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BigQuery vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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
4.9
BigQuery offers improved performance, cost savings, and intuitive features, with some users reporting up to 75% cost reductions.
Sentiment score
5.7
Companies appreciate Snowflake's scalability and security, reporting cost reduction and productivity gains, despite challenges in isolating ROI impact.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Customers find Google BigQuery support effective but sometimes limited, relying on documentation, forums, and expert assistance for issues.
Sentiment score
5.5
Snowflake's responsive, knowledgeable support and resources are valued, though time differences and complex queries can cause delays.
rating the customer support at ten points out of ten
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
I have been self-taught and I have been able to handle all my problems alone.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
I would rate their customer service pretty good on a scale of one to 10, as they gave me access to the platform on a grant.
Principal at Sgt Suds
We sought this documentation multiple times but faced difficulty in obtaining it.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
I am satisfied with the work of technical support from Snowflake; they are responsive and helpful.
Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
BigQuery offers excellent scalability and efficiency, supporting vast data seamlessly, though cost and integration challenges may arise.
Sentiment score
7.7
Snowflake offers seamless scalability and flexibility in managing large datasets efficiently, with some noting potential cost implications.
It is a 10 out of 10 in terms of scalability.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
We have not seen problems with scaling.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 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.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.
Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Recently, Snowflake has introduced streaming capabilities, real-time and dynamic tables, along with various connectors.
Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
BigQuery is stable and reliable, with efficient data handling, few bugs, and strong support, despite occasional slow queries.
Sentiment score
8.3
Snowflake is praised for its high stability and performance, handling large datasets seamlessly across various cloud providers.
In the past one and a half years that I have been running with BigQuery, I have not needed to raise any technical support with BigQuery or with Google.
Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Snowflake is highly stable and performs well even with large data sets exceeding terabytes, maintaining stability throughout.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.
Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

BigQuery struggles with cost, accessibility, scalability, and lacks data residency, needing better integration, performance, and machine learning features.
Users recommend UI and pricing transparency improvements, enhanced analytics, data tools, support, and unstructured data integration in Snowflake.
Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
In general, if I know SQL and start playing around, it will start making sense.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
BigQuery is already integrating Gemini AI into the data extraction process directly in order to reduce costs.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
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.
Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
What things you are going with to ask the support and how we manage the relationship matters a lot.
Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong
If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial.
Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

BigQuery uses a pay-as-you-go model, balancing affordability with strategic expense management for data storage and query execution.
Snowflake's pricing is flexible and competitive but estimating costs can be challenging due to its credit-based model.
Being able to optimize the queries to data is critical. Otherwise, you could spend a fortune.
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.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
When it comes to cloud support, the setup cost is very cheap compared to other platforms, such as Oracle or PostgreSQL, which typically require higher costs.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.
Technology Leader at eTCaaS
Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.
Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

BigQuery provides scalable, serverless data processing with fast query capabilities, seamless GCP integration, SQL support, and competitive pricing.
Snowflake provides scalable, efficient data management with SQL access, multi-cloud support, cost-effective plans, and strong integration capabilities.
It is really fast because it can process millions of rows in just a matter of one or two seconds.
Expert Analyst at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
BigQuery processes a substantial amount of data, whether in gigabytes or terabytes, swiftly producing desired data within one or two minutes.
Sr. Team Lead - IT at InfoStretch
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.
Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.
Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong
I have used the Snowflake Zero-Copy Cloning feature in the past while prototyping data in lower environments. This feature is helpful as it saves a lot of time during the data replication process.
Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Snowflake has contributed to significant cost savings.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

BigQuery
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snowflake
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of BigQuery is 7.3%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 15.1%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake15.1%
BigQuery7.3%
Other77.6%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Mikah Sellers - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal at Sgt Suds
Has supported detailed policy and education analysis with low-code data exploration
I do not use AWS as my main cloud provider within the company and am not currently using it with AWS. My company did not buy it through the AWS Marketplace as I'm the founder of the company. I do not use BigQuery's integration with Google Analytics for custom behavior analysis. I have not utilized the geospatial analysis capabilities with BigQuery as I'm doing mostly human capital work, so geospatial wouldn't make sense. I would rate their service on a scale of one to 10 for Google as ten. I would rate BigQuery as nine out of 10. My experience with the pricing for BigQuery was through a grant from Google. Their pricing is fairly priced and pretty comparable to Microsoft's offering. I haven't had direct experience, but I did look at the pricing of the Microsoft offering and it's pretty similar. I do not deal with Google AI tools such as Vertex.
SunilPatil1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong
Have prioritized security while managing multi-agent data migration and cloud adoption
We utilize Time Travel with Snowflake because this is a very useful feature. Everyone finds it crucial because in conventional data platforms, it's very difficult to handle these kinds of things. This feature is essential, though I don't have the use cases currently; it is just there for implementation. Regarding Snowflake's automated scaling and suspension features, this auto-scaling is very significant. We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Media Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
5%
Outsourcing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What needs improvement with BigQuery?
With what I have seen in BigQuery, I had some response times problems, but then it is an analytical database and not a transactional database, so it comes with eventual consistency. I cannot have e...
What is your primary use case for BigQuery?
We are mostly dealing with Google solutions such as BigQuery, NoSQL, SQL analytical database, secrets manager, and most of the serverless infrastructure as well, databases. I run SQL queries on Big...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
I am not the person who manages pricing, setup cost, and licensing. Our team is not limited in pricing. The only experience we have had in terms of running and reprocessing a large number of histor...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Snowflake can be improved in terms of its recent switch to a new user interface, which feels less intuitive compared to the old one. Moving to this new interface is something that I would like to s...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake?
My main use case for Snowflake is building ETL pipelines and ad-hoc analytics on data that we have. A specific example of a pipeline and ad-hoc analytics task I have worked on using Snowflake invol...
 

Also Known As

BQ
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about BigQuery vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.