Databricks vs. Snowflake

It's Not a Feature Fight, It's a

Strategy Call








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James

Melbourne Consultant

Meet Janie Zhan


With a strong foundation in data engineering and analytics, Janie thrives at the intersection of performance and usability. From designing scalable data pipelines to enabling low-code workflows, they bring hands-on experience with tools like dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks. Known for bridging technical depth with business context, they’re passionate about building AI-native stacks that empower both engineers and analysts alike.

James

Melbourne Consultant

Meet Janie Zhan


With a strong foundation in data engineering and analytics, Janie thrives at the intersection of performance and usability. From designing scalable data pipelines to enabling low-code workflows, they bring hands-on experience with tools like dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks. Known for bridging technical depth with business context, they’re passionate about building AI-native stacks that empower both engineers and analysts alike.

If you’re still deep in spreadsheets comparing Snowflake and Databricks feature-by-feature, you might be missing the point.


The smartest organisations aren’t obsessing over who’s winning the feature race — they’re asking a better question: Which platform fits our people, our workloads, and where we want to go?



Choosing a data platform isn’t just a technical decision. It’s a strategic one that impacts ROI, compliance, team enablement, and how quickly you can operationalise AI.


If you’re still deep in spreadsheets comparing Snowflake and Databricks feature-by-feature, you might be missing the point.


The smartest organisations aren’t obsessing over who’s winning the feature race — they’re asking a better question: Which platform fits our people, our workloads, and where we want to go?


Choosing a data platform isn’t just a technical decision. It’s a strategic one that impacts ROI, compliance, team enablement, and how quickly you can operationalise AI.

The Real Challenge: Strategy Before Selection

Modern enterprises are drowning in data but starving for insight. The demand for real-time dashboards, predictive models, and AI-driven decisions is growing but infrastructure and skills are often the bottleneck.



Snowflake and Databricks approach this challenge differently: one optimises for simplicity and governance; the other for flexibility and engineering control.


For Developers: Code Less, Build More

For engineers, this release is all about performance and automation.

The Fusion Engine delivers:

  • 30x faster compile times that drastically reduce wait time and accelerate iteration
  • Real-time impact analysis to instantly visualise the downstream effects of changes
  • Automatic refactoring that previews affected models before committing, so you can avoid breaking things
  • State-aware orchestration that remembers model states and skips unnecessary work, saving on compute costs
  • A more intelligent coding experience that detects errors and autocomplete and suggest smart SQL code

And all of this is built into familiar environments like VS Code, Studio IDE, and dbt Cloud. For developers working on large, complex projects, this removes a lot of the friction and context-switching that slows things down.

Snowflake: Analytics Without the Agony

Snowflake is the choice for teams who want fast results without building a mini engineering department. It’s clean, scalable, and excels with structured and semi-structured data.

Best for:

  • SQL-heavy teams with limited engineering headcount
  • Regulated industries where governance and audit readiness are non-negotiable
  • Organisations that value predictable consumption-based pricing

Business outcomes we’ve seen:

  • Regulatory reporting live in weeks, not months
  • Immediate BI integration with Tableau, Power BI, and others
  • Minimal maintenance freeing up resources for higher-value work

Snowflake is expanding into ML and AI with Snowpark and Cortex — making it increasingly viable for organisations who want a unified platform for analytics and AI.



Databricks: The Engineer’s Playground

If your data team thrives on Spark, Python, and building end-to-end ML pipelines, Databricks is a powerhouse. It’s a full-blown engineering ecosystem with deep AI capabilities.

Best for:

  • Engineering-heavy organisations
  • AI and ML workloads needing native support for frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow
  • Complex, high-throughput streaming use cases

Business outcomes we’ve seen:

  • Real-time operational insights for utilities and logistics
  • Collaborative data science at scale
  • Fine-grained tuning for cost optimisation (if you have the skills to manage it)

With tools like Genie (Conversational AI) and Mosaic (Generative AI management), Databricks continues to lead in applied AI innovation.


Governance: Out-of-the-Box vs. Fully Configurable

Snowflake provides straightforward, centralised governance. Databricks offers Unity Catalog and schema evolution, but with greater complexity. The right choice depends on your compliance obligations and your team’s appetite for configuration.

Governance and Cost Control, Built In

Fusion also brings smarter controls for security and spend:

  • Cost insights built directly into the UI (available in preview for Snowflake). dbt predicts a cost saving of ~10% due to its state-aware orchestration
  • Semantic layer integration and an expanded catalog for centralised governance
  • SCIM integration for identity management and access control
  • Optimised orchestration to reduce unnecessary processing
  • For enterprise teams trying to balance flexibility with governance, these features offer much-needed transparency and control

The Ecosystem Shift: It’s All Converging

The wider ecosystem is moving in the same direction toward convergence and AI-native tooling:

My Take

When I’m thinking of our clients and their decision making process, I weigh three things first:


  1. People: What skills do you already have in-house?
  2. Priorities: Is your focus on governed analytics or engineering flexibility?
  3. Path: Where do you want to be in 3 years and how fast do you need to get there?


And my personal stance? Running both adds unnecessary complexity unless there’s a very specific, high-value use case.


The organisations who get this right don’t just pick a tool, they pick the tool that amplifies their team’s strengths, meets their regulatory needs, and accelerates their AI ambitions.



And if you want true long-term flexibility? Build with open table formats like Apache Iceberg so you can move between platforms if your strategy shifts.



When I’m thinking of our clients and their decision making process, I weigh three things first:


  1. People: What skills do you already have in-house?
  2. Priorities: Is your focus on governed analytics or engineering flexibility?
  3. Path: Where do you want to be in 3 years and how fast do you need to get there?

And my personal stance? Running both adds unnecessary complexity unless there’s a very specific, high-value use case.


The organisations who get this right don’t just pick a tool, they pick the tool that amplifies their team’s strengths, meets their regulatory needs, and accelerates their AI ambitions.



And if you want true long-term flexibility? Build with open table formats like Apache Iceberg so you can move between platforms if your strategy shifts.



Ready to Explore?

We're inflight with dbt health checks and quick start sessions for teams who are curious about these new capabilities. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimise your setup, now’s a great time to explore what dbt Fusion can offer.


If you’re keen to see how it might work in your environment or just want a walkthrough of the new features, feel free to reach out. We’re always happy to run a demo or chat through what’s possible in plain language, no pressure.

We're inflight with dbt health checks and quick start sessions for teams who are curious about these new capabilities. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimise your setup, now’s a great time to explore what dbt Fusion can offer. If you’re keen to see how it might work in your environment or just want a walkthrough of the new features, feel free to reach out. We’re always happy to run a demo or chat through what’s possible in plain language, no pressure.