Snowflake and Redshift are both cloud-based data warehousing solutions, but they have some differences in terms of features and functions. As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, some of the key features and functions available in Snowflake but not in Redshift include:
- Time Travel: Snowflake provides a feature called Time Travel, which allows users to query historical data, access previous versions of tables, and restore deleted objects. This feature is not available in Redshift.
- Zero-Copy Cloning: Snowflake supports creating a clone of a table, schema, or database without copying the underlying data, thereby saving storage space and improving performance. Redshift does not have this feature.
- Automatic Clustering: Snowflake automatically maintains the optimal organization of data in a table using its patented clustering technology, which helps to improve query performance. Redshift, on the other hand, requires manual maintenance of data distribution and sorting keys.
- Snowpipe: Snowpipe is a feature in Snowflake that enables continuous, near-real-time data ingestion into a data warehouse. This is not available in Redshift, which relies on batch data loading methods.
- Geospatial Data Types: Snowflake has native support for geospatial data types and functions, allowing users to perform geospatial analysis and store location-based data. Redshift does not natively support geospatial data types.
- Materialized Views: While both Snowflake and Redshift support materialized views, Snowflake’s implementation allows for automatic refresh and query optimization. In Redshift, materialized views need to be manually refreshed.
- Data Sharing: Snowflake provides secure and easy data sharing capabilities, allowing users to share a specific set of data with other Snowflake accounts without the need for copying or moving data. Redshift does not have a similar native feature.
- Support for Semi-Structured Data: Snowflake natively supports semi-structured data types like JSON, Avro, Parquet, and ORC, and has functions to query and manipulate this data. Redshift requires pre-processing or using additional services like Amazon Redshift Spectrum to query semi-structured data.
Snowflake important urls to refer
