Databricks vs Microsoft Fabric vs Snowflake
Same capabilities, same vocabulary, side by side. Where a source is recorded, each cell links to it.
| Capability | Databricks | Microsoft Fabric | Snowflake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native support | 24 of 25 | 16 of 25 | 21 of 25 |
| Platform & Deployment | |||
| Cloud availabilityWhich public clouds can the platform run on? | Native AWS, Azure (Azure Databricks, a first-party Azure service) and Google Cloud. | Partial Runs on Azure only; OneLake shortcuts can reference data in AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage and others. | Native AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, in many regions; cross-cloud replication supported. |
| Deployment modelIs it SaaS, PaaS in the customer's cloud account, or self-managed? | Native Control plane run by Databricks; classic compute runs in the customer's cloud account, and serverless compute runs in Databricks' account. | Native Fully SaaS; no clusters or infrastructure in the customer's subscription. | Native Fully managed SaaS. |
| Pricing modelWhat unit is compute/storage billed in? | Native DBU-based. | Native Capacity-based (CU). | Native Credit-based compute, plus storage. |
| Storage & Formats | |||
| Open table formatsWhich open table formats (Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg) are supported natively? | Native Delta Lake native; Apache Iceberg supported through managed Iceberg tables and UniForm. Verify the current state. | Native Delta Lake (Parquet) is the native table format in OneLake; Iceberg interoperability is available. Verify its current status. | Native Native Snowflake table format plus Apache Iceberg tables (Snowflake-managed or externally managed catalog). |
| Storage/compute separationCan storage and compute scale independently? | Native | Native OneLake storage is decoupled from capacity compute. | Native A founding architectural principle (multi-cluster shared data). |
| Query external data in placeCan it query data in other clouds/storage without copying it? | Native Lakehouse Federation queries external databases; external locations reach cloud storage. | Native Shortcuts and mirroring bring external data into OneLake without traditional ETL. | Native External tables, Iceberg tables with external catalogs, external stages. |
| Compute & Workloads | |||
| SQL warehousingIs there a managed SQL engine for BI/analytical workloads? | Native | Native | Native |
| Serverless computeCan workloads run without the customer managing clusters? | Native Serverless SQL warehouses, notebooks, jobs and pipelines. | Native All compute is managed by the SaaS capacity model. | Native No clusters to manage; warehouses auto-suspend and auto-resume. Many serverless features exist (tasks, Snowpipe). |
| Spark & notebooksIs there managed Spark and a notebook experience? | Native Databricks was founded by the original creators of Apache Spark. | Native | Partial Snowflake Notebooks and Snowpark (DataFrame API) rather than managed Apache Spark; check the status of Spark-compatibility options. |
| LanguagesWhich languages can users write workloads in? | Native SQL, Python, Scala, R. | Native SQL (T-SQL), Python/PySpark, Scala, R, KQL, DAX. | Native SQL, Python, Java, Scala (via Snowpark), JavaScript (UDFs/procedures). |
| Integration & Pipelines | |||
| Managed ingestion connectorsAre there built-in connectors to ingest from SaaS apps and databases? | Native Lakeflow Connect managed connectors; Auto Loader for files. | Native | Native Snowpipe / Snowpipe Streaming, Openflow connectors. Verify Openflow status. |
| Declarative transformation pipelinesCan users define pipelines declaratively with managed dependencies and refresh? | Native Lakeflow Declarative Pipelines (formerly Delta Live Tables). | Unknown Dataflow Gen2 (Power Query) and materialized lake views. Assess how they compare with declarative pipelines elsewhere. | Native Dynamic Tables define transformations declaratively with target lag. |
| OrchestrationIs there built-in job/pipeline orchestration? | Native Lakeflow Jobs (formerly Databricks Workflows). | Native | Partial Tasks and task graphs; often paired with external orchestrators. |
| Streaming / real-timeCan it ingest and process streaming data with low latency? | Native Spark Structured Streaming; streaming tables in declarative pipelines. | Native | Native Snowpipe Streaming for low-latency ingestion. |
| Governance & Security | |||
| Unified catalogIs there a single catalog governing tables, files, models and other assets? | Native | Native OneLake catalog, with Microsoft Purview integration. | Native |
| LineageIs data lineage captured automatically? | Native Column-level lineage captured automatically in Unity Catalog. | Native Workspace lineage view; Purview for broader lineage. | Native Lineage in Snowsight (Horizon). Verify edition requirements. |
| Row/column-level securityAre row filters and column masking supported? | Native Row filters and column masks in Unity Catalog. | Unknown RLS/CLS exist in the warehouse and semantic models; OneLake security scope is evolving. Verify. | Native Row access policies and dynamic data masking (Enterprise edition or higher). |
| Sharing & Collaboration | |||
| Cross-organisation data sharingCan live data be shared with other organisations without copying? | Native Delta Sharing, an open protocol that also shares to non-Databricks consumers. | Partial External data sharing between Fabric tenants. Verify current scope. | Native Secure Data Sharing, with no data copied inside the same region; cross-region/cloud through replication. |
| Data marketplaceIs there a marketplace for third-party datasets and apps? | Native | Unknown | Native |
| Data clean roomsAre privacy-preserving clean rooms available? | Native | Unknown | Native |
| Analytics, ML & AI | |||
| Native BI / dashboardsDoes the platform include its own BI/dashboarding tool? | Native AI/BI Dashboards and Genie. | Native | Partial Snowsight dashboards and Streamlit in Snowflake; not a full BI suite, and usually paired with Tableau, Power BI, etc. |
| ML lifecycleAre experiment tracking, model registry and model serving built in? | Native Managed MLflow, Feature Store, Model Serving. | Partial MLflow-based experiments and models in Fabric Data Science; production model serving is typically done through Azure services. | Native Snowflake ML (Feature Store, Model Registry, model serving on Snowpark Container Services). |
| LLM functions in SQLCan LLM calls be made directly from SQL? | Native AI Functions (e.g. ai_query) callable from SQL. | Unknown AI functions exist for notebooks and dataframes. Verify SQL availability. | Native Cortex AI SQL functions. |
| Natural-language querying / data agentsCan business users ask questions in natural language over governed data? | Native AI/BI Genie spaces; Agent Bricks for building agents. | Native Copilot in Fabric and Fabric data agents. | Native Cortex Analyst and Snowflake Intelligence. Verify GA status. |
| Operational (OLTP) databaseIs there an operational database integrated with the analytics platform? | Partial Lakebase (managed Postgres). Verify GA status. | Partial SQL database in Fabric; check GA/preview status and other database options. | Partial Hybrid Tables (Unistore); Snowflake Postgres announced. Verify status. |
"Unknown" means not yet assessed, not "unsupported".