IBM Netezza Performance Server vs Snowflake comparison

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2,543 views|1,441 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
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11,866 views|6,742 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Netezza Performance Server and Snowflake based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Data Warehouse solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We are able to execute very complex queries. Over 90 percent of our query executions are one second or less. We do millions of queries everyday.""The underlying hardware that IBM provides with this appliance is made for a specific purpose, to serve performance on a large amount of data, and to do analytics as well. It is faster, when you compare it to any other product.""The benefit is really because of the additional speed that we have and, truth be told, the more updated ETL processes and the revamped scheduler in general.""The data governance prospect... from what I've seen, that is a really powerful tool as well, to help with data lineage and keeping track of that.""IBM Netezza Performance Server is a cost-effective solution.""The most valuable feature would be the fact that it has been running for awhile in an appliance format.""Distribution concurrency control.""The most valuable features of the IBM Netezza Performance Server are the NPS server because of the reduced maintenance and overall good performance."

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"Very easy to use and easy to query.""The most valuable features of Snowflake are that you have to pay per usage, and you don't have to worry about the maintenance of the data warehouse because it is on the cloud.""I like the fact that we don't need a DBA. It automatically scales stuff.""The solution is very stable.""It is a cloud solution with many useful features. It has the data science capability. It can transform data and prepare data for a data science project with scalability.""The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business.""I have found the solution's most valuable features to be storage, flexibility, ease of use, and security.""The syntax is advanced which reduces the time to write code."

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Cons
"IBM Netezza Performance Server could improve its interface, support for big data, and APA-based connectivity should be available.""The scalability is not as expected. The capacity in the black box is not enough.""We are not able to scale. The only way to scale is to get another appliance, but we have a customers who would need us to hydrate the data between the two appliances, and Netezza does not do that.""In terms of features that I would like to see, one is the ability to actually scale out an architecture. Right now, if you buy one, it's fixed. There is no scale-up availability at all.""Our main problem with it is concurrency. When there are too many users running Netezza at the same time, this is when we have the most complaints.""Concurrency limit needs to be increased somewhat.""LIke Teradata, we can’t add a node/SPU to the existing appliance.""Oracle Exadata's security features, like TDE encryption, are missing in IBM Netezza Performance Server."

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"It's difficult to know how to size everything correctly.""The solution needs more connectors.""Snowflake has to improve their spatial parts since it doesn't have much in terms of geo-spatial queries.""The scheduling system can definitely be better because we had to use external airflow for that. There should be orchestration for the scheduling system. Snowflake currently does not support machine learning, so it is just storage. They also need some alternatives for SQL Query. There should also be support for Spark in different languages such as Python.""An additional feature I'd like to see is called materialized views, which can speed up some run times. I'd like it to be able to be used where you can have multiple tables inside them; materialized view. That would be nice. As well as being able to run cursors, to be able to do some bulk updates and some more advanced querying, table building on the fly.""I would like to see more transparency in data processing, ATLs, and compute areas - which should give more comfort to the end users.""We would like to see more security including more masking and more encryption at the database level.""Snowflake has to build more capabilities because they have only built very few adapters, but they're growing and they're building. They should provide provisions to collect ETL pipeline capabilities, reduce developer work, and make more rapid application development, rather than some customizations. There are very few options, but they are building. I hope they will build ETL rapid application development provisions with more variety."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Netezza is a costly solution. It does serve a specific purpose but it's costlier than what's available in the market, if you go to the cloud."
  • "The pricing is very expensive. It has a lot CPUs with a lot of components in it. It also has built-in redundancy for resiliency reasons."
  • "The solution has a yearly licensing fee, and users have to pay extra for support."
  • More IBM Netezza Performance Server Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing can be confusing for customers."
  • "The whole licensing system is based on credit points. You can also make a license agreement with the company so that you buy credit points and then you use them. What you do not use in one year can be carried over to the next year."
  • "You pay based on the data that you are storing in the data warehouse and there are no maintenance costs."
  • "It is not cheap."
  • "The pricing for Snowflake is competitive."
  • "On average, with the number of queries that we run, we pay approximately $200 USD per month."
  • "Pricing is approximately $US 50 per DB. Terabyte is around $US 50 per month."
  • "The price of Snowflake is very reasonable."
  • More Snowflake Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:IBM Netezza Performance Server is a cost-effective solution.
    Top Answer:The solution has a yearly licensing fee, and users have to pay extra for support.
    Top Answer:Oracle Exadata's security features, like TDE encryption, are missing in IBM Netezza Performance Server.
    Top Answer:The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.
    Top Answer:The real-time streaming feature is limited with Snowflake and could be improved. Currently, Snowflake doesn't support unstructured data. With Snowflake, you need to be very particular about the type… more »
    Ranking
    10th
    out of 35 in Data Warehouse
    Views
    2,543
    Comparisons
    1,441
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    334
    Rating
    7.0
    1st
    out of 35 in Data Warehouse
    Views
    11,866
    Comparisons
    6,742
    Reviews
    36
    Average Words per Review
    459
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Netezza Performance Server, Netezza
    Snowflake Computing
    Learn More
    Overview
    IBM Netezza appliances are now part of IBM PureSystems - expert integrated systems with built in expertise, integration by design and a simplified user experience. Part of the PureData family, the Netezza appliance is now known as the PureData System for Analytics. It has the same key design tenets of simplicity, speed, scalability and analytics power that was fundamental to Netezza appliances.

    Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing solution for storing and processing data, generating reports and dashboards, and as a BI reporting source. It is used for optimizing costs and using financial data, as well as for migrating data from on-premises to the cloud. The solution is often used as a centralized data warehouse, combining data from multiple sources.

    Snowflake has helped organizations improve query performance, store and process JSON and XML, consolidate multiple databases into one unified table, power company-wide dashboards, increase productivity, reduce processing time, and have easy maintenance with good technical support.

    Its platform is made up of three components:

    1. Cloud services - Snowflake uses ANSI SQL to empower users to optimize their data and manage their infrastructure, while Snowflake handles the security and encryption of stored data.
    2. Query processing - Snowflake's compute layer is made up of virtual cloud data warehouses that let you analyze data through requests. Each of the warehouses does not compete for computing resources, nor do they affect the performance of each other.
    3. Database storage - Snowflake automatically manages all parts of the data storage process, including file size, compression, organization, structure, metadata, and statistics.

    Snowflake has many valuable vital features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Snowflake architecture provides nearly unlimited scalability and high speed because it uses a single elastic performance engine. The solution also supports unlimited concurrent users and workloads, from interactive to batch.
    • Snowflake makes automation easy and enables enterprises to automate data management, security, governance, availability, and data resiliency.
    • With seamless cross-cloud and cross-region connections, Snowflake eliminates ETL and data silos. Anyone who needs access to shared secure data can get a single copy via the data cloud. In addition, Snowflake makes remote collaboration and decision-making fast and easy via a single shared data source.
    • Snowflake’s Data Marketplace offers third-party data, which allows you to connect with Snowflake customers to extend workflows with data services and third-party applications.

    There are many benefits to implementing Snowflake. It helps optimize costs, reduce downtime, improve operational efficiency, and automate data replication for fast recovery, and it is built for high reliability and availability.

      Below are quotes from interviews we conducted with users currently using the Snowflake solution:

      Sreenivasan R., Director of Data Architecture and Engineering at Decision Minds, says, "Data sharing is a good feature. It is a majorly used feature. The elastic computing is another big feature. Separating computing and storage gives you flexibility. It doesn't require much DBA involvement because it doesn't need any performance tuning. We are not doing any performance tuning, and the entire burden of performance and SQL tuning is on Snowflake. Its usability is very good. I don't need to ramp up any user, and its onboarding is easier. You just onboard the user, and you are done with it. There are simple SQL and UI, and people are able to use this solution easily. Ease of use is a big thing in Snowflake."

      A director of business operations at a logistics company mentions, "It requires no maintenance on our part. They handle all that. The speed is phenomenal. The pricing isn't really anything more than what you would be paying for a SQL server license or another tool to execute the same thing. We have zero maintenance on our side to do anything and the speed at which it performs queries and loads the data is amazing. It handles unstructured data extremely well, too. So, if the data is in a JSON array or an XML, it handles that super well."

      A Solution Architect at a wholesaler/distributor comments, "The ability to share the data and the ability to scale up and down easily are the most valuable features. The concept of data sharing and data plumbing made it very easy to provide and share data. The ability to refresh your Dev or QA just by doing a clone is also valuable. It has the dynamic scale up and scale down feature. Development and deployment are much easier as compared to other platforms where you have to go through a lot of stuff. With a tool like DBT, you can do modeling and transformation within a single tool and deploy to Snowflake. It provides continuous deployment and continuous integration abilities. There is a separation of storage and compute, so you only get charged for your usage. You only pay for what you use. When we share the data downstream with business partners, we can specifically create compute for them, and we can charge back the business."

      Sample Customers
      Seattle Childrens Hospital, Carphone Warehouse, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Battelle, Start Today Co. Ltd., Kelley Blue Book, Trident Marketing, Elisa Corporation, Catalina Marketing, iBasis, Barnes & Noble, Qualcomm, MediaMath, Acxiom, iBasis, Foxwoods
      Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops
      Top Industries
      REVIEWERS
      Financial Services Firm37%
      Retailer16%
      Comms Service Provider11%
      Insurance Company11%
      VISITORS READING REVIEWS
      Educational Organization67%
      Financial Services Firm8%
      Computer Software Company5%
      Insurance Company3%
      REVIEWERS
      Computer Software Company30%
      Financial Services Firm20%
      Manufacturing Company6%
      Healthcare Company6%
      VISITORS READING REVIEWS
      Educational Organization27%
      Financial Services Firm13%
      Computer Software Company10%
      Manufacturing Company6%
      Company Size
      REVIEWERS
      Small Business18%
      Midsize Enterprise9%
      Large Enterprise74%
      VISITORS READING REVIEWS
      Small Business5%
      Midsize Enterprise70%
      Large Enterprise25%
      REVIEWERS
      Small Business26%
      Midsize Enterprise21%
      Large Enterprise54%
      VISITORS READING REVIEWS
      Small Business15%
      Midsize Enterprise35%
      Large Enterprise51%
      Buyer's Guide
      IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. Snowflake
      May 2024
      Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. Snowflake and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
      772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

      IBM Netezza Performance Server is ranked 10th in Data Warehouse with 33 reviews while Snowflake is ranked 1st in Data Warehouse with 94 reviews. IBM Netezza Performance Server is rated 8.0, while Snowflake is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of IBM Netezza Performance Server writes "A cost-effective data warehousing tool, but security features like TDE encryption are missing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Snowflake writes "Good usability, good data sharing and elastic compute features, and requires less DBA involvement". IBM Netezza Performance Server is most compared with Oracle Exadata, Oracle Database, Teradata, SQL Server and IBM Db2 Database, whereas Snowflake is most compared with BigQuery, Azure Data Factory, Teradata, Vertica and AWS Lake Formation. See our IBM Netezza Performance Server vs. Snowflake report.

      See our list of best Data Warehouse vendors and best Cloud Data Warehouse vendors.

      We monitor all Data Warehouse reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.