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Snowflake vs VAST Data comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Snowflake
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (1st), Cloud Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (3rd)
VAST Data
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (20th), File and Object Storage (9th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Snowflake and VAST Data aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Snowflake is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 20.5%, down 22.8% compared to last year.
VAST Data, on the other hand, focuses on NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays, holds 5.8% mindshare, down 6.7% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable."
"Data Science capabilities are the most valuable feature."
"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 overall ecosystem was easy to manage. Given that we weren't a very highly technical group, it was preferable to other things we looked at because it could do all of the cloud tunings. It can tune your data warehouse to an appropriate size for controlled billing, resume and sleep functions, and all such things. It was much more simple than doing native Azure or AWS development. It was stable, and their support was also perfect. It was also very easy to deploy. It was one of those rare times where they did exactly what they said they could do."
"The most valuable features are sharing data, Time Travel, Zero Copy Cloning, performance, and speed."
"Great scalability and near zero maintenance."
"The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power."
"In addition to the database, Snowflake also provides ingestion capabilities."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
 

Cons

"More data governance and access control features would be a welcome addition."
"The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template."
"Its pricing or affordability is one of the big challenges. Pricing was the only thing that we didn't like about Snowflake. In terms of technical features, it is a complete solution."
"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."
"Support needs improvement, as it can take several days before you get some initial support."
"It would benefit from an administration that allows you to be aware of your credit consumption once you have the service so that you may be sure how many credits you are consuming when you use the platform and to make sure that you are making the most efficient use of these resources. In other words, to improve their interface so that you may monitor the consumption of your credits on Cloud."
"They do have a native connector to connect with integration tools for loading data, but it would be much better to have the functionality built-in."
"We would like to have an on-premises deployment option that has the same features, including scalability."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to be aware of the bloating costs. It is easy to use, but if you don't use it wisely, then your monthly bill can bloat a lot. You need to be a bit aware of its consumption cost."
"The pricing for Snowflake is competitive."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive but worth the cost because the quality is there."
"You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
"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."
"Currently, we have a trial account, so we don't need a license. After our project starts, we would need a permanent license."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side, rated as eight out of ten. If there were ways to reduce costs, it would be a positive improvement.
What needs improvement with Snowflake?
Cost reduction is one area I would like Snowflake to improve. The product is not very cheap, and a reduction in costs would be appreciated.
What do you like most about VAST Data?
The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?
Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.
What needs improvement with VAST Data?
The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Snowflake Computing
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.