Data warehouses · November 2026 Edition
Snowflake vs Google BigQuery
Fourteen of fourteen models named Snowflake first on the direct prompt; two named Google BigQuery. Both were named by all fourteen models and both carry 78 labels, so the shares below are directly comparable.
Named in six categories this edition.
Named in three categories this edition.
First-choice share62%33%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate24%13%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#2A position in a field of 8; printed, not drawn.
Labels7878Equal, which is what makes the shares comparable.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Snowflake reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Amazon Redshift was named alongside these two in thirteen of the fourteen direct answers. Snowflake vs ClickHouse Cloud · Google BigQuery vs ClickHouse Cloud
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the data warehouses page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
SnowflakeFirst choices, of fourteen modelsGoogle BigQuery
Direct142
Paraphrase132
Comparative62
Budget-constrained0138 against Snowflake
Scale-constrained50
Negative0011 against Snowflake · 10 against Google BigQuery
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, Snowflake and Google BigQuery were named in the same answer 250 times, of the 280 answers naming Snowflake and the 274 naming Google BigQuery. In those answers Google BigQuery took the first choice fifty-eight times and Snowflake seventy-four.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Snowflake and Google BigQuery stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | | ||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | | |
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | | ||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | | | ||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | | | |
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | | |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Snowflake Google BigQuery first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Snowflake on the left and Google BigQuery on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Snowflake and Google BigQuery stood in it.
Both were the first choice
2 of 14 modelsThe answer named them together, and the judge labeled each a first choice.Qwen 3.7 FlashGoogle BigQuery, Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL
Muse Glimmer 30BGoogle BigQuery, Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL
Snowflake first, Google BigQuery an alternative
12 of 14 modelsGoogle BigQuery was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL Database or Azure Synapse, ClicData, Firebolt, Google BigQuery, Panoply
GPT-5.4 miniSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery
Gemini 3.5 FlashSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse
Perplexity SonarSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse
Grok 4.20Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse
Mistral SmallSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery
DeepSeek V4 FlashSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery
Llama 4 MaverickSnowflake
Kimi K2Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery
GLM 4.7 FlashXSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery
MiniMax M2.5Snowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery
GPT-6 LunaSnowflake alternatives: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Google BigQuery leads by forty-nine points.
Google BigQuery69%#1 of 10Snowflake20%#2 of 10Mid-marketThe figures above
The order flips: Snowflake leads at mid-market.
Snowflake62%#1 of 8Google BigQuery33%#2 of 8Enterprise
Snowflake leads by fifty points.
Snowflake70%#1 of 8Google BigQuery20%#2 of 8What the models said about Snowflake
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Tools like Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift are optimized for structured business intelligence (BI) and reporting. However, using them for operational workloads...can lead to performance issues and escalating costs.” Mistral Small · negative prompt · soft negative
“Snowflake when spending must be very simple or tightly bounded: Credit-based compute can be manageable, but it needs guardrails.” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative
“Snowflake's biggest criticism tends to be around cost, and it's often seen as one of the most expensive cloud data warehouses.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“My top pick for a mid-sized B2B company: Snowflake offers the best balance of ease of use, flexibility, cost efficiency, and scalability” Claude Haiku 4.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Snowflake | Turnkey data warehousing, ease of use, cross-cloud flexibility | Extremely easy to manage, great UI/UX, strong ecosystem” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“Snowflake: Excellent for mid-market. Strong in separation of storage/compute, multi-cloud, data sharing, and ease of use.” Grok 4.20 · scale prompt · first choice
What the models said about Google BigQuery
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Tools like Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift are optimized for structured business intelligence (BI) and reporting.” Mistral Small · negative prompt · soft negative
“Be Cautionary If: You are not already on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or need flexible capacity management.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“BigQuery is an excellent product, but you must implement strict quotas, cost controls, query limits” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“For most small-to-mid-sized companies on a limited budget, Google BigQuery is arguably the best starting point” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
“the most common "safe bet" is Snowflake or Google BigQuery because they abstract away cluster management” MiniMax M2.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
“Start with BigQuery if you are cost-conscious, have variable data volumes, or are already on Google Cloud.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
Also compared
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.