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Microsoft Parallel Data 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.9
Users find Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse effective in managing data, integrating tools, with ROI potential despite indirect tracking.
Sentiment score
5.3
Snowflake Analytics improves efficiency and cost management, though ROI varies; users often see notable time and cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support is generally positive with responsive service, though some suggest enhancements in speed and Azure expertise.
Sentiment score
6.9
Snowflake Analytics support is praised for responsiveness and professionalism but criticized for occasional delays and access issues.
They are responsive and get back to us.
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate my experience with technical support around six on a scale of 1 to 10 because I have not had a particular experience with technical support.
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
The Snowflake Analytics documentation is excellent.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Recently we had a two-day session where the Snowflake Analytics team provided a demo on Cortex AI and its features.
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
The technical support for Snowflake Analytics is excellent based on what I have heard from others.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is scalable with SQL benefits, but may lag behind Snowflake in large data handling.
Sentiment score
7.7
Snowflake Analytics offers scalable cloud infrastructure, automatic resource management, and seamless data handling with strong performance for large data volumes.
We go from a couple of users to tons of users all the time, and it scales and handles things really well.
Service Desk Administrator at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
Architecture at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
As a consultant, we hire additional programmers when we need to scale up certain major projects.
Associate Director at Sequentis
Storage is unlimited because they use S3 if it is AWS, so storage has no limit.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
It supports both horizontal and vertical scaling effectively.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Maintaining security and data governance becomes easier with an entire data lake in place, and the scalability improves performance.
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable, reliable, handles large volumes well, with occasional speed issues on vast datasets.
Sentiment score
8.4
Snowflake Analytics is highly rated for its stability and reliability, offering minimal issues and excellent cloud support performance.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
Architecture at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Snowflake Analytics has been stable and reliable in my experience.
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
Snowflake Analytics is stable, scoring around eight point five to nine out of ten.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
The Power BI team raised tickets for both Power BI and Snowflake Analytics, and their responses were very good.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse needs better tool integration, scalability, compatibility, frequent updates, competitive pricing, and enhanced error messaging.
Snowflake Analytics requires better orchestration, integration, Python support, price transparency, data exports, and enhanced machine learning and performance features.
It would be better to release patches less frequently, maybe once a month or once every two months.
Associate Director at Sequentis
Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement.
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow.
Computer engineer at a engineering company with 5,001-10,000 employees
AIML-based SQL prompt and query generation could be an area for enhancement.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
If it offered flexibility similar to Oracle and supported more heterogeneous data sources and database connectivity, it would be even better.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would prefer Snowflake Analytics to improve their support response times, as sometimes the responses we receive are not very prompt and ticket assignments may not be timely.
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers competitive pricing, suitable for large enterprises, but can be costly for high-performance needs.
Snowflake Analytics provides flexible pricing, balancing usability with cost, offering competitive rates and value through its decoupled storage and compute.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
Architecture at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Snowflake charges per query, which amounts to a very minor cost, such as $0.015 per query.
BI Developer at DivVerse LLC
Snowflake is better and cheaper than Redshift and other cloud warehousing systems.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
Snowflake Analytics is quite economical.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse boosts data loads, integrates with Power BI, and offers scalable BI with minimal costs.
Snowflake Analytics offers efficient, scalable data management with strong security, cloud flexibility, and advanced features for seamless data integration.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
BI/Data Warehouse Analyst at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is used in the logistics area for optimizing SQL queries related to the loading and unloading of trucks.
Architecture at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time.
Associate Director at Sequentis
Running a considerable query on Microsoft SQL Server may take up to thirty minutes or an hour, while Snowflake executes the same query in less than three minutes.
BI Developer at DivVerse LLC
Snowflake Analytics supports data security with a single sign-on feature and complies with framework regulations, which is highly beneficial.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
It is a data offering where I can see data lineage, data governance, and data security.
Senior Software Architect at USEReady
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (12th)
Snowflake Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Web Analytics (2nd), Cloud Data Warehouse (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Insurance Company
13%
University
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in so...
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?
In my opinion, Snowflake Analytics can be improved by introducing more features, such as additional integration options. I remember using Snowflake Pro, which allows exporting direct data into the ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Lionsgate, Adobe, Sony, Capital One, Akamai, Deliveroo, Snagajob, Logitech, University of Notre Dame, Runkeeper
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. Snowflake Analytics and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.