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Microsoft Analytics Platform System 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

Microsoft Analytics Platfor...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
18th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
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
106
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (3rd), AI Software Development (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Analytics Platform System is 2.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 9.4%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Snowflake9.4%
Microsoft Analytics Platform System2.3%
Other88.3%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

MahmoudMohamed1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at Tatweer Educational Technologies Company - TETCO
Offers smooth data integration between systems, but requires better real-time analytics capabilities
We leverage its capabilities for many applications. We can integrate with our databases, like Oracle, MySQL, or any other, using Microsoft Integration Services. This lets us continue using private databases without paying additional licensing fees. Additionally, the license includes Analytics services and Power BI, which work on-premises, unlike most other technologies that require cloud solutions.
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

"This is a well-integrated solution and that integration empowers results."
"I like that it's integrated with other Azure products."
"Helps our customers to discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"This solution will connect to any database, you can combine databases, and you can create a cube or tabular model."
"The most valuable part of the product is that it is a system, with different tools for different services for different kinds of scenarios, making it a very rich, integrated, technology-rich platform whose total integration with the rest of Microsoft products creates flexibility and compatibility and makes the tool a very useful one."
"I think Microsoft Stack offers the end-to-end solution I need."
"Microsoft Analytics Platform System's most valuable feature is its ecosystems and seamless integration with other Microsoft reporting platforms and databases."
"We help customers in many ways from customized analysis for detection of anomalies in tax, operations, customer relationship, and marketing campaigns, and we also use mining and ML to help them discover trends, which provides useful information based on their business."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just need to follow the documentation."
"Snowflake has improved our organization by powering company-wide dashboards that functions use to understand and manage their business."
"This solution has helped our organization by being easy to maintain and having good technical support."
"It's user-friendly. It's SQL-driven. The fact that business can also go to this application and query because they know SQL is the biggest factor."
"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."
"The way Snowflake has emerged in the past few years is impressive."
"The most valuable features are the clustering, LS50, being able to change the size, the pay per use feature, the flexibility with many different sources and analytic applications."
"Snowflake has positively impacted us by making everything cloud-native, significantly reducing the systems and application running process."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Analytics Platform System could have better support."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product overall as a five. This is probably because there is still a lot of room for improvement, features that other products have that are missing, and a lot of open-source technology nowadays that are very good and people can use instead."
"Releases of new products and functionality is never accompanied by associated documentation, training and resources that adequately explain the release."
"I think the biggest problem with the product is that it does a data ingest model, which is very expensive."
"The flexibility of this solution needs to be improved because you cannot make changes at every one of the different steps."
"The trouble is Microsoft has changed their licensing. It's an extremely expensive product now."
"The pricing model needs to be improved."
"​Hybrid environments are complex to manage."
"The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system."
"The current API is very limited and difficult to configure."
"Snowflake has to improve their spatial components since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries."
"There is a need for improvements in the documentation, this would allow more people to switch over to this solution."
"The solution needs more connectors."
"If there is a need for scaling the setup is not so good."
"Snowflake could improve if they had an Operational Data Store(ODS) space."
"One thing which I believe Snowflake needs to improve is related to product activation queries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The initial price is lower than Oracle, but extensive use of SQL may lead to a higher total cost of ownership."
"Users have to pay extra for premium-level technical support."
"I rate Microsoft Analytics Platform System a seven out of ten for pricing."
"We are currently paying $200,000 a year for all the different parts of the suite during an ingest model Microsoft now charges us $700,000 a year."
"Oracle is less expensive than Snowflake."
"The product's price range falls between average to a bit expensive range. I think the tool is worth the money if you use it properly."
"Snowflake has consumption-based costs; users only pay for storage and computing."
"Snowflake goes by credits. For a financial institution where you have 5,000 employees, monthly costs may run up to maybe $5,000 to $6,000. This is actually based on the usage. It is mostly the compute cost. Your computing cost is the variable that is actually based on your usage. It is pay-per-use. In a pay-per-use case, you won't be spending more than $6,000 to $7,000 a month. It is not more than that for a small or medium enterprise, and it may come down to $100K per year. Storage is very standard, which is $23 a terabyte. It is not much for any enterprise. If you have even 20 terabytes, you are not spending more than $400 per month, which may turn out to be $2,000 to $3,000 per annum."
"The solution is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of queries you want on your database. The cost is small. To get the tool's pricing, you can do the math based on the cost per query, which is $0.002. If you're running your queries frequently, your charges will be higher than running fewer queries."
"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."
"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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?
I am not the person who manages pricing, setup cost, and licensing. Our team is not limited in pricing. The only experience we have had in terms of running and reprocessing a large number of histor...
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
One main area for improvement in Snowflake is cost visibility and optimization; while it's flexible and scalable, costs can increase quickly if warehouses are left running unnecessarily or workload...
What is your primary use case for Snowflake?
As a Data Engineer, I primarily use Snowflake for data warehousing tasks as well as ETL processing, and sometimes I also use it for data sharing. I personally find Snowflake better than other tools...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft APS, MS Analytics Platform System
Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Transport for London, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Prometeia, Tangerine, SSM Health Care, Service Corporation International
Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Analytics Platform System vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.