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Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs Snowflake comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Analytics Platfor...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
18th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snowflake
Ranking in Data Warehouse
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (6th), AI Software Development (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Analytics Platform System is 2.4%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 8.8%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake8.8%
Microsoft Analytics Platform System2.4%
Other88.8%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

MahmoudMohamed1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at Tatweer Educational Technologies Company - TETCO
Offers smooth data integration between systems, but requires better real-time analytics capabilities
We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services. This lets us continue using private databases without paying additional licensing fees. Additionally, the license includes Analytics services and Power BI, which work on-premises, unlike most other technologies that require cloud solutions.
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

"We help customers in many ways from customized analysis for detection of anomalies in tax, operations, customer relationship, and marketing campaigns, and we also use mining and ML to help them discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System's most valuable feature is its ecosystems and seamless integration with other Microsoft reporting platforms and databases."
"I think Microsoft Stack offers the end-to-end solution I need."
"This is a well-integrated solution and that integration empowers results."
"By combining both Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) and unstructured Hadoop analytical capabilities in a single, easy-to-manage EDW appliance, Microsoft APS is well positioned to help organizations use information to enhance their competitive position."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"The result is a highly flexible, affordable, and scalable platform that makes large-scale Hub and Spoke EDW architectures a practical reality."
"We mainly used SQL scripts and provided a solution for different owners who want to query a database but have several tables."
"It was relatively easy to use, and it was easy for people to convert to it."
"The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business."
"Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake."
"Snowflake is an enormously useful platform."
"The solution speeds up the process of onboarding."
"Its performance is a big advantage, and when you run a query, its performance is very good."
"The integration capabilities of the product are good and you get what you pay for when it comes to Snowflake."
 

Cons

"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"We need better real-time analytics capabilities. It's a bit challenging for us."
"However, centralized EDW tends to be extremely expensive and very inflexible."
"In general, I am not really very satisfied with the tutorials that are out there."
"Machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities need to be more friendly for beginning users."
"Functionality needs to be more up-to-date with competing products."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System could have better support."
"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"They have a new console, but I couldn't figure out anything in the new console."
"They need to improve its ETL functionality so that Snowflake becomes an ETL product. Snowpipe can do some pipelines and data ingestion, but as compare to Talend, these functionalities are limited. The ETL feature is not good enough. Therefore, Snowflake can only be used as a database. You can't use it as an ETL tool, which is a limitation. We have spoken to the vendor, and they said they are working on it, but I'm not sure when they will bring it to production."
"Several areas need to be improved, as follows: Cost reduction: This is always good to have, and nobody would say no to it."
"The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system."
"Improvement is needed in integrating external tools, such as data catalogs, which can be complicated due to differing formats and usage across departments."
"Snowflake is expensive, but when I consider what we get for that price, it's fair."
"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."
"It would be helpful if Snowflake could create good reports instead of using Power BI reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"We are currently paying $200,000 a year for all the different parts of the suite during an ingest model Microsoft now charges us $700,000 a year."
"It is not cheap."
"It's expensive."
"Snowflake licensing is more flexible and it is cheaper than other solutions. I can use it for only 10 days for MVP, or three years, and for flexible models. I can scale up, or down, and the pricing is based on the volume and duration. There are many licensing permutation combinations available."
"Snowflake has consumption-based costs; users only pay for storage and computing."
"The price of Snowflake is quite reasonable."
"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."
"Users have to pay a licensing fee for the solution, which is expensive."
"The price of Snowflake is very reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
We find the metering and billing experience for Snowflake to be expensive because there are many limitations to what it can do. When we compared performance-wise and cost-wise to Bedrock for some o...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Lessons learned about our main use case or how Snowflake performed in those areas include that the sales representatives do not really understand the product, and that the solutions consultants bas...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake?
Our main use case for Snowflake was to ingest data, use it for search, analytics, and data sharing with our customers; however, in reality, those use cases did not work. When it came to our challen...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft APS, MS Analytics Platform System
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Transport for London, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Prometeia, Tangerine, SSM Health Care, Service Corporation International
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.