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IBM Db2 Warehouse vs Snowflake Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (11th)
Snowflake Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Web Analytics (1st), Cloud Data Warehouse (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ismail Aboulezz - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancements in data analysis and decision-making elevate overall performance
The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse ( /products/ibm-db2-warehouse-reviews ) include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support. The response time is very quick, and the technical manuals and support from IBM are of high quality. Additionally, it is easy to install, troubleshoot, operate, and secure the environment.
Paresh_Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables data-driven decision-making with robust features and effective scalability
The internal design engine and the columnar database are particularly valuable. These features reduce input and output memory, which is crucial in handling large data sets. The solution fulfills the business requirement for scaling and analytics. Snowflake Analytics supports data security with a single sign-on feature and complies with framework regulations, which is highly beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support."
"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."
"It can be mounted on the cloud, which is a huge plus. If the client, for example, starts small with on-premise deployment and then it rapidly needs to grow, we can transfer this to the cloud easily."
"Provides good security and reliability."
"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."
"I think it scales really well and as long as you take enough time to learn a little bit about it, it works really well."
"One advantage is that installation is unnecessary since it's cloud-based. You subscribe to a Snowflake instance, configure it, and start using it. It's very user-friendly and allows you to scale up or down based on usage."
"The solution auto-scales and it provides concurrency."
"It's a scalable solution because you can analyze a huge amount of data in the solution."
"What we found most valuable in Snowflake Analytics are its attributes that are very convenient for business use such as data sharing, cloning, time travel, and fail-safe. It's a good product all in all."
"Deployment is straightforward as it's a SaaS product. No maintenance required."
"Very good flexibility and it offers computation completely decoupled from the storage."
"One of the distinctive features of Snowflake is its ability to handle large datasets efficiently."
"The most valuable feature of Snowflake Analytics is the ability to control and manage the cost."
 

Cons

"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."
"The biggest problems we have is when the backup solution is failing or slow and we run out of log space, which has happened probably a couple of times in the last four years."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse needs to improve its interface."
"The biggest challenge anyone could have with Db2 Warehouse is their references or online resources and documentation. They are very, very, very limited on the web."
"In terms of improvement, IBM Db2 Warehouse should be more scalable."
"The UI must be improved."
"However, if it offered flexibility similar to Oracle and supported more heterogeneous data sources and database connectivity, it would be even better."
"We haven't seen any areas that are lacking."
"Machine learning should be improved."
"Snowflake should include a WHERE clause for building data pipelines."
"A room for improvement in Snowflake Analytics is Spark, particularly its connector for Spark. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is built-in analytics."
"The solution’s scalability could be improved."
"Machine learning in Snowflake isn't as advanced as in other products. I haven't heard of any successful industry-wide use cases of machine learning implemented in Snowflake. It might take a couple of years to reach the same level as Databricks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"I have been using free trial version."
"Snowflake charges per query, which amounts to a very minor cost, such as $0.015 per query."
"It's not costly if you configure it properly to ensure optimal performance. People don't configure it properly, which is why costs go up."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price."
"Snowflake Analytics is not an expensive solution, and its pricing is average."
"I rate the product's licensing cost a five or six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price."
"The cost of Snowflake Analytics is low, any small organization can use it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
38%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The standout feature of IBM Db2 Warehouse, which is particularly valuable for large enterprises, is its ability to handle big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?
There is room for improvement in optimizing certain processes, but most issues arise from my data, hardware architecture, and resources, not from IBM Db2 Warehouse itself.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake Analytics?
Snowflake Analytics is quite economical. It does not appear to incur significant extra expenses beyond the solution's initial cost. However, a complete pricing analysis is still in progress.
What needs improvement with Snowflake Analytics?
The advantages of Snowflake Analytics outweigh the disadvantages. However, if it offered flexibility similar to Oracle and supported more heterogeneous data sources and database connectivity, it wo...
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited
Lionsgate, Adobe, Sony, Capital One, Akamai, Deliveroo, Snagajob, Logitech, University of Notre Dame, Runkeeper
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse vs. Snowflake Analytics and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.