Apache Hadoop vs Snowflake comparison

Apache and Snowflake Computing are both solutions in the Data Warehouse category. Apache is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Apache holds a 3.6% mindshare in Data Warehouse, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 10.1% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Snowflake Computing users who would recommend it.

Apache Hadoop

Read 41 Apache Hadoop reviews

2,177 Views
1,306 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 104 Snowflake reviews

9,139 Views
3,564 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Apache Hadoop

Snowflake

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Snowflake and Apache Hadoop compete in the data management and processing category. Snowflake seems to have the upper hand with its advanced features and quicker time to ROI, though Apache Hadoop remains a strong contender due to its cost-effectiveness and scalability.

Features: Snowflake offers automatic scaling, SQL accessibility, and multi-format support. It also provides flexible configuration and a managed service operation with advanced data processing capabilities. Apache Hadoop is known for its scalability, cost-effectiveness due to being open-source, and robust data storage with fault tolerance, which is ideal for managing large datasets and unstructured data.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could improve its cost transparency, user interfaces, and built-in analytics, as well as enhance integration for cost optimization and security measures. Apache Hadoop needs better integration with newer data technologies and more efficient incremental data processing. It also requires improved user interfaces and enhanced real-time processing capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake is appreciated for its flexibility in deployment across public and private clouds, and strong customer service support. Apache Hadoop, primarily on-premises, delivers solid customer support, though users may experience longer wait times compared to commercial alternatives.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake uses a consumption-based pricing model, which can be cost-effective with efficient use but may become expensive without careful management. Apache Hadoop's open-source licensing lowers costs significantly, though transitions to newer versions can incur expenses. Snowflake offers a quicker time to ROI with its advanced features, while both promise cost-effectiveness with the right use case.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Hadoop vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Hadoop vs. Snowflake

January 2026

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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

5.4

Apache Hadoop offers cost-effective storage and processing, benefiting some with analytics and optimizing data applications for resource savings.

Sentiment score

5.9

Users find Snowflake challenging for ROI calculation, but it offers productivity gains, cost reduction, and valuable insights.

No quotes available

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No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.1

Customer service for Apache Hadoop varies, with differing satisfaction levels and reliance on external resources and forums for support.

Sentiment score

5.7

Snowflake customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though improvements in timeliness and service-level agreements are suggested.

It's not structured support, which is why we don't use purely open-source projects without additional structured support.

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Apache Hadoop report

We sought this documentation multiple times but faced difficulty in obtaining it.

AmolDhormare

Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

I am satisfied with the work of technical support from Snowflake; they are responsive and helpful.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

Apache Hadoop is valued for its scalability, supporting large data and users effectively, especially in cloud environments.

Sentiment score

7.7

Snowflake offers seamless, flexible scalability for storage and computing, supporting diverse business needs with automatic cloud-based infrastructure scaling.

It is a distributed file system and scales reasonably well as long as it is given sufficient resources.

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Recently, Snowflake has introduced streaming capabilities, real-time and dynamic tables, along with various connectors.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Apache Hadoop is stable and reliable in multi-node clusters, performing well with minimal instability during high-load operations.

Sentiment score

8.3

Snowflake offers reliable, fast performance and high stability, with users praising its dependability and minimal disruptions.

Continuous management in the way of upgrades and technical management is necessary to ensure that it remains effective.

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Apache Hadoop report

Snowflake is highly stable and performs well even with large data sets exceeding terabytes, maintaining stability throughout.

AmolDhormare

Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Room For Improvement

Apache Hadoop needs user-friendly enhancements, better integration, improved security, streamlined setup, and modernized features and support.

Snowflake needs better UI, analytics, integration, documentation, governance, AI features, and cost management solutions to address user concerns.

The problem with Apache Hadoop arose when the guys that originally set it up left the firm, and the group that later owned it didn't have enough technical resources to properly maintain it.

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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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.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

What things you are going with to ask the support and how we manage the relationship matters a lot.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Setup Cost

Enterprise Apache Hadoop pricing varies greatly, influenced by distribution choice, deployment type, and specific usage requirements.

Snowflake's pricing model offers affordability and flexibility but challenges with cost predictability and potential high processing fees.

No quotes available

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When it comes to cloud support, the setup cost is very cheap compared to other platforms, such as Oracle or PostgreSQL, which typically require higher costs.

AmolDhormare

Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.

Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.

reviewer1438647

Data Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Valuable Features

Apache Hadoop offers scalable, cost-effective data processing, supporting diverse environments with fault tolerance, integration, and analytics tools like Hive.

Snowflake is scalable and flexible with features like zero-copy cloning, time travel, and integrated security, enhancing efficiency and accessibility.

If you don't do the upgrades, the platform ages out, and that's what happened to the Hadoop content.

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I assess Apache Hadoop's fault tolerance during hardware failures positively since we have hardware failover, which works without problems.

YuQing Ding

Principle Network and Database Engr at Parsons Corporation

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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.

SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

I have used the Snowflake Zero-Copy Cloning feature in the past while prototyping data in lower environments. This feature is helpful as it saves a lot of time during the data replication process.

reviewer2403603

Senior Data Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Snowflake has contributed to significant cost savings.

AmolDhormare

Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Snowflake report

Categories and Ranking

Apache Hadoop

Ranking in Data Warehouse

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

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

104

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (2nd), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Apache Hadoop is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 10.1%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Snowflake	10.1%
Apache Hadoop	3.6%
Other	86.3%

Data Warehouse

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover

Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot

Feb 03, 2020

What is the biggest difference between Apache Hadoop and Snowflake?

Interactive querying as a consumption pattern is something Snowflake handles much better than Hadoop and related query engine options - Impala, Presto, Drill etc. Heavy data scientists query workload can be an expensive query pattern on Snowflake and Hadoop can provide a more cost-efficient solution. Hadoop is also still relevant as a back-end data processing engine, instead of leveraging Snowflake for data transformation due to higher cost as well as limited procedural language capabilities (javascript based stored procedures). Snowflake fares much better than Hadoop in terms of administrative complexity.

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Featured Reviews

Nick Rapoport

Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Reliable performance maintained but requires ongoing management and support

Hadoop was used for years, but there were problems since the people who originally set it up left the firm. The group that owned it later didn't have the technical resources to properly maintain it. Although there was nothing wrong with Hadoop itself, issues arose without proper management and upgrades.

Read full review

SunilPatil1

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.

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Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover

Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot

Feb 3, 2020

What is the biggest difference between Apache Hadoop and Snowflake?

2 out of 3 answers

it_user1108338

Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 26, 2019

Read full answer

Robert Lescano

Services Practice Leader at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Jun 27, 2019

Hi Nick, I am on vacation this week. Adding Arun on my team but it would probably be valuable to understand the specific context, background and situation that your colleague has to determine the proper advice. I’ll defer to Arun to respond since my bandwidth is limited this week. From: Nick Regan from IT Central Station Reply-To: "replies@itcentralstation.com" Date: Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 6:15 AM To: "Lescano, Robert" Subject: Seeking expertise in Apache Hadoop Hi Robert, Can you help out a colleague with the following question about Apache Hadoop: ----- What is the biggest difference between Apache Hadoop and Snowflake? One of the most popular comparisons on IT Central Station is Apache Hadoop vs Snowflake. People like you are trying to decide which one is best for their company. Can you help them out? What is the biggest difference between Apache Hadoop and Snowflake? Which of these two solutions would you recommend to a colleague evaluating data warehouse systems and why? Thanks for helping your peers make the best decision! ----- Please reply to this email with your response or post your answer here. You've been a member of IT Central Station since April 2019. In a market full of vendor hype, we provide free connections between real users of Apache Hadoop to share advice and make better buying decisions. Thanks for being part of the community. Nick Regan Community Director, IT Central Station IT Central Station 244 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001 (646) 328-1944 um-nqn 354819 To change notifications, please visit your subscription page or unsubscribe completely. gitbdelSFBuZk85SktJK3pxbGt0NEhxQ2RHd0tuVkJBeDZiSktUL2N0KzFZQktFNU8vMW9GZ0Y4ZEpleGZCQmwvQkVwbC0tVzhQSU1tdjdlUjA2VzJMdHBCdlZNQT09--6e1706b96a47f6f1637e3d97f57cf04aad6d5362gitbdel

Read full answer

See all 3 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

33%

Computer Software Company

Government

University

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Hadoop?

It's primarily open source. You can handle huge data volumes and create your own views, workflows, and tables. I can also use it for real-time data streaming.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Hadoop?

The product is open-source, but some associated licensing fees depend on the subscription level. While it might be free for students, organizations typically need to pay for their subscriptions. Th...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apache Hadoop?

The problem with Apache Hadoop arose when the guys that originally set it up left the firm, and the group that later owned it didn't have enough technical resources to properly maintain it. This wa...

See all answers

What do you like most about Snowflake?

The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Snowflake is currently stable, but it can be improved further. They have a couple of information schemas that can track account usage. If more connectors were brought in and more visibility feature...

See all answers

Comparisons

Databricks vs Apache Hadoop

Compared 8% of the time

Teradata vs Apache Hadoop

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) vs Apache Hadoop

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Exadata vs Apache Hadoop

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Apache Hadoop

Compared 7% of the time

More Apache Hadoop Competitors

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Snowflake

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake

Compared 6% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Hadoop

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

January 2026

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

Overview

The Apache Hadoop project develops open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing. The Apache Hadoop software library is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using simple programming models. It is designed to scale up from single servers to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage. Rather than rely on hardware to deliver high-availability, the library itself is designed to detect and handle failures at the application layer, so delivering a highly-available service on top of a cluster of computers, each of which may be prone to failures.

Apache

Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.

Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.

What are Snowflake's Key Features?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to handle growing data volumes.
Seamless Integration: Works with a wide range of platforms.
Consumption-Based Costs: Pay only for what you use.
Time Travel: Access historical data effortlessly.
Data Sharing: Secure and efficient sharing of datasets.
Time Zone Conversion: Built-in feature for global operations.
Security: Robust measures to protect sensitive information.
Compute and Storage Separation: Independent scaling for optimal performance.

What Benefits Should You Look for?

Cost Efficiency: Optimized pricing models for minimal waste.
Enhanced Performance: Fast queries and processing times.
Flexibility: Handles both structured and semi-structured data.
Analytics Capabilities: Supports advanced data analysis and reporting.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.

Snowflake Computing

Sample Customers

Amazon, Adobe, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hulu, IBM, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Spotify, AOL, Twitter, University of Maryland, Yahoo!, Cornell University Web Lab

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops

Buyer's Guide

Apache Hadoop vs. Snowflake

January 2026

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