Snowflake vs Databricks cost, side by side
Choose a cloud and a region both sell in, a warehouse size on each and how your queries run. See what an hour and a month cost on each, how much faster the dearer one must be to cost the same, and which wins at each size and in each region. Every price comes from Snowflake's and Databricks' own lists.
The Snowflake vs Databricks cost comparison
Only the regions both sell in. This one is us-east-1 to AWS.
Snowflake
Medium: 5.4 credits an hour at $3.00 a credit.
Databricks
Medium: 24 DBUs an hour at $0.70 a DBU, the same on every plan.
The time queries run, the same on both. Not counting the idle wait before each stops.
Each time a warehouse wakes after stopping. Snowflake bills at least 60 seconds a start.
Idle minutes before it stops, billed after every start, on both. Both default to 10.
The cost
In AWS US East (N. Virginia), a Medium Gen2 Snowflake warehouse costs $16.20 an hour and a Medium Databricks serverless SQL warehouse $16.80. For 4 hours of queries a day over 6 starts, 22 days a month, Snowflake comes to $1,782 and Databricks to $1,848.
- A month
- $1,782
- 594 credits
- An hour
- $16.20
- 5.4 credits at $3.00
Snowflake, Medium Gen2
Billed 5 hours a day, 1 hour of it idle.
- A month
- $1,848
- 2,640 DBUs
- An hour
- $16.80
- 24 DBUs at $0.70
Databricks, Medium
Billed 5 hours a day, 1 hour of it idle.
Snowflake costs $66.00 less a month at the same speed. Databricks costs the same only if it finishes the queries in 95 percent of the time or less.
Each size
| Size | Snowflake an hour | Databricks an hour | Less |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | $2.80 | ||
| $4.05 | $4.20 | Snowflake | |
| $8.10 | $8.40 | Snowflake | |
| $16.20 | $16.80 | Snowflake | |
| $32.40 | $28.00 | Databricks | |
| $64.80 | $56.00 | Databricks | |
| $130 | $101 | Databricks | |
| $259 | $190 | Databricks | |
| $518 | $370 | Databricks |
Gen2 on Enterprise against serverless SQL. Choosing a row sets both sizes.
Each AWS region
| Region | Snowflake a month | Databricks a month | Less |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,782 | $1,848 | Snowflake | |
| $1,782 | $1,848 | Snowflake | |
| $1,782 | $1,848 | Snowflake | |
| $2,079 | $2,086 | Snowflake | |
| $2,762 | $2,878 | Snowflake | |
| $2,317 | $2,402 | Snowflake | |
| $2,376 | $2,508 | Snowflake | |
| $2,317 | $2,402 | Snowflake | |
| $2,317 | $2,402 | Snowflake | |
| $1,782 | $2,033 | Snowflake | |
| $2,198 | $2,323 | Snowflake | |
| $2,406 | $2,508 | Snowflake | |
| $2,198 | $2,323 | Snowflake | |
| $2,554 | $2,640 | Snowflake | |
| $2,406 | $2,508 | Snowflake |
On-demand list prices in US dollars, before tax, from Snowflake's and Databricks' own price lists, for the same hours of queries on each. A size name is not a speed: the same queries can take longer on one than the other. Not counted: storage, Snowflake cloud services above the free 10 percent, clusters added under load, data moved out, and the lower prices of contracts with either.
How the comparison works it out
Both sell compute by the hour of a warehouse size. A Snowflake warehouse uses credits, from 1 an hour for a Gen1 X-Small and 1.35 for a Gen2 one on AWS, doubling with each size up, at a price a credit set by the edition and the region: $3.00 on Enterprise in US East (N. Virginia). A Databricks serverless SQL warehouse uses DBUs, from 4 an hour for a 2X-Small to 528 for a 4X-Large, at a price a DBU set by the region: $0.70 there. On both, the machines are included in that price.
Both bill by the second while a warehouse runs, and both keep it running, and billed, until it has been idle for its stop time, 10 minutes by default on each. So the calculator bills every start for its share of the queries plus the idle wait, with Snowflake's minimum of 60 seconds a start. In the example, 4 hours of queries over 6 starts are billed as 5 hours a day on each.
A size name is not a promise of speed. A Medium on Snowflake and a Medium on Databricks are different machines running different engines, so the same queries take a different time on each. The calculator assumes the same hours on both, then says how much faster the dearer one must finish to cost the same: run your own queries on each to know which side of that line you are on.
Questions
- Is Snowflake cheaper than Databricks?
- It depends on the size, the region and how fast your queries run on each. A Medium Gen2 Snowflake warehouse on Enterprise in AWS US East (N. Virginia) costs $16.20 an hour, and a Medium Databricks serverless SQL warehouse $16.80. Running queries 4 hours a day over 6 starts, 22 days a month, Snowflake comes to $1,782 and Databricks to $1,848: Snowflake costs $66.00 less, if the queries take the same time on each.
- What is the difference between a Snowflake credit and a Databricks DBU?
- Both are units of compute with a price that depends on where you run. A Snowflake credit costs $3.00 on Enterprise in AWS US East (N. Virginia), and a Medium Gen2 warehouse uses 5.4 credits an hour. A Databricks DBU of serverless SQL costs $0.70 there, and a Medium serverless SQL warehouse uses 24 DBUs an hour. Compare dollars an hour, never credits with DBUs.
- Is a Snowflake Medium warehouse the same as a Databricks Medium?
- No. The names match but the machines do not. Databricks documents a Medium pro or classic SQL warehouse on AWS as 8 workers; Snowflake does not publish the hardware behind its sizes. The same query can take a different time on each, which changes the cost more than the price an hour does.
- How much faster must the dearer warehouse be to cost the same?
- In the example, Databricks costs more a month at the same speed, so it costs the same only if it finishes the queries in 95 percent of the time Snowflake takes, with the same idle wait after each start. The calculator works this out for any size and region.
- Do Snowflake and Databricks charge for idle warehouses?
- Yes, both. A warehouse runs, and is billed, until it has been idle for its stop time: 10 minutes by default on each. Snowflake's auto-suspend is set in seconds. A Databricks serverless SQL warehouse stops after 5 minutes at the least in its settings, or 1 minute through its API. Snowflake also bills at least 60 seconds each time a warehouse starts.
- Which costs less for short, frequent queries?
- The one with the shorter idle wait, more than the cheaper hour. Each start adds the stop time to the bill, so 100 short queries a day, each waking the warehouse, cost mostly idle minutes. Snowflake's auto-suspend is set in seconds, though each start bills at least 60 of them; Databricks' Auto Stop takes whole minutes. A shorter wait on Snowflake also drops the warehouse's cache more often.
- Does the comparison include storage?
- No, only the warehouses. Snowflake bills storage itself, $23.00 a TB a month of compressed data on demand in AWS US East (N. Virginia). Databricks keeps tables in your own cloud storage, which the cloud bills you for at its own price for object storage.
- Which regions do Snowflake and Databricks both sell in?
- The calculator lists the regions where Snowflake sells warehouses and Databricks sells serverless SQL: 15 on AWS, 13 on Azure and 5 on Google Cloud. A region that either adds shows up here on its own.
- Is Snowflake Gen1 or Gen2 cheaper against Databricks?
- Gen1 uses fewer credits an hour, and Gen2 finishes most queries faster, Snowflake says. At the same speed, the example comes to $1,320 a month on a Medium Gen1 warehouse, $1,782 on Gen2 and $1,848 on Databricks. The faster Gen2 runs your queries, the closer it gets to Gen1.
- Do Snowflake and Databricks give discounts?
- Both sell for less under a contract. Snowflake prices capacity bought ahead below on-demand, and Databricks offers committed use contracts. The calculator shows the on-demand list prices, which any account pays without a contract.
- How do you choose between Snowflake and Databricks on cost?
- Run the same queries on each and read the bills. Snowflake's WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY view gives the credits each warehouse used by the hour, and Databricks' system.billing.usage table the DBUs. Divide each by the work done, then set the sizes and hours here to see the month on each.
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Where each fact comes from
- 1Snowflake: pricing calculator (the price of a credit in each edition and region)
- 2Snowflake: Service Consumption Table (credits of each warehouse size)
- 3Snowflake documentation: understanding compute cost (per-second billing, the 60-second minimum)
- 4Snowflake documentation: understanding storage cost
- 5Snowflake documentation: CREATE WAREHOUSE (AUTO_SUSPEND in seconds, 600 by default)
- 6Snowflake documentation: warehouse considerations (the cache is dropped on suspend)
- 7Snowflake documentation: Gen2 standard warehouses
- 8Snowflake documentation: supported cloud regions (the cloud code of each region)
- 9Snowflake documentation: WAREHOUSE_METERING_HISTORY view
- 10Snowflake: pricing options (capacity contracts)
- 11Databricks: pricing (per-second billing, committed use contracts)
- 12Databricks: pricing on AWS (the price of a DBU of serverless SQL)
- 13Databricks: pricing on Google Cloud
- 14Microsoft: Azure Databricks pricing
- 15Databricks: create a SQL warehouse (Auto Stop, idle warehouses are billed)
- 16Databricks: SQL warehouse sizing, scaling and queuing (DBUs and workers of each size)
- 17Databricks: billable usage system table (system.billing.usage)