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Microsoft Analytics Platform System 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

Microsoft Analytics Platfor...
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (18th)
Snowflake Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Web Analytics (2nd), Cloud Data Warehouse (12th)
 

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.
Garima Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
Have created secure cloud-based data lakes and improved real-time data processing using integrated AI features
There are many capabilities which Snowflake Analytics offers that I find valuable, such as the storage and compute engine that allows working with any cloud system such as AWS or Azure, alongside its efficiencies in storage computation and cost-effectiveness, which saves money compared to on-premise systems. We also have features such as pre-cached results, Time Travel, and fail-safe, which are very useful for restoring data if deleted accidentally, and the streams and data pipes that facilitate real-time ingestion are great features as well. Snowflake Analytics offers multiple new connectors, allowing me to connect it with Kafka, and with Snowpark, I can work with any programming language such as Python, Java, or Scala for data processing and analysis. The data sharing feature offered by Snowflake Analytics is good because it allows sharing specific sets of data to end customers or users from different Snowflake Analytics accounts without exposing the entire dataset for data security reasons. Snowflake Analytics' support for machine learning models and real-time insights has enhanced significantly. Originally, it wasn't strong in AI/ML, but now it has multiple models and forecasting capabilities, providing good competition to tools such as Databricks and Spark. In BI, I have worked majorly with Microsoft Power BI, and the integration with Snowflake Analytics is very easy. The way we integrate Snowflake Analytics with other on-premise systems just requires the warehouse details, username, passwords, and the account name, along with multiple options such as client ID and credentials for logging in and creating a session. The end-to-end encryption provided by Snowflake Analytics is very important because, in my previous firm, working in finance and investment management, data encryption is necessary due to the sensitive nature of customer data and the involvement of people's money. It's crucial to have encryption in transit and at rest, along with data masking features which Snowflake Analytics offers.

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."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"This is a well-integrated solution and that integration empowers results."
"The most valuable part of the product is that it is a system, with different tools for different services for different kinds of scenarios, making it a very rich, integrated, technology-rich platform whose total integration with the rest of Microsoft products creates flexibility and compatibility and makes the tool a very useful one."
"It is closely integrated with other products in the MS portfolio."
"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services."
"It's cloud-based technology, so users can spin it up a lot faster"
"Time Travel and Snowpipe are good features."
"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."
"The platform not only provides ease of use but also stands out for its speedy execution, conveying a sense of robustness and reliability that I find appealing."
"Very good flexibility and it offers computation completely decoupled from the storage."
"The most valuable features of Snowflake for our data analytics are its time travel capability, allowing easy data recovery, and its automatic optimization of partitioning and clustering."
"The latest interface of Snowsight UI has added good capabilities and the interface is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of Snowflake Analytics is the ability to control and manage the cost."
 

Cons

"The flexibility of this solution needs to be improved because you cannot make changes at every one of the different steps."
"Machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities need to be more friendly for beginning users."
"​Hybrid environments are complex to manage."
"However, centralized EDW tends to be extremely expensive and very inflexible."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product overall as a five. This is probably because there is still a lot of room for improvement, features that other products have that are missing, and a lot of open-source technology nowadays that are very good and people can use instead."
"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"I think the biggest problem with the product is that it does a data ingest model, which is very expensive."
"Many customers face issues with the expenses on Snowflake. The pricing visibility is complex."
"Snowflake Analytics should probably have more built-in tools for master data management."
"We were experiencing errors while running reports and making connections."
"For modeling of data as well as for AI and predictive analytics, they need to improve their integration into different Python and Jupyter notebooks."
"The platform's data governance space needs more capability."
"One area that could benefit from enhancement is the user interface for more visual ESM features."
"The platform could work easier for AI implementation compared to one of its competitors."
"Implementing everything on-premise is challenging because it require proper support from advisors, DBAs, and others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"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."
"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"When using Snowflake, you pay based on your usage. They calculate how much CPU has been used. If you use excess warehouse storage, you are charged one credit per hour. If you are in Asia, you are charged $3 per credit. If you have 10 users running parallel with the same excess, you will be charged $30."
"The cost of Snowflake Analytics is low, any small organization can use it."
"The solution's price is high and I would rate it an eight out of ten."
"Snowflake Analytics is a little more costly than Azure."
"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'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 product's pricing is subjective."
"It is not overly expensive. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake Analytics?
The pricing for Snowflake Analytics is reasonable, but as I am not part of the management team, I am not certain about our organization's exact costs. Overall, the return on investment for this too...
What needs improvement with Snowflake Analytics?
One improvement Snowflake Analytics could benefit from is in cost, particularly during peak hours. Sometimes, due to its automatic scalability, we think it has scaled up, but it does not always hap...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake Analytics?
I am using Snowflake Analytics because we are already using Snowflake for data engineering and data warehousing tasks, and we are using it for analytics as well as business intelligence reporting. ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft APS, MS Analytics Platform System
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Transport for London, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Prometeia, Tangerine, SSM Health Care, Service Corporation International
Lionsgate, Adobe, Sony, Capital One, Akamai, Deliveroo, Snagajob, Logitech, University of Notre Dame, Runkeeper
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs. Snowflake Analytics and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.