Snowflake vs Palantir Foundry

by Gralio Feb 03, 2025

Snowflake offers a robust, scalable, and cost-effective data platform suitable for diverse data warehousing and analytics needs across various industries. Palantir Foundry provides a powerful platform for large organizations to unify, analyze, and operationalize complex data, particularly in security-conscious sectors requiring advanced analytics and operational integrations.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 628 reviews and 60 websites, saving 3 hours, 59 minutes of reading.

Snowflake

Website LinkedIn Twitter

Palantir Foundry

Website LinkedIn Twitter

About

Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform designed for businesses to store, manage, and analyze large amounts of data. It works like a giant, virtual warehouse for all your data, accessible from anywhere. Snowflake adapts to your needs, scaling its power and cost up or down on demand. This makes it suitable for tasks like analyzing customer trends, building data-driven applications, or sharing data securely with partners. Its strength lies in handling massive datasets with high speed and efficiency.

Palantir Foundry is a software platform designed to help large organizations manage and analyze their data. It brings all your data together in one place, making it easier to find insights, make decisions, and automate operations. Foundry is used by businesses in various sectors, including finance, healthcare, and government. It is known for its advanced security features and its ability to handle very large and complex datasets.

Summary

Main difference

Snowflake excels in data warehousing, analytics, and sharing for diverse data types and sizes, adapting to various business needs with scalable pricing. Palantir Foundry specializes in unifying, analyzing, and operationalizing data for large enterprises, particularly in security-sensitive sectors, emphasizing advanced analytics and operational integrations.

Relative strengths of Snowflake (compared to Palantir Foundry)

Superior scalability and flexible pricing adaptable to usage, catering to diverse budgets and data volumes.
Strong SQL support and data transformation capabilities empower users with familiar tools for efficient data manipulation.
Broad industry applicability and data sharing features facilitate cross-organizational collaboration and data democratization.

Relative weaknesses of Snowflake (compared to Palantir Foundry)

Limited pre-built application connectors compared to Palantir Foundry, potentially requiring custom integration efforts.
Less focus on operational data integration and automation compared to Foundry's emphasis on operational workflows.
Simpler security features compared to Foundry, making it less suitable for highly sensitive data and regulated industries.

Who should use Snowflake VS. Palantir Foundry

Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform ideal for data-driven businesses of all sizes needing to store, manage, and analyze large datasets. Users praise its scalability and ease of use, allowing for seamless integration with various data tools. However, some users mention limitations in machine learning features and unstructured data support. Snowflake excels in data warehousing, offering high performance and efficient SQL data transformation.

Palantir Foundry helps large organizations manage and analyze their data. It centralizes data, simplifies insights discovery, aids decision-making, and automates operations. Known for advanced security and handling complex datasets, Foundry offers interactive dashboards, BI tool integration, and pre-built connectors.

Best for small, medium, and large businesses.
Ideal for Software, IT, Telecommunications, and various other industries.

Best fit for enterprise companies.
Used by finance, healthcare, and government.

Snowflake and Palantir Foundry features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Analytics Integration

Supported

Snowflake integrates with analytics tools like Amplitude and Triple Whale for analysis and reporting.

Supported

Palantir Foundry integrates with analytics tools like Google Cloud, AEM, and Google Analytics.
Data Warehouse Integration

Supported

Snowflake excels in data warehouse integration, seamlessly connecting with diverse data sources like relational databases, cloud platforms, NoSQL databases, and streaming services. Its compatibility with third-party tools, data sharing capabilities, flexible architecture, support for semi-structured data, and query optimization prowess make it highly capable of integrating with other warehouse databases.

Supported

Palantir Foundry can integrate with other warehouse databases.
Columnar storage

Supported

Snowflake stores data in a columnar format, meaning data for each column is stored together, separate from other columns. This is beneficial for data analytics and business intelligence applications where calculations are often performed over a single data column.

Not supported

Although Palantir Foundry is highly capable in data management and analytics, it does not explicitly state that they use columnar storage. The provided documentation focuses more on object-based storage and ontological data management.
SQL data transformation

Supported

Snowflake supports data transformation using SQL queries, including filtering, aggregating, joining, and manipulating data. It also supports views, stored procedures, and UDFs for this purpose.

Supported

Palantir Foundry supports SQL data transformations using queries, leveraging Spark SQL, and offers advanced data manipulation features.
SQL support

Supported

Snowflake fully supports querying data via SQL.

Supported

Palantir Foundry offers SQL support for querying data with read-only functionality through its Foundry SQL Server.
NoSQL DB integration

Supported

Snowflake supports integration with NoSQL databases through features like native semi-structured data support, direct data ingestion from NoSQL sources, flexible data storage and querying, and real-time data processing.

Supported

Palantir Foundry supports integration with NoSQL databases like MongoDB, Redis and Cassandra.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

-0.26

Neutral sentiment

No data
Customer Service

+0.56

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Ease of Use

+0.75

Strongly positive sentiment

No data
Reliability and Performance

+0.81

Strongly positive sentiment

No data
Ease of Implementation

+0.33

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Scalability

+0.93

Strongly positive sentiment

No data

Snowflake and Palantir Foundry Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.26

See full Pricing page

No data

We couldn't find a pricing page for Palantir Foundry.

Snowflake and Palantir Foundry review insights

628 reviews analysed from and

Users love

The ability to easily scale warehouses based on requirements
Query profile is a very useful feature
The user interface is easy to implement and navigate
Seamless integration with various data tools

No data

Users dislike

Limited machine learning features
Data migration efforts are large to transfer everything from on premises to cloud
The new UI is too confusing
Unstructured data support is lacking

No data

Snowflake and Palantir Foundry Ratings

G2

4.5/5

(538)
Capterra

4.6/5

(78)
Glassdoor

4.0/5

(749)

G2

4.1/5

(12)
Glassdoor

3.8/5

(770)

Company health

Employee growth

20% increase in the last year

10% increase in the last year

Web traffic

1% increase in the last quarter

17% increase in the last quarter

Financing

March 2022 - $2B

May 2023 - $3B

How do Snowflake's data sharing capabilities compare to Palantir Foundry's?

Snowflake's data sharing capabilities are generally considered more robust and flexible than Palantir Foundry's. Snowflake allows sharing data securely and near-instantaneously with external partners, customers, or other Snowflake accounts without needing to copy or transfer data. This facilitates live data sharing and collaboration. While Foundry enables data sharing within its platform and ecosystem, it often involves more complex data transformation and movement processes. Snowflake's emphasis on data sharing as a core feature contrasts with Foundry's primary focus on internal data consolidation and analysis, although Foundry is increasingly incorporating more streamlined data sharing features.

Which platform better integrates with existing ETL processes, Snowflake or Foundry?

Foundry better integrates with existing ETL processes. While Snowflake supports data transformation through SQL, Foundry explicitly states ETL process support and offers a suite of tools for data integration and transformation. This suggests a more robust and dedicated ETL framework within Foundry.

What are the advantages of Snowflake?

Snowflake offers advantages in scalability and ease of use, adapting to different data needs and providing an intuitive interface. It excels in data warehouse integration, connecting with various data sources. Furthermore, Snowflake's columnar storage is beneficial for analytical performance. While it has some limitations in machine learning features and unstructured data support, its strengths lie in handling large datasets with speed and efficiency for data-driven insights.

What are the disadvantages of Snowflake?

Snowflake's disadvantages include limited machine learning capabilities compared to some competitors, potentially complex data migration processes for on-premise data, a user interface that some users find confusing, and less robust support for unstructured data. Additionally, user reviews indicate negative sentiment regarding pricing.

Alternatives to Snowflake and Palantir Foundry

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a database management system for businesses of all sizes. It helps you analyze various types of data and can be used in multiple environments, including on your servers and in the cloud. SQL Server offers high performance and strong security features. It allows developers to build applications using different programming languages and provides mobile business intelligence tools.

Databricks Data Intelligence Platform

Databricks Data Intelligence Platform is a cloud-based platform designed to help mid-size to large businesses manage and analyze data. It offers a range of tools for data warehousing, data engineering, data science, and machine learning, all in one place. Databricks aims to simplify data processes, reduce costs, and enable companies to build and deploy AI solutions. They are well-known for their work with open-source technologies, making them a popular choice for businesses invested in those ecosystems.

Google Cloud BigQuery

Google BigQuery is a fully managed data warehouse service that helps businesses analyze massive datasets to gain insights. It's serverless, so you don't need to manage any infrastructure, and it can handle data from various sources. BigQuery is designed for fast query processing, allowing you to quickly explore and analyze your data. It's a powerful tool for data-driven decision-making in any industry, regardless of company size.

SAS Viya

SAS Viya is a cloud-based data analytics platform designed to help businesses of all sizes make better decisions through data insights. It offers a wide range of tools for data management, analysis, and modeling, including machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. SAS Viya allows users to access and analyze data from various sources, build and deploy predictive models, and share insights through interactive dashboards and reports. Its focus is to provide a comprehensive platform for data professionals and business users to collaborate and extract value from their data, enabling faster and more informed decision-making.

Quobyte

Quobyte is a software-based storage platform designed for businesses dealing with large amounts of data. It allows you to store data across your own equipment, the cloud, or a combination of both. Quobyte is designed to be easy to use and can be scaled to meet your needs. It boasts high performance, making it suitable for demanding applications like artificial intelligence and data analysis. It's used by companies like Siemens and Yahoo! Japan for its scalability and performance.

DataWalk

DataWalk helps your company uncover hidden connections in your data. It combines all your information, regardless of the source, and presents it visually. This allows you to easily spot patterns, like identifying potential fraud or understanding your customers better. DataWalk offers solutions for various needs, from investigating financial crime to improving customer knowledge, all within a single platform.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

How are we doing?

Is this information helpful to you? Is there anything we are missing?

Did this help you select your product?

Other issues? Vote & Let us know