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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 26, 2025

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

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
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
103
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (6th), AI Software Development (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 16.1%, down from 22.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Snowflake16.1%
IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud1.1%
Other82.8%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"The Time Travel feature is helpful for accessing historical data and the ability to clone external tables is useful."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Snowflake is its performance. We can access the data quickly. Additionally, it handles structured and non-structured data."
"The most valuable features are the clustering, LS50, being able to change the size, the pay per use feature, the flexibility with many different sources and analytic applications."
"The reduced infrastructure management is the big difference compared to on-prem warehousing with Snowflake Data Cloud."
"The product's most important feature is unloading data to S3."
"Time travel is one feature that really helps us out."
"The features I found most valuable with this solution are sharing options and built-in time zone conversion."
 

Cons

"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"Portability is a big hurdle right now for our clients. Porting all of your existing SQL ecosystem, such as stored procedures, to Snowflake is a major pain point. Currently, Snowflake stored procedures use JavaScript, but they should support SQL-based stored procedures. It would be a huge advantage if you can write your stored procedures using SQL. It seems that they are working on this feature, and they are yet to release it. I remember seeing some notes saying that they were going to do that in the future, but the sooner this feature comes out, it would be better for Snowflake because there are a lot of clients with whom I'm interacting, and their main hurdle is to take their existing Oracle or SQL Server stored procedures and move them into Snowflake. For this, you need to learn JavaScript and how it works, which is not easy and becomes a little tricky. If it supports SQL-based procedures, then you can just cut-paste the SQL code, run it, and easily fix small issues."
"There is room for improvement in Snowflake's integration with Python. We do a lot of SQL programming in Snowflake, but we go to a different tool to program when we have to in Python."
"The solution needs more connectors."
"Pricing is an issue for many customers."
"I have heard people having difficulty with the machine learning model, so there may be room for improvement."
"There is a need for improvements in the documentation, this would allow more people to switch over to this solution."
"They should improve the reporting tools."
"From the documentation, the black box is not very descriptive. Snowflake does not reveal how exactly the data is processed or sourced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"Snowflake is cost-effective."
"Pricing can be confusing for customers."
"The solution is expensive but worth the cost because the quality is there."
"Currently, we have a trial account, so we don't need a license. After our project starts, we would need a permanent license."
"Comparing Snowflake to on-prem options such as Oracle or SAP, it seemed more cost-effective."
"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
"The solution is costly, making it unsuitable for midsize organizations due to its price."
"Snowflake is cost-effective. However, the cost can depend on how it's being used and how efficiently the code is written. If engineers don't write efficient code and usage is billed based on processing, it can become costly. If they write optimal code and choose the best solution, it can reduce costs in comparison to other options, such as Oracle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
What do you like most about Snowflake?
The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.
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 ...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Snowflake is currently stable, but it can be improved further. They have a couple of information schemas that can track account usage. If more connectors were brought in and more visibility feature...
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.