Comparison

DuckDB vs Snowflake

No clear leader: Snowflake (65.9) and DuckDB (62.4) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
DuckDB62
Snowflake66
Score
Vioscale score
DuckDB62 / 100medium · 56%
Snowflake66 / 100medium · 63%
Pricing
Free tier
DuckDB
Snowflake
Model
Snowflakecommercial
Price level
DuckDBfree
Snowflakeunknown
Transparent
DuckDB
Snowflake
Integrations
Count
DuckDB27
Snowflake750
Security
Disclosure policy
DuckDB
Snowflake
Fedramp
DuckDB
Snowflake
Gdpr
DuckDB
Snowflake
Iso27001
DuckDB
Snowflake
Pci
DuckDB
Snowflake
Soc2
DuckDB
Snowflake
Reliability
Status page
DuckDB
Snowflake
Adoption
Dependent repos
DuckDB1
Snowflake
Github stars
DuckDB40,661
Snowflake
Package downloads weekly
Snowflake
Activity
Commits last 30d
DuckDB100
Snowflake
Release
Cadence days
DuckDB28
Snowflake
History
DuckDB20 items
Snowflake
License
Spdx
DuckDBMIT
Snowflake
Language
Primary
DuckDBC++
Snowflake

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for data warehouse software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
DuckDBEmbedded
SnowflakeManaged cloud
Architecture
Architecture
DuckDB-
Snowflake-
Compute model
DuckDB-
SnowflakeVirtual warehouses
Query
SQL dialect
DuckDBVendor-specific
Snowflake-
Federation / lakehouse query-in-place
DuckDB
Snowflake-
Interoperability
Table-format support
DuckDBParquet, CSV, JSON, Iceberg, Delta Lake, Vortex, DuckLake, Lance, Arrow, Avro, E
SnowflakeApache Iceberg
Scale
Concurrency scaling
DuckDB-
SnowflakeAutomatic
Ingestion
Streaming ingest
DuckDB-
Snowflake
Data model
Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT)
DuckDBFunctional
SnowflakeFirst-class
Analytics
ML / in-DB functions
DuckDB
Snowflake
Sharing
Data sharing / marketplace
DuckDB-
Snowflake
Licensing
Licence class
DuckDBPermissive OSS
SnowflakeProprietary

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

DuckDB

An in-process SQL analytical database that runs natively in applications across operating systems and environments. Supports querying files and cloud data directly with a SQL dialect and includes vector search capabilities.

Independently observed

Snowflake

Snowflake is a fully managed cloud data warehouse that handles data ingestion, processing, analytics, and AI model deployment. It enables zero-copy data sharing across teams, clouds, and external organizations while maintaining built-in governance and security.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

DuckDB

Open sourceFree tier

Free, open source under MIT license

as of verify ↗

Snowflake

consumption

Consumption-based pricing by compute and storage usage; specific rates referenced in Snowflake Service Consumption Table

  • Standard-
  • Enterprise-
  • Business Critical-
  • Virtual Private SnowflakeContact sales
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
DuckDB
Snowflake
macOS
DuckDB
Snowflake
Windows
DuckDB
Snowflake
Linux
DuckDB
Snowflake
CLI
DuckDB
Snowflake
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
DuckDB
Snowflake
Self-hosted
DuckDB
Snowflake

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (1)
  • AWS

DuckDB

27 total - 26 not shared
  • Postgres
  • S3
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • Hugging Face
  • SQLite
  • MySQL
  • Iceberg
  • Delta Lake
  • Parquet
  • JSON
  • Arrow
  • Avro
  • Pandas
  • dplyr
  • Jupyter
  • Marimo
  • Claude
  • Cloudflare
  • ODBC
  • HTTP
  • Excel
  • Vortex
  • DuckLake
  • +2 more
Independently observed

Snowflake

7 total - 6 not shared
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Streamlit
  • Apache Iceberg
  • PyTorch
  • NVIDIA
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.