Do you want to know the difference between Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake? Then this is the right place for you. In this Azure article, we will discuss Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake or the key differences between Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake. Along with that, we will discuss a few other topics as mentioned below.
Table of Contents
Azure Synapse vs Snowflake
Currently, many companies are trying to work with cloud solutions and want to move their data to the cloud. The reason behind this decision is it is cost-effective, no headache for storing and managing data, Many tools to analyze their data the most important point is their critical data is highly secure.
There are many scenarios where people might face difficulties in making a decision about whether they need to go with Azure Synapse Analytics or Snowflake. Keeping this point in mind, we are trying to point out some significant differences between Azure Synapse and Snowflake.
Well, let’s discuss here a few critical differences between Snowflake and Azure Synapse Analytics.
| Key Concepts | Azure Synapse Analytics | Snowflake |
| Type of Services | Azure Synapse Analytics is Platform as a Service (PaaS). | Azure Synapse Analytics is a Platform as a Service (PaaS). |
| Pricing Model | You need to pay on an hourly basis based on your usage. | You don’t really need to hire Administrators, as most of the jobs are done automatically. |
| In terms of Scalability | Azure Synapse is less scalable as compared to Snowflake. Scalable in terms of some specific features. | Supports auto-scaling. It is more scalable in nature compared to Azure Synapse. |
| Need of Administrators | Here, the role of the Administrators is really important so you need to hire administrators to monitor a few of the critical services. | You don’t really need to hire Administrators as most of the jobs are done automatically. |
| Supported Cloud Platforms | Basically, Azure Synapse runs on the Azure cloud platform. | Not specific to Azure. It runs on different cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, Google Cloud platform, etc. |
| Supported Languages | It supports different languages like Python, SQL, Java, Scala, etc. | Snowflake supports different programming languages like Python, JavaScript, etc. |
| Support to XML | Azure Synapse doesn’t support XML. | It supports XML. |
| Support for Secondary Index | Secondary Index is supported in case of Azure Synapse analytics. | Snowflake doesn’t support the Secondary Index. |
Difference between Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake in terms of their Limitations
Snowflake
- It is not user-friendly. The UI is a bit complicated.
- Quite expensive.
Azure Synapse Analytics
- Takes a bit more time to configure the setup and even to learn for beginners.
- It is not easy to integrate different 3rd party data source applications.
- Not much support for NoSQL.
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Wrapping Up
Well, In this article, we have discussed a few key differences between Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake. Now it’s your turn to go with Azure Synapse Analytics and Snowflake based on your requirements. I hope you have enjoyed this article !!!
I am Rajkishore, and I have over 14 years of experience in Microsoft Azure and AWS, with good experience in Azure Functions, Storage, Virtual Machine, Logic Apps, PowerShell Commands, CLI Commands, Machine Learning, AI, Azure Cognitive Services, DevOps, etc. Not only that, I do have good real-time experience in designing and developing cloud-native data integrations on Azure or AWS, etc. I hope you will learn from these practical Azure tutorials. Read more.