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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
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
100
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 18.2%, down from 23.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The pricing is reasonable and matches the rest of the market."
"The ETL and data ingestion capabilities are better in this solution as compared to SQL Server. SQL Server doesn't do much data ingestion, but Snowflake can do it quite conveniently."
"Can be leveraged with respect to better performance, auto tuning and competition."
"It was relatively easy to use, and it was easy for people to convert to it."
"The tool is very easy to use. The solution’s desktop features are also very easy to use. Also, the product’s SQL-based connectivity is also good. It can connect with any tool."
"This solution has helped our organization by being easy to maintain and having good technical support."
"They separate compute and storage. You can scale storage independently of the computer, or you can scale computing independently of storage. If you need to buy more computer parts you can add new virtual warehouses in Snowflake. Similarly, if you need more storage, you take more storage. It's most scalable in the database essentially; typically you don't have this scalability independence on-premises."
"It is quite easy to manage."
 

Cons

"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"The scheduling system can definitely be better because we had to use external airflow for that. There should be orchestration for the scheduling system. Snowflake currently does not support machine learning, so it is just storage. They also need some alternatives for SQL Query. There should also be support for Spark in different languages such as Python."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced."
"For the Snowflake database, there should be some third-party features for the ETL. It would also be good to be able to use some kind of controls to get the data either from another database or a flat file. Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper than Microsoft."
"Portability is a big hurdle right now for our clients. Porting all of your existing SQL ecosystem, such as stored procedures, to Snowflake is a major pain point. Currently, Snowflake stored procedures use JavaScript, but they should support SQL-based stored procedures. It would be a huge advantage if you can write your stored procedures using SQL. It seems that they are working on this feature, and they are yet to release it. I remember seeing some notes saying that they were going to do that in the future, but the sooner this feature comes out, it would be better for Snowflake because there are a lot of clients with whom I'm interacting, and their main hurdle is to take their existing Oracle or SQL Server stored procedures and move them into Snowflake. For this, you need to learn JavaScript and how it works, which is not easy and becomes a little tricky. If it supports SQL-based procedures, then you can just cut-paste the SQL code, run it, and easily fix small issues."
"Its stability could be better."
"Snowflake could improve if they had an Operational Data Store(ODS) space."
"The product's performance could be improved."
"I don't know about GCP, if they have connected for GCP. If they don't, they should allow for it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"Snowflake has consumption-based costs; users only pay for storage and computing."
"There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only pay for what you use."
"Snowflake is expensive, but when I consider what we get for that price, it's fair. I rate the solution three out of five for affordability, right in the middle."
"We're based on credits. So, we're paying four and a half dollars of credit. There are no additional costs. I would rate it a two out of five in terms of pricing."
"Snowflake licensing is more flexible and it is cheaper than other solutions. I can use it for only 10 days for MVP, or three years, and for flexible models. I can scale up, or down, and the pricing is based on the volume and duration. There are many licensing permutation combinations available."
"The price for the solution's license depends on the use cases."
"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
"Comparing Snowflake to on-prem options such as Oracle or SAP, it seemed more cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
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?
There is a need for a tool to help me estimate the cost of using Snowflake. Enhancements in user experience for data observability and quality checks would be beneficial, as these tasks currently r...
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Snowflake Computing
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.