Editor Sebastiaan Smits ·
Published November 4, 2026 · Updated November 5, 2026
Teams look past Snowflake when the credit bill grows with use, when the per-credit rate sits outside the public pages, or when they want a warehouse that fits a small team or runs in their own cloud account. Most compare Databricks, BigQuery and Redshift first, then Starburst and MotherDuck for lighter or more open setups.
Short answer: The closest replacements for Snowflake in our data warehouse software ranking are Databricks, Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift. Choose Databricks if your data team also runs engineering and machine learning and wants SQL warehouses on lake data. All 11 sit in Best Data Warehouse Software in 2026; what follows contrasts them with Snowflake only and says when Snowflake should be kept.
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Snowflake's cost documentation says credits are charged by the number of virtual warehouses, how long they run and their size, and each size up roughly doubles the credits per hour. Billing is per second with a 60-second minimum, so habits in query design show up directly on the invoice.
The documentation sends readers to the Snowflake Pricing Guide for the price of a credit. Snowflake's own pricing and about pages returned a Cloudflare block to automated requests on 4 November 2026, so we quote no per-credit rate. Buyers have to get it from Snowflake or a reseller.
The 30-day trial ends when the days or the free balance run out, and the account is then suspended until you add a card and upgrade. Separately, Snowflake charges a per-byte fee when data leaves for another region or another cloud, which matters for a migration plan.
The 11 candidates run from the strongest match for Snowflake users to the weakest, and the last column is its slot in our list of 12.
| # | Alternative | Headquarters | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Databricks | United States | your data team also runs engineering and machine learning and wants SQL warehouses on lake data | #6 |
| 2 |  Google BigQuery | United States | you already run on Google Cloud and prefer paying for bytes scanned over running warehouses | #5 |
| 3 |  Amazon Redshift | United States | your stack sits on AWS and you want a fixed-size cluster or a serverless option | #7 |
| 4 |  Starburst | United States | your data already sits in a lake or several systems and you want to query it in place | #9 |
| 5 |  MotherDuck | United States | your team is small, your data fits one node and you want a flat entry price | #1 |
| 6 |  Firebolt | United States | you build data-intensive applications and want per-second billing or a self-hosted engine | #2 |
| 7 |  SingleStore | United States | you serve application queries from the same database as your analytics and know MySQL | #8 |
| 8 |  Teradata | United States | you want a committed baseline with elastic overflow and the option to run on premises | #12 |
| 9 |  Yellowbrick | United States | you want to run the warehouse in your own cloud account or data center and pay per vCPU | #10 |
| 10 |  Exasol | Germany | you need an analytics database you can run on premises and accept a quote-led purchase | #3 |
| 11 |  Actian Analytics AI Platform | United States | you want a warehouse with built-in data integration and will request a quote to compare | #11 |
Pay as you go with no up-front costs, billed per second in Databricks Units, with committed-use contracts for discounts. Databricks SQL runs warehouses on data in your lake. A free trial exists.
Switch from Snowflake if your data team also runs engineering and machine learning and wants SQL warehouses on lake data.
On-demand queries cost $6.25 per TiB scanned, with the first 1 TiB each month free, so the meter counts bytes read rather than warehouse hours. Capacity pricing is per slot-hour. The first 10 GiB of storage each month is free. Exports run to CSV, JSON, Avro or Parquet.
Switch from Snowflake if you already run on Google Cloud and prefer paying for bytes scanned over running warehouses.
Two forms: Provisioned clusters from $0.543 an hour, and Serverless from $1.50 an hour, billed in RPU-hours. First-time Serverless users are eligible for a $300 credit that expires after 90 days. The UNLOAD command writes text, JSON or Parquet files to Amazon S3.
Switch from Snowflake if your stack sits on AWS and you want a fixed-size cluster or a serverless option.
Starburst Galaxy is a Trino-based query layer with a free tier of up to 3 clusters. Paid tiers are $0.50, $0.75 and $1.00 per credit, with a 30-day trial that includes $500 of compute. Annual commitments may earn discounts. It queries data where it lives rather than storing it itself.
Switch from Snowflake if your data already sits in a lake or several systems and you want to query it in place.
Hosted DuckDB. Lite is $0 for up to 3 internal active users, 10 GB of storage and 10 hours of compute a month. Business is $250 per organization per month plus usage, with a 7-day trial. Enterprise is custom. A Frankfurt region is listed.
Switch from Snowflake if your team is small, your data fits one node and you want a flat entry price.
Compute is billed per second: the page's calculator shows one small node at $0.92 an hour in US East, with storage passed through at $0.0264 per GB a month and $200 in free credits. Firebolt's docs describe a self-hosted open source version, still in Preview.
Switch from Snowflake if you build data-intensive applications and want per-second billing or a self-hosted engine.
Helios Cloud offers a free shared workspace for evaluation and non-production use. Standard starts at $0.99 an hour and Enterprise at $1.49, with $500 in free credits for new accounts. It is MySQL wire-compatible and says it does not charge for data ingress.
Switch from Snowflake if you serve application queries from the same database as your analytics and know MySQL.
Fixed + Flex pricing combines a committed baseline with on-demand capacity, all counted in Teradata Units, with three packages and two storage options. No figures are published. Cloud, customer cloud and on-premises deployments are listed. Packages can be upgraded at any time, and downgrades wait for renewal.
Switch from Snowflake if you want a committed baseline with elastic overflow and the option to run on premises.
Software-only pricing of $613 per vCPU a year on a one-year term, $482 on three years, or $0.28 per vCPU hour on demand, metered per second. Your own cloud or on-premises infrastructure costs come on top. The page states there are no credits, slots or units to decode.
Switch from Snowflake if you want to run the warehouse in your own cloud account or data center and pay per vCPU.
An in-memory, massively parallel analytics database that its pages position for on-premises, hybrid and cloud use. Its pricing page prints no prices. Exasol Personal is listed as free for personal use, not for company workloads.
Switch from Snowflake if you need an analytics database you can run on premises and accept a quote-led purchase.
Actian describes its Analytics AI Platform as an integrated suite for data integration, a data warehouse and analytics across a hybrid environment. Its page lists 200+ pre-built connectors, a built-in query engine, columnar storage and compute separated from storage. It does not publish a price.
Switch from Snowflake if you want a warehouse with built-in data integration and will request a quote to compare.
Actian Analytics AI Platform: complete review · Visit the product page →
Stay with Snowflake if several teams share one platform and your analysts, consultants and BI tools already know it. Its documentation lists four editions, so governance needs can be met by changing edition rather than product. Per-second billing and suspended warehouses that use no credits also suit uneven workloads, provided someone watches the meter.
Snowflake's documentation describes bulk unloading with the COPY INTO location command, which writes CSV, JSON or Parquet files to a Snowflake stage or to S3, Google Cloud Storage or Azure storage. A SELECT can replace the table name, and joins let one job cover several tables. Use PARTITION BY to lay files out for a lake.
Files carry rows, not stored procedures, tasks or Snowflake-specific functions, so those need a rewrite. Check which cloud and region you leave, since cross-region and cross-cloud transfers carry a per-byte fee. Time Travel is 1 day by default and extends to 90 days only on higher editions, so export before dropping anything.
Snowflake's Iceberg tables use the Apache Iceberg specification over Parquet files. If you choose a destination that reads Iceberg, such as Starburst or Firebolt, converting tables now can shorten the next migration. Check each destination's own documentation for the catalog and version it supports.
Use COPY INTO location to unload a table or a query result to CSV, JSON or Parquet files in a stage or in S3, Google Cloud Storage or Azure storage. The documentation states that a SELECT with joins can feed one unload, and that downloaded files come through the GET command.
Yes in some cases: the documentation says Snowflake charges a per-byte fee for egress to another region or another cloud, and that transfers within the same region are free. The rate depends on where your account is hosted and sits in the pricing guide, which we could not read.
The pages we could read give no price in dollars. Compute is billed in credits by warehouse size and runtime, per second with a 60-second minimum, and the credit price is in the Snowflake Pricing Guide, which was blocked to our readers. Storage and data transfer are billed separately.
The account is suspended. The documentation says the trial lasts 30 days or until the free usage balance is spent, and that you can still log in but cannot run warehouses, load data or query. Adding a credit card and upgrading reactivates it.
We cannot say. Snowflake's terms and contract pages were not readable to us, so we found no notice period, renewal price or termination rule. Read the order form and the terms you signed, and ask Snowflake in writing before you plan an exit date.
MotherDuck, Starburst, SingleStore and Exasol list free options with limits. MotherDuck Lite is $0 with 3 internal active users and 10 GB. Starburst Galaxy Free runs up to 3 clusters. SingleStore offers a free shared workspace for non-production use. Exasol Personal is free for personal use only.
Every price, plan limit and product statement about Snowflake here was read on the vendors' own pages on November 4, 2026. Either can change at any time, so read the figures as of that day.
Sebastiaan Smits, Founder, wrote, edited and fact-checked this page.
Founder of The Interregnum and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page here; research and drafting are AI-assisted. Last reviewed November 4, 2026.
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