# Apache Iceberg vs Snowflake

| Attribute | Apache Iceberg | Snowflake |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 62.2 (56% (medium)) | 65.9 (63% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 9,176 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 11,384,061 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Apache Iceberg is a table format that enables reliable, ACID-compliant SQL operations on big data. It allows multiple query engines—such as Spark, Trino, Flink, Hive, and Impala—to safely read and write the same tables concurrently, bringing traditional database semantics to analytics workloads. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"deployment":"embedded","data_sharing":true,"license_class":"permissive","table_formats":"Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files)","semi_structured":"first_class","federation_query":true,"streaming_ingest":true,"concurrency_scaling":"automatic"}` | `{"in_db_ml":true,"deployment":"managed","data_sharing":true,"compute_model":"virtual_warehouse","license_class":"proprietary","table_formats":"Apache Iceberg","semi_structured":"first_class","streaming_ingest":true,"concurrency_scaling":"automatic"}` |
| integrations.count | 20 | 750 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Spark"},{"name":"Trino"},{"name":"Presto"},{"name":"Flink"},{"name":"Hive"},{"name":"Impala"},{"name":"PyArrow"},{"name":"DuckDB"},{"name":"Polars"},{"name":"Pandas"},{"name":"Ray"},{"name":"Datafusion"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"SQLAlchemy"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"GCS"},{"name":"Azure Data Lake Storage"},{"name":"Hadoop"},{"name":"Kerberos"},{"name":"Thrift"}]` | `[{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud Platform"},{"name":"Streamlit"},{"name":"Apache Iceberg"},{"name":"PyTorch"},{"name":"NVIDIA"}]` |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | - | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source, no licensing cost","sourceUrl":"https://iceberg.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:32:59.428Z"}` | `{"type":"consumption","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Standard","description":"Entry-level offering with core platform functionality","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","description":"Most popular; addresses high-growth and large-scale customers with multi-cluster compute and extended governance","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Business Critical","description":"For highly regulated industries with Tri-Secret Secure, private connectivity, and disaster recovery","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Virtual Private Snowflake","description":"Dedicated isolated environment with all Business Critical features","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Consumption-based pricing by compute and storage usage; specific rates referenced in Snowflake Service Consumption Table","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.snowflake.com/en/pricing-options/?utm_content=body-text&mkt_tok=3p.ds&gclid=324","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:29:09.877Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | no |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | - | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 50 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.11.0","date":"2026-05-20T08:47:57Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.2","date":"2026-05-18T21:58:12Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.1","date":"2025-12-22T22:04:42Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.0","date":"2025-09-11T15:08:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.2","date":"2025-07-18T13:44:58Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.1","date":"2025-05-28T16:52:05Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.0","date":"2025-04-28T06:27:16Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.2","date":"2025-03-19T10:12:37Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.1","date":"2025-02-28T07:52:17Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.0","date":"2025-02-13T09:13:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.1","date":"2024-12-06T20:01:03Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.0","date":"2024-11-08T15:12:01Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.1","date":"2024-08-27T17:47:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.0","date":"2024-07-23T12:06:44Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.2","date":"2024-05-16T07:50:32Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.1","date":"2024-04-30T12:43:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.0","date":"2024-03-11T11:00:15Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.3","date":"2023-12-27T17:15:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.2","date":"2023-11-07T16:44:26Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.1","date":"2023-10-23T11:03:35Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.1"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.fedramp | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.iso27001 | - | yes |
| security.pci | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.9 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=apache-iceberg&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Data Warehouse Software)

| Capability | Apache Iceberg | Snowflake |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Embedded | Managed cloud |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Architecture | - | - |
| Compute model | - | Virtual warehouses |
| **Query** |  |  |
| SQL dialect | - | - |
| Federation / lakehouse query-in-place | ✓ | - |
| **Interoperability** |  |  |
| Table-format support | Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files) | Apache Iceberg |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Concurrency scaling | Automatic | Automatic |
| **Ingestion** |  |  |
| Streaming ingest | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Data model** |  |  |
| Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT) | First-class | First-class |
| **Analytics** |  |  |
| ML / in-DB functions | - | ✓ |
| **Sharing** |  |  |
| Data sharing / marketplace | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:08:48.045Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*