Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Snowball vs Palantir Foundry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

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

AWS Snowball
Ranking in Data Migration Appliances
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (12th)
Palantir Foundry
Ranking in Data Migration Appliances
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (11th), IT Operations Analytics (10th), Supply Chain Analytics (1st), Cloud Data Integration (11th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (1st), Data and Analytics Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Migration Appliances category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 34.4%, down from 41.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palantir Foundry is 5.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Migration Appliances Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Snowball34.4%
Palantir Foundry5.8%
Other59.800000000000004%
Data Migration Appliances
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis - PeerSpot reviewer
Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden
Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes
I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.
BA
Associate Vice President at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Unified data workflows have empowered collaborative analytics and streamlined AI development
Regarding points for improvement for Palantir Foundry, I see that they are improving day by day. In the last one to two years, I have seen many improvements compared to the two years that I have worked on Palantir Foundry. There are many things that come up, but a few things are not intuitive enough. Now that we are in this AI phase, Palantir Foundry has created some wrappers around the models, allowing us to create using a no-code application, chatbots, and LLM functions. The problem is that interaction with outside applications can be difficult with the current setup that Palantir Foundry has. There are ways to do that, but it is not that intuitive, which is what I feel.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"You are able to scale the solution vertically. It's very scalable."
"The support team's awesome, and they've always been very responsive."
"The features I like best are the tool's high capacity, scalability, end-to-end encryption for data security, ease of use, durability, and cost-effectiveness. It's particularly cost-effective for transferring large amounts of data compared to high-speed internet transfers."
"The way the data is moved is very clever. Also, the interface is very simple and user-friendly."
"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."
"We are a very large company with around 20 million users that include architects, developers, and admin staff, and it's a very nice service we would highly recommend."
"The solution is elastic."
"I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in."
"The interface is really user-friendly."
"The data lineage is great."
"The predictive analytics capability within Palantir Foundry impacts financial forecasting strategies through its AIP functionality, which includes numerous pre-built models, LLMs, and data science application libraries."
"It's scalable."
"I like the data onboarding to Palantir Foundry and ETL creation."
"Great features available in one tool."
"It is easy to map out a workflow and run trigger-based scripts without having to deploy to another server."
"Encapsulates all the components without the requirement to integrate or check compatibility."
 

Cons

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."
"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."
"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but If you're a professional, it's easy to understand."
"It's not cheap."
"AWS support could be more responsive."
"The costs of services the customer needs also matter, such as storage requirements and whether storage is rational."
"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."
"It does have room for improvement. The ability to better ingest some of the big data."
"It would be helpful to build applications based on Azure functions or web apps in Palantir Foundry."
"If you want to create new models on specific data sets, computing that is quite costly."
"The problem is that interaction with outside applications can be difficult with the current setup that Palantir Foundry has."
"The solution could use more online documentation for new users."
"The solution's visualization and analysis could be improved."
"There is not a wide user base for the solution's online documentation so it is sometimes difficult to find answers."
"The major hindrance with Palantir Foundry is that being a very closed product, the cost optimization and costing are not exposed to the end users."
"The frontend capabilities of Palantir Foundry could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."
"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."
"Palantir Foundry has different pricing models that can be negotiated."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"Palantir Foundry is an expensive solution."
"It's expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Migration Appliances solutions are best for your needs.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?
Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?
Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...
What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?
It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...
What needs improvement with Palantir Foundry?
Apart from the pricing and offline availability issues, improvements are needed in Palantir Foundry's costing factor. Cost-wise, it is not open for everybody, and they are not exposing anything out...
What is your primary use case for Palantir Foundry?
One of the leading European manufacturing plants uses Palantir Foundry for manufacturing interior parts of various car brands such as Honda, Hyundai, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. This involves hig...
What advice do you have for others considering Palantir Foundry?
Palantir Foundry is an excellent product for data engineering. On a scale of one to 10, I would rate Palantir Foundry a 9.
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess
Merck KGaA, Airbus, Ferrari,United States Intelligence Community, United States Department of Defense
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Snowball vs. Palantir Foundry and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.