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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2025

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
6.4
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers cost savings, simplified management, and flexible serverless options, enhancing overall returns and efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.8
Snowflake users praise its scalability and ease of use, though financial gains vary and may require longer usage periods.
Some of my customers have indeed seen a return on investment with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as they used it for analytics to drive decision-making, improving their processes or increasing revenue.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Opinions on Azure Synapse Analytics support vary, with mixed feedback on responsiveness, expertise, and communication, yet documentation is praised.
Sentiment score
5.7
Snowflake support is responsive and helpful, with high user satisfaction, despite occasional slower response times and ticketing reliance.
They are slow to respond and not very knowledgeable.
This is an underestimation of the real impact because we use big data also to monitor the network and the customer.
I would rate the support for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as an eight out of ten.
I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.
The technical support from Snowflake is very good, nice, and efficient.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is praised for seamless scalability and adaptability, despite some complex data challenges, across industries.
Sentiment score
7.8
Snowflake offers excellent scalability, adaptable to varying needs, with minimal challenges but requires cost and resource management attention.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is scalable, offering numerous opportunities for scalability.
For the scalability of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, I would rate it a 10 until you remain in the Azure Cloud scalability framework.
Recovering from such scenarios becomes a bit problematic or time-consuming.
Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.
The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is praised for stability and performance, with users rating it highly despite minor glitches.
Sentiment score
8.2
Snowflake offers high stability and reliability with minimal downtime, rapid recovery, and seamless failover across platforms, especially AWS.
Performance and stability are absolutely fine because Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is a PaaS service.
I find the service stable as I have not encountered many issues.
We have never integrated Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics with Databricks, but we have mostly pulled data from on-premises systems into Azure Databricks.
Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.
Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.
 

Room For Improvement

Users want improved Azure Synapse integration, ease of use, scalability, documentation, security, IoT support, and better monitoring.
Snowflake needs interface improvements, better ETL, machine learning features, pricing clarity, advanced tools, and enhanced documentation and security.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an excellent product because it includes both SIEM and orchestration capabilities with playbooks.
There is a need for better documentation, particularly for customized tasks with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.
Databricks is a very rich solution, with numerous open sources and capabilities in terms of extract, transform, load, database query, and so forth.
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.
Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Synapse Analytics offers variable pricing, starting from €1,000, influenced by usage, compute power, and storage consumption.
Snowflake offers competitive pay-as-you-go pricing with some concerns over transparency, predictability, and potential cost escalation.
The cheapest tier costs about $4,000 to $4,700 a year, while the most expensive tier can reach up to $300,000 a year.
I think the price of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very expensive, but that's not only for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics—it's for the cloud in general.
I find the pricing of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reasonable.
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.
Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers scalable data processing, seamless integration, and cost-efficient analytics in a user-friendly environment.
Snowflake excels in scalability, efficiency, ease of use, AI/ML capabilities, security, and seamless third-party integration, enhancing user experience.
One of the most valuable features in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is the ability to write your own ETL code using Azure Data Factory, which is a component within Synapse.
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers significant visibility, which helps us understand our usage more clearly.
For Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, the integration is the most valuable feature, meaning that whatever you need is fast and easy to use.
Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses.
The independence of the compute and storage within Snowflake is key.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
97
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
101
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.3%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 17.7%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Snowflake17.7%
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics6.3%
Other76.0%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

AnandTiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Has consistently supported integration across diverse environments and streamlined deployment processes
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve their pricing structure. They currently have two separate pricing tiers: full log and partial log. I suggest they implement a single price and reduce charges on logs. They could implement a cap with some free tier or price tier based on the GBs of log collected. This would help customers use Azure more effectively. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an excellent product because it includes both SIEM and orchestration capabilities with playbooks, but the log management part is very costly. Regarding future improvements, I would appreciate more application connectors for integration, particularly for on-premise based solutions. Many customers still maintain on-premise infrastructure, so having more integration possibilities for these environments would be beneficial.
Snehasish Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformation in data querying speed with good migration capabilities
Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses. One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations. It also has tools for migrating data from legacy databases like Oracle. Its stability and efficiency enhance performance greatly. Tools in the AI/ML marketplace are readily available without needing development.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
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 Business29
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise55
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.
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?
Pricing is quite high for Snowflake Data Cloud, which is an area that could be improved. Snowflake Data Cloud is still beneficial to use, but only if you can afford it. It can be cost-effective if ...
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.