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Snowflake VS IBM Analytics Engine

Compare Snowflake VS IBM Analytics Engine and see what are their differences

Snowflake logo Snowflake

Snowflake is the only data platform built for the cloud for all your data & all your users. Learn more about our purpose-built SQL cloud data warehouse.

IBM Analytics Engine logo IBM Analytics Engine

Analytics Engine is a combined Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop service for creating analytics applications.
  • Snowflake Homepage
    Homepage //
    2024-07-19
  • IBM Analytics Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-11

Snowflake features and specs

  • Scalability
    Snowflake offers virtually unlimited scalability. It separates compute and storage, so both can scale independently according to the needs of the workload.
  • Performance
    Snowflake's architecture is optimized for performance, offering automatic clustering and parallel processing which enable faster query execution.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform provides a user-friendly interface and automates many maintenance tasks, such as indexing and partitioning, making it easier for both data engineers and analysts to use.
  • Data Sharing
    Snowflake enables seamless data sharing among different accounts without the need to duplicate data, improving collaboration and data management.
  • Security
    Snowflake includes comprehensive security features such as end-to-end encryption, role-based access control, and VPC/VPN network policies.
  • Multi-Cloud Support
    Snowflake supports multiple cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, giving organizations flexibility in choosing their infrastructure.

Possible disadvantages of Snowflake

  • Cost
    While powerful, Snowflake can become expensive, especially if not managed properly, due to its pay-as-you-go pricing model.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Once an organization is deeply integrated with Snowflake, switching to another solution can be complex and costly, contributing to vendor lock-in.
  • Learning Curve
    Though easier than many traditional databases, there is still a learning curve associated with mastering Snowflakeโ€™s unique architecture and features.
  • Third-Party Ecosystem
    While Snowflake integrates well with many third-party tools, it may not support all the tools and services you are currently using, requiring additional effort for integration.
  • Network Performance
    Snowflake's performance can be impacted by network latency, especially if large datasets are being transferred over the internet between Snowflake and on-premises systems.

IBM Analytics Engine features and specs

  • Scalability
    IBM Analytics Engine allows you to scale resources up or down based on demand, which helps optimize performance and costs.
  • Integration with IBM Cloud
    It integrates seamlessly with other IBM Cloud services, providing enhanced capabilities for data processing and analytics within the cloud ecosystem.
  • Support for Multiple Analytics Engines
    The platform supports various analytics engines like Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop, giving users flexibility in choosing tools that best fit their analytics needs.
  • Automated Management
    IBM Analytics Engine offers automated cluster management and maintenance, which reduces the operational burden on IT teams.
  • Cost Efficiency
    Pay-as-you-go pricing model allows businesses to manage costs effectively by only paying for the resources they use.

Possible disadvantages of IBM Analytics Engine

  • Complexity
    The learning curve can be steep for users unfamiliar with cloud-based analytics tools or the specific engines supported by the platform.
  • Dependency on Internet Connectivity
    As a cloud-based service, consistent and reliable internet connectivity is required for optimal performance and accessibility.
  • Limited Offline Capabilities
    The service primarily operates in the cloud with limited offline capabilities, which might not be suitable for environments where offline access is crucial.
  • Potential for Vendor Lock-In
    Migrating away from IBM Analytics Engine to another platform might require significant effort and resources, raising concerns about vendor lock-in.
  • Data Privacy Concerns
    Storing and processing data in the cloud can raise data privacy and compliance concerns, especially for businesses in regulated industries.

Analysis of Snowflake

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Snowflake is considered a good solution for businesses looking for a modern data warehousing solution that is easy to use, requires minimal infrastructure management, and provides strong performance for big data analytics.

Why this product is good

  • Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing platform known for its scalability, flexibility, and speed. It offers a unique architecture that separates storage and computing, allowing for on-demand scaling and efficient data management. Its support for structured and semi-structured data, along with a wide range of integrations and robust security features, makes it a popular choice for many organizations.

Recommended for

  • Organizations with large and diverse datasets that require scalable storage and computing solutions.
  • Data-driven companies looking for a platform that supports real-time analytics and machine learning workloads.
  • Businesses seeking a cost-effective solution with pay-as-you-go pricing and minimal infrastructure overhead.
  • Enterprises needing to integrate data from various sources, including cloud services, IoT devices, and relational databases.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Snowflake and IBM Analytics Engine)
Big Data
85 85%
15% 15
Data Dashboard
82 82%
18% 18
Data Warehousing
90 90%
10% 10
Data Management
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Snowflake and IBM Analytics Engine

Snowflake Reviews

Top 6 Cloud Data Warehouses in 2023
Snowflake accommodates data analysts of all levels since it does not use Python or R programming language. It is also well known for its secure and compressed storage for semi-structured data. Besides this, it allows you to spin multiple virtual warehouses based on your needs while parallelizing and isolating individual queries boosting their performance. You can interact...
Source: geekflare.com
Top 5 Cloud Data Warehouses in 2023
Snowflake is one of the most popular data warehousing solutions on the market and delivers an incredible experience across multiple public clouds. By using Snowflake, companies can pull data from various business intelligence tools to do reporting and analytics without any database administration, thus avoiding high overhead costs. Unlike other data warehousing services,...
Top 5 BigQuery Alternatives: A Challenge of Complexity
Plus, Snowflake doesnโ€™t include data integrations, so teams will have to bolt on an ETL tool to pipe their data into the warehouse. Those third-party pipelines add extra cost and overhead in the form of setup and maintenance that some teams may not want to absorb.
Source: blog.panoply.io
Top Big Data Tools For 2021
This platform can be used for data warehousing, data science, data engineering, sharing, and application development. It enables you to easily secure your data and execute various analytic workloads. Snowflake also ensures a seamless experience when working with multiple public clouds.

IBM Analytics Engine Reviews

We have no reviews of IBM Analytics Engine yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Snowflake seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 4 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Snowflake mentions (4)

  • DeWitt Clause, or Can You Benchmark %DATABASE% and Get Away With It
    Snowflake, a data warehousing company founded by ex-Oracle and ex-VectorWise experts, responded with a blog post that critically reviewed Databricks' findings, reported different results for the same benchmark, and claimed comparable price/performance to Databricks. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • Personal Support at Internet Scale
    Snowflake: Snowflake is fast, and works well as a product analytics database. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • Less than 1TB of data what tools should I get better at?
    If you just go to snowflake.com you can sign up for a demo account for free for a month and I'm fairly certain you can get more than one of these accounts (I would recycle emails doing it all the time.) Once you have an account there's lots of docs and videos out there either using the Database via their UI or via python using their connector. They also have a pyspark connector but you might want to just learn... Source: about 4 years ago
  • *BOMATO*
    Early stage funding & VCs clearly demarcate between tech companies and tech enabled companies. But, once the PE comes into the picture at the scale of BlackStone, the border between doordash.com and snowflake.com starts to blur. The motivation is to make some bucks by going to IPO and they know how to get it done. Source: about 4 years ago

IBM Analytics Engine mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of IBM Analytics Engine yet. Tracking of IBM Analytics Engine recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Snowflake and IBM Analytics Engine, you can also consider the following products

Google BigQuery - A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.

Databricks - Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering and business.โ€ŽWhat is Apache Spark?

Qubole - Qubole delivers a self-service platform for big aata analytics built on Amazon, Microsoft and Google Clouds.

Amazon EMR - Amazon Elastic MapReduce is a web service that makes it easy to quickly process vast amounts of data.

Amazon Redshift - Learn about Amazon Redshift cloud data warehouse.

Snowplow - Snowplow is an enterprise-strength event analytics platform.