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Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Stable and capable of processing data in bulk but needs to have SLAs in place
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable."
  • "They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution in order to have the daily transactions of trades. It's to manipulate and find out the benchmark of every broker and institutional manager.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable aspect is the ability to process the bulk amount of data and try to clone the database. We try to clone the production database. Instead of syncing the whole database, we can just clone it up and start working on it. Basically, the cloning and the database are very user-friendly.

The solution is very stable.

What needs improvement?

Right now, Snowflake doesn't have any analytical functions, especially in comparison to Oracle and other databases. The analytical performance needs to improve. It would be ideal if Snowflake was able to use the analytical functions, and what we have in the relational database. That would be really helpful. 

They don't have any SLAs in place. It would be better if they did.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for two years now. The company, however, has been using it for three years at this point.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is quite stable. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is definitely scalable. We're able to add nodes to grow it out when we need to. If an organization needs to expand the solution, they can do so easily. We find it to be very reliable.

There are about 300 people using the solution at this time. We don't plan on increasing usage at this time.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very, very good. It's a responsive and knowledgable team. We're quite satisfied with the level of service we receive.

That said, Snowflake technical support doesn't have any SLAs. If they had a small amount of SLAs, then it would be helpful for us to clear or solve any production issues, etc. that we may run into.

How was the initial setup?

We need about 50-60 people to maintain the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Snowflake's pricing is a bit higher than other competitors.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were looking at Amazon Redshift previously. However, we decided that Snowflake was more reliable and scalable.

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the solution.

Users considering adding the solution should understand that Snowflake can be used only for transactional processing, not for analytical processing. If they want to go for transaction processing, they can go for Snowflake and if they want to go for analytical processing, they should look at or go for an Oracle database.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1364460 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Excellent data warehousing, quick to scale, and knowledgable technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "From a data warehouse perspective, it's an excellent all-round solution. It's very complete."
  • "The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for data. We like that there are so many different formats and many structures for analysis.

What is most valuable?

The architecture we'll be using due to being on the cloud will assure we have less to do. There will be no indexing, for example. Everything's managed by the servers. That way, we can focus on the data warehouse and on the data.

From a data warehouse perspective, it's an excellent all-round solution. It's very complete.

What needs improvement?

The user interface continues to be an issue, especially when we need to get data out of Snowflake. It's very easy to get data in, but it's not too easy to get it out or extract it.

It would be nice to have some built-in solutions that would solve. for example, how to delete data from a customer when they request it.

There needs to be stronger data protection.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for just a bit less than a year at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Our clients have been very impressed with the solution's overall stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is incredible. It's the best I've ever seen. Organizations can scale easily. I can scale up four times faster as well. Something that usually takes 60 minutes can be done in 15 or 20 minutes. It's faster and I save costs because I only pay for the time. Even though I'm paying "more" I end up saving money with this time based costing.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've only contacted technical support a handful of times. I have, however, found them to be very savvy product-wise and very helpful. Their technical support staff are all experts. They know the product extremely well.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. I wouldn't describe it as complex.

How long it takes to deploy depends on your knowledge and your background. It's difficult to judge. I've been working for 20 years now with data warehouses. For me, it was very easy because of my extensive background. However, it depends on what someone knows, and their technical background. It can be difficult for others who maybe don't have as much knowledge or first-hand experience with warehouses.

What about the implementation team?

We're partners with Snowflake. We support our customers and can help them implement it as necessary.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution has an excellent pricing strategy. The costs are open and transparent. If you don't use it, you don't pay for it. It's that simple.

What other advice do I have?

We're partners with Snowflake.

The difference between Snowflake, and, for example, Azure, is that there is real separation between the computer and storage. Snowflake is the only one that's really separate and it's much simpler to scale or shift data. It makes everything much easier.

One of the best options on the market right now is to have a cloud-only setup. Not everyone is using the cloud, but everyone will catch up.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If the user interface was better and they had a few more features and did some useability tweaks it would be perfect. Also, it's hard to get the data out of Snowflake, and that's a real issue design-wise.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
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Pre-sale Leader, Big Data Enterprise Solutions at Ness Technologies
Consultant
In one second, you can take a snapshot of the database for test purposes
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the snapshot database. In one second, you can just take a snapshot of the database for test purposes."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case is big data warehouses.

    How has it helped my organization?

    • Excellent performance
    • Very easy to use
    • Amazing UI

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is the snapshot database. In one second, you can just take a snapshot of the database for test purposes.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    One year.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Basically, it is not cheap.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1077408 - PeerSpot reviewer
    R&D Operations Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    You can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data
    Pros and Cons
    • "I like the idea that you can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data."
    • "If you go with one cloud provider, you can't switch."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are a big data company. We have many thousands of devices deployed from our customer base. These devices upload data, on an hourly basis, to a central storage. Next, we run some ETF processes that crunch and process data, then we store that data in a structured way on Snowflake.

    Over the past six months, it has been more of a development project.

    I am using the latest version.

    What is most valuable?

    • I like the idea that you can assign roles and responsibilities, limiting access to data. That has been very interesting to us. 
    • The robustness of the system is very useful to us. 
    • The availability of the system. 

    What needs improvement?

    We would like Snowflake to be able to do inter-cloud migrations. That would be great. I want to be able to switch clouds.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Six months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    If you go with one cloud provider, you can't switch.

    We have very few users. There is just a very limited number who are mostly developers. We did not roll out the end product. We did not roll out product and services based on that foundation/infrastructure yet.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I have not personally contacted technical support.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We previously used HPE and Microsoft Insight. We switched to Snowflake for the availability, security, and loading times.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was very straightforward. It was very quick. The complexity came from our specific use case scenario.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We also looked at HPE and Microsoft Insight.

    What other advice do I have?

    Analyze your user scenario. If your scenario is managing large amounts of data in extremely, different environments in a structured way, then this is a good option.

    I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user865563 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data Engineer at Celebal Technologies
    Real User
    Easy to scale, a simple initial setup, and good stability
    Pros and Cons
    • "The initial setup is straightforward. You just need to follow the documentation."
    • "The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system."

    How has it helped my organization?

    We mainly used SQL scripts and provided a solution for different owners who want to query a database but have several tables. Typically, it is not an easy task to read several tables, so we provided our client with a very crisp data model where they can get results in a very quick manner. We implemented distribution as well as weekly partitioning. 

    What is most valuable?

    The relational piece and how one dimension relates to another just by using a key is the solution's most valuable aspect. We are managing everything by using simple relations. It's all about the relationships between dimensions.

    What needs improvement?

    Right now, we need to write code, but if they could create a version of Snowflake that was more drag and drop for those managers that don't know how to code, it would be great for our business.

    The solution could improve the user interface and add functionality to the system.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used the solution for two years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is stable. We bring in incremental loads into Snowflake. There are pipelines that daily seed data from Oracle to a data warehouse. It's a prebuilt code and it allows for great stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's very easy to scale because Azure cloud's own data warehouse gives us that capabilities to scale up or down at any time we want. There are a great number of users on the solution, but it differs from client to client. One client, for example, has about 30,000 users.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We've never been in touch with technical support.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is straightforward. You just need to follow the documentation.

    What about the implementation team?

    We handled the implementation ourselves. I've handled two or three projects previously, so I'm comfortable with the solution. We don't need assistance because we handle the consulting part.

    What other advice do I have?

    The solution is deployed on the cloud using Azure, where there's a data warehouse. We primarily use SQL scripts.

    For those considering implementing, I'd advise that they understand the business very deeply first. Not every business would have a demand for Snowflake, so it's not for everyone. It's important to understand the requirements and then, if it makes sense, to implement Snowflake.

    I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher if it had a better user interface.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1175826 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data & Analytics Practitioner at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Could use better integration, but very stable with an easy initial setup
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."
    • "The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use the solution for data warehousing.

    What is most valuable?

    The entire managed service operations for the solution is great. Snowflake does everything for us. Whatever version they have, they implement the latest for us; we don't have to worry about any versions, any upgrades, anything else because they handle it.

    What needs improvement?

    The solution should offer an on-premises version also. We have some requirements where we would prefer to use it as a template. 

    The integration capabilities could be improved.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for six months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution has been very stable for us.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have not tested scalability, but the solution claims that it's scalable. It's on the cloud, so I imagine you could scale rather easily if you needed to. 

    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. 

    We have about 40 people using the solution. They're mostly business users.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is good. Occasionally, they take a bit of time to resolve issues, but other than that they are okay. We're mostly satisfied with them.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We're system integrators, so we use different solutions including SQL Server Data Warehouse and Greenplum as well as Snowflake at the moment.

    I've used many data warehouse solutions, including Hadoop, and Oracle SQL Server Data warehouses. I switched from those to Snowflake because Snowflake is on the cloud and gives you separate computing and storage scalability, which Hadoop is unable to offer.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is straightforward. There's no deployment; it's just your code solution that needs to get up and running. You have a deal with Snowflake in terms of what environment you want, and when you want to use it, and they'll set it up within a day for you.

    What about the implementation team?

    Snowflake helped us with the implementation.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are system integrators, so for all our customers, we offer different solutions.

    We only use the cloud deployment model. Snowflake doesn't offer on-premises deployments.

    Snowflake on cloud is the best right now. There are only a few other options. Redshift is not scalable. With SQL Data Warehouse the concurrency is an issue, as well as scalability. Also, it does not have all the features that you see in an on-premises SQL Server.

    Snowflake a good database. I'd recommend the solution to others.

    I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. We are still new to the solution. There are a few things we still have to explore before we would give it 10. Typically, I come from a Hadoop background, so compared to Hadoop I think everything looks good before the data warehouse side. We're quite pleased with Snowflake and moving from Hadoop into Snowflake has been a very good transformation.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user1174809 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Business Intelligence Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
    Consultant
    A flexible solution with good clustering, and the pay-per-use feature is useful
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."
    • "Support needs improvement, as it can take several days before you get some initial support."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are an IT Analytic Consulting company and we work with many different products. We have Snowflake and a Snowflake account mainly for education purposes and our internal training.

    We connected it to different sources, mainly internal sources. Most of them are on-premises and some are on the cloud.

    The deployment model is public.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features are: 

    The multi-clustering: being able to access stored data without contention.

    Virtual Warehouse (VW) sizing: Change the size of your VW on demand. 

    Zero copy clone: Easy to create development and test environments.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to have a tool where you can easily see the price because they need clarity of pricing.

    Support needs improvement, as it can take several days before you get some initial support.

    Integration could be the key to provide an optimal solution.

    In the near future, I would like to see a built-in basic analytics solution that can be embedded for testing purposes, so you can see data not only in tables but also in a graphical way in order to better prepare data for analytics.

    Embedded analytics would be nice.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for four months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The scenarios that we are using are not complex. For what we are using it's pretty stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    With a different cloud that warehouses are the standard for now but the scalability is pretty straightforward.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    In terms of support, it can take some time as there are not many people to provide support. Compared to other more stable providers it's a bit slower.

    You have to wait several days to get support.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Snowflake is not the only solution we are working with but it is the only solution that we are heavily focusing on and investing our efforts into the knowledge and the training.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup can be complex at the beginning but once you get into it, it can be straightforward.

    When you come from an on-premises solution and you have to change or shift to the cloud, it works very differently. Once you know the differences then it is straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    We did not implement this solution through a vendor, we did it ourselves.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Pricing can be confusing for customers. For example, if a customer is asking for an estimate of the price, it's hard to tell because it is not easy to measure.

    Improvement on the pricing and how it is presented is needed.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would suggest being careful with selecting resources. Each customer case can be completely different and each can require different resources.

    It's not only the database itself but also how you integrate it with the analytics and the resources. The estimation of the resources is something that you have to pay a lot of attention to when selecting the resources because sometimes you will need EPL or ELT integration, which requires a tool, as does analytics.

    For an end to end solution, you have to include other products.

    I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    NitinKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
    NitinKumarDirector of Enginnering at Sigmoid
    Real User

    Yeah, the pricing is something which I too felt can be more open and explicit for the customers.

    Architect at Sony Corporation of America
    Real User
    Stable with good technical support, but the solution is expensive on longrun
    Pros and Cons
    • "As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."
    • "There are some stored procedures that we've had trouble with. The solution also needs to fine-tune the connectors to be able to connect into the system source."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our aim was to migrate everything from on-premise, so we just migrated as it is and then we had issues. Some use cases that were running on-premises were not installed. We just went through each case and then finalized the issues with some of the packages that were not working or some users that were not getting what they were expecting. We did deep analysis on each and every case and then looked for options in Snowflake and are now working with the team to move everything over to Snowflake

    What is most valuable?

    The data warehouse is one of the great concepts of Snowflake. The coding plans are also a great feature. You can switch out the values or sizes. 

    What needs improvement?

    It would be helpful if implementation could be handled more on the user-side. We need to train the users on best practices and how to use the solution properly. It's a cost issue. If they don't run it properly then it'll end up costing more money.

    There are some stored procedures that we've had trouble with. The solution also needs to fine-tune the connectors to be able to connect into the system source.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for one year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is stable. We had only one failure, but that was because of AWS issues. Beyond that, I haven't seen anything else. From the Snowflake side, within 10 minutes they reported the AWS issue. It was under two hours of downtime because of the quick response.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    As long as you don't need to worry about storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes. We've migrated about 400-450 dealers onto the solution so far. We do intend to expand usage so there will be more users and more data. The drawbacks we've had with on-premises was space being a constraint and the user code having limitations.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer support is good. There is always someone who's going to respond. They will let you know what can be done and what is possible.

    How was the initial setup?

    We did some testing and some comparisons, but it's all set up now and running fine. The deployment took about three months. Since we didn't want to disrupt the on-premises, or overload the system, we did most of the migrations on the weekend.

    For maintenance, in the beginning, until you are through with training and performance tuning, you will need more people. You might need to start with seven or so, and then, for ongoing work, probably one or two people can manage it. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We had a Snowflake consultant on-site that assisted us with the implementation.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It's an expensive solution. We can't predict exactly how much until we've streamlined everything and the user requirements have been completed, but normally they charge on the storage, which depends upon the average storage amount used for the month.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at IBM because it also has on-premise solutions. We also looked at Azure as well as AWS.

    What other advice do I have?

    Because most of the issues you come across can be dealt with on the user's sites, it's important to educate the users and understand their requirements.

    The best advice I can give is to understand the product and to try to stick to what is required. From the business side, you need to monitor usage and monitor the space because of on-premises constraints. If it gets filled up then you will have to react. However, this solution is very scalable. 

    I would rate this solution between seven and eight out of ten. The solution still has some constraints that need to be addressed.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
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    Updated: July 2025
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