, cost-efficiency, and integration with Google products, making it ideal for complex data analyses.

Snowflake excels in scalability, efficiency, ease of use, AI/ML capabilities, security, and seamless third-party integration, enhancing user experience.

It is really fast because it can process millions of rows in just a matter of one or two seconds.

reviewer2641596

Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data.

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

BigQuery processes a substantial amount of data, whether in gigabytes or terabytes, swiftly producing desired data within one or two minutes.

Jitesh Rathod

Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch

For more quotes and insights, download the BigQuery report

One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

The scalability options it provides, addressing issues without tying workloads into one virtual machine, enhance functionality.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at ATOS

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Categories and Ranking

BigQuery

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Snowflake

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of BigQuery is 7.0%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 17.8%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Handles large data sets efficiently and offers flexible data management capabilities

The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data. It is kind of difficult to explain, but structured data and the ability to handle large data sets are key features. The data integration capabilities in BigQuery were, in fact, an issue at the beginning. There are two types of integrations. As long as integration is within Google, it is pretty simple. When you start to try to connect external clients to that data, it becomes more complex. It is not related to BigQuery, it is related to Google security model, which is not easy to manage. I would not call it an integration issue of BigQuery, I would call it an integration issue of Google security model.

Read full review

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

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.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigQuery?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?

I believe the cost of BigQuery is competitive versus the alternatives in the market, but it can become expensive if the tool is not used properly. It is on a per-consumption basis, the billing, so ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with BigQuery?

I have not used BigQuery for AI and machine learning projects myself. I know how to use it, and I can see where it would be useful, but so far, in my projects, I have not included a BigQuery compon...

See all answers

What do you like most about Snowflake?

The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

It is complicated to understand how requests impact warehouse size. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Databricks ( /products/databricks-reviews ), Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Pricing is quite high for Snowflake Data Cloud, which is an area that could be improved. Snowflake Data Cloud is still beneficial to use, but only if you can afford it. It can be cost-effective if ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs BigQuery

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) vs BigQuery

Compared 14% of the time

Teradata vs BigQuery

Compared 13% of the time

AWS Lake Formation vs BigQuery

Compared 7% of the time

Apache Hadoop vs BigQuery

Compared 7% of the time

More BigQuery Competitors

Azure Data Factory vs Snowflake

Compared 13% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 8% of the time

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery

August 2025

Download BigQuery product report

Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

July 2025

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

Overview

BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse that solves this problem by enabling super-fast SQL queries using the processing power of Google's infrastructure. ... You can control access to both the project and your data based on your business needs, such as giving others the ability to view or query your data.

Google

Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.

Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.

What are Snowflake's Key Features?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to handle growing data volumes.
Seamless Integration: Works with a wide range of platforms.
Consumption-Based Costs: Pay only for what you use.
Time Travel: Access historical data effortlessly.
Data Sharing: Secure and efficient sharing of datasets.
Time Zone Conversion: Built-in feature for global operations.
Security: Robust measures to protect sensitive information.
Compute and Storage Separation: Independent scaling for optimal performance.

What Benefits Should You Look for?

Cost Efficiency: Optimized pricing models for minimal waste.
Enhanced Performance: Fast queries and processing times.
Flexibility: Handles both structured and semi-structured data.
Analytics Capabilities: Supports advanced data analysis and reporting.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.

Snowflake Computing

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops

Buyer's Guide

BigQuery vs. Snowflake

July 2025

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