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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs Snowflake comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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
6.9
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud is 2.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 14.9%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake14.9%
IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud2.1%
Other83.0%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
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…
SunilPatil1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Ease of migration from Netezza DB; IBM ported over all Netezza's functionality and made the warehouse DB/dashDB the best of breed of the two."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"I like that the dashDB solution is built on DB2 technology, which means that you can use all the features of a DB2 database while outsourcing all the hardware and software maintenance."
"Since my company is an IBM partner, it has enabled us to offer cloud data warehouse solutions on a 100% IBM stack."
"One of the most amazing features of dashDB is how it uses compression to get results in lighting speed."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"DashDB is a good product to work with and the extra cost you spend on performance, technical support and tools to work with is worth it."
"Snowflake has been kind of a silver bullet; it has tried to marry the best of both worlds in terms of turnaround time, scalability, adoption, and seamlessness."
"It is a very good platform. It can handle structured and semi-structured data, and it can be used for your data warehouse or data lake. It can load and deal with any data that you have. It can extract data from an on-premises database or a website and make it available in the cloud. It has very fast implementation and integration as compared to other solutions. There is no need for the DBA to manage or do the day-to-day DBA tasks, which is one of the greatest things about it."
"I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff."
"Its performance is most valuable. As compared to SQL Server, we are able to see a significant improvement in performance with Snowflake."
"The most valuable features of Snowflake are its performance and power."
"I like Snowflake's data exchange capabilities. It can exchange data with downstream systems and other vendor partners as well."
"We've been mostly very happy with its capabilities."
"Very easy to use and easy to query."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in backup and authentication. It needs the ability to increase the number of retained backups to more than 2 days."
"With dashDB, scalability and uptime need more improvement."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"The support channels need to improve."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"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."
"I would rate the level of dashDB support 3.5/5. While they are very knowledgeable in many areas, you can still struggle to get the correct resolution."
"If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial."
"The pricing of the solution should be much easier to calculate or find by yourself."
"In future releases, it can also support full unstructured data."
"We've come to realize that for many customers, pricing of this solution is an issue."
"If there is a need for scaling the setup is not so good."
"Some SQL language functions could be included."
"The solution needs more connectors."
"I am still in the learning stage. It has good security, but it can always be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"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."
"The solution is expensive but worth the cost because the quality is there."
"They give a different price for every single company. I don't know if I negotiated that well, but we got the enterprise tier for $3 a credit, and the other two were a dollar-ninety a credit. I suspect we don't have almost zero compute usage, but I know that our annual contract packages are below all of their minimums."
"I have worked with multiple clouds, and cost-wise, it is a bit costlier than others, such as Redshift. Its price should be reduced."
"Currently, we have a trial account, so we don't need a license. After our project starts, we would need a permanent license."
"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
"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."
"It is hard to say because we're usually engaged in the transition as opposed to the long term. Their storage costs are easily within pennies of what AWS S3 would normally cost. Most of the clients I've been working with are in the financial sector, and they're relatively small. I would put them in an SMB connection. The first thing we have to bring up for people is that they're going to build this. They shouldn't store their data in S3. They should pipeline directly into Snowflake and use it on their storage. So, the cost is a big issue because these are small to medium size companies, and that is the biggest thing we had to price point for them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise59
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
For pricing, setup cost, and licensing, everything is managed smoothly. Regarding licensing, it is inexpensive. The setup cost is low, mainly due to AWS Marketplace; we only need to pay for serverl...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Snowflake is already quite improved, but they have recently introduced AI features. AI integration would be beneficial for direct data capturing from systems such as SAP and Salesforce to Snowflake...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake?
Snowflake is primarily used to handle the data warehousing part, for creating data modeling, and also keeping the raw data and creating reporting data so that it is further used for data analytics....
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.