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Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse vs Snowflake

Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse: T-SQL warehouse in Microsoft Fabric that stores every table as Delta Parquet in OneLake. Snowflake: Fully managed cloud data warehouse with separate storage and compute, now spanning AI and apps.

key differences

  • Snowflake is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (≤ 1 PB).
  • Only Snowflake has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, change data capture, materialized views.

choose microsoft-fabric-warehouse for

  • +Microsoft-centric enterprise data warehouse
  • +Power BI backends with Direct Lake
  • +Migrating Synapse dedicated SQL pools
  • +Medallion lakehouse with a SQL serving layer

best at · Warehouse, OLAP, Lakehouse

choose snowflake for

  • +Enterprise data warehouse
  • +ELT pipelines with dbt
  • +Cross-company data sharing
  • +BI and reporting at scale

best at · Warehouse, OLAP, Lakehouse

Microsoft Fabric Data WarehouseT-SQL warehouse in Microsoft Fabric that stores every table as Delta Parquet in OneLake.
SnowflakeFully managed cloud data warehouse with separate storage and compute, now spanning AI and apps.
overview
Primary model
Columnar / OLAP
Columnar / OLAP
Also supports
Relational
Relational, Document, Vector, Spatial
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Microsoft
Snowflake Inc.
First release
2023
2014
Latest version
–
–
License
ProprietaryProprietary
ProprietaryProprietary
Free tier
—
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
6.7
74.4
Rank
#356
#7
GitHub stars
–
–
Stack Overflow questions
258
12.2K
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Flexible
Architecture
Serverless, Distributed, Shared storage
Distributed, Shared storage, Serverless
deployment
Self-hosted
—
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
✓
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
Azure
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
✓
✓
Secondary indexes
—
—
Full-text search
—
✓
Vector search
—
✓
Geospatial
—
✓
JSON
✓
✓
Change data capture
—
✓
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
—
✓
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
✓
✓
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
✓
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
✓
✓
Branching
—
✓
Online schema changes
✓
✓
Streaming ingest
—
✓
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
T-SQL
SQL, Snowflake Scripting, Python (Snowpark), JavaScript
Client languages
.NET, Java, Python, JavaScript, Go
Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, .NET, C, PHP
Best for
Warehouse, OLAP, Lakehouse
Warehouse, OLAP, Lakehouse
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse vs Snowflake: FAQ

What is the difference between Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse and Snowflake?

Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse: T-SQL warehouse in Microsoft Fabric that stores every table as Delta Parquet in OneLake. Snowflake: Fully managed cloud data warehouse with separate storage and compute, now spanning AI and apps. Snowflake is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse (≤ 1 PB). Only Snowflake has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, change data capture, materialized views.

When should I choose Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse over Snowflake?

Choose Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse for microsoft-centric enterprise data warehouse, power BI backends with Direct Lake and migrating Synapse dedicated SQL pools. Choose Snowflake for enterprise data warehouse, ELT pipelines with dbt and cross-company data sharing.

Is Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse or Snowflake more popular?

Snowflake ranks #7 on the WhichDB Score (74.4/100) and Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse ranks #356 (6.7/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse and Snowflake open source?

No. Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse is proprietary, closed-source software. No. Snowflake is proprietary, closed-source software.