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AWS Snowball vs Palantir Foundry comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Snowball
Ranking in Data Migration Appliances
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (15th)
Palantir Foundry
Ranking in Data Migration Appliances
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), IT Operations Analytics (4th), Supply Chain Analytics (1st), Cloud Data Integration (4th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (1st), Data and Analytics Service Providers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Migration Appliances category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 35.5%, down from 37.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palantir Foundry is 5.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Migration Appliances Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Snowball35.5%
Palantir Foundry5.6%
Other58.9%
Data Migration Appliances
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis - PeerSpot reviewer
Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden
Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes
I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.
reviewer2846265 - PeerSpot reviewer
PALANTIR DATA ENGINEER at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Unified healthcare pipelines have improved data trust and accelerated operational decisions
One challenge regarding how Palantir Foundry can be improved is the learning curve. Foundry has a very broad ecosystem with Ontology, Pipeline Builder, Code Repositories, and AI integrations. For new engineers or business users onboarding, it can take time, especially if they are coming from more traditional data platforms. Better documentation, simplified onboarding paths, and more beginner-friendly examples would help accelerate adoption. Another area is debugging complexity. While lineage and monitoring are strong features, troubleshooting deeply interconnected pipelines can still become difficult in a large enterprise environment. Sometimes error logs and pipeline failure messages could be more descriptive or developer-friendly, especially for distributed PySpark jobs. Another pain point is customization limitations in certain UI-driven components. While low-code tools are great for rapid development, highly customized workflows sometimes still require engineering workarounds or deeper technical implementation. The platform is extremely capable, but improvements around usability, debugging experience, DevOps flexibility, and ecosystem openness would make it even more effective for enterprise engineering teams.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility."
"We are a very large company with around 20 million users that include architects, developers, and admin staff, and it's a very nice service we would highly recommend."
"I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in."
"From our point of view, one of the most important features are the ability to combine, to mesh data together, and the ability to have them compute out of AWS rather than buying our own infrastructure."
"The interface is great! It's user-friendly."
"The features I like best are the tool's high capacity, scalability, end-to-end encryption for data security, ease of use, durability, and cost-effectiveness. It's particularly cost-effective for transferring large amounts of data compared to high-speed internet transfers."
"The support team's awesome, and they've always been very responsive."
"AWS helps save time and costs, being a managed cloud provider with evolving services."
"Palantir Foundry has positively impacted an organization where I previously worked, as it was a platform where developers, DevOps, and users could make changes together."
"With Palantir Foundry, it helps us have better benefits and better return on investment, and also accelerates the right decision in the market."
"The AI engine that comes with Palantir Foundry is quite interesting."
"Palantir Foundry makes data reporting easier and reduces time in data gathering and reporting, where what would usually take about a day and a half of data gathering and reporting I have ultimately reduced to about 20 minutes."
"Palantir Foundry has positively impacted my organization by providing good support from Palantir teams, facilitating the development of many new solutions, building our UI and web applications, and significantly enhancing our productivity."
"I like the data onboarding to Palantir Foundry and ETL creation."
"We believe that the client has improved their efficiency compared to their previous working model; they have more clarity and, above all, more control over the data."
"It is easy to map out a workflow and run trigger-based scripts without having to deploy to another server."
 

Cons

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."
"It does have room for improvement. The ability to better ingest some of the big data."
"There's always room for improvement as you use the service more and gain expertise. Some challenges I've faced include the time factor (data transfer can be time-consuming), data validation after the transfer, risks associated with physical handling and shipping of the device, and ensuring data security during transit."
"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."
"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."
"AWS support could be more responsive."
"Snowball is not interesting and is a pain to deal with."
"It's not cheap."
"The major hindrance with Palantir Foundry is that being a very closed product, the cost optimization and costing are not exposed to the end users."
"Customer support should definitely be a concern, especially for the dev tier account I have been using, while for a corporate account, it is pretty good."
"Cost of this solution is quite high."
"The solution’s data security could be improved."
"For example, exporting data from Palantir Foundry is very difficult and has many limitations."
"The data lineage was challenging. It's hard to track data from the sources as it moves through stages. Informatica EDC can easily capture and report it because it talks to the metadata. This is generated across those various staging points."
"I rate Palantir Foundry five out of 10. I'm ambivalent."
"Always having to work with a Palantir representative creates severe bottlenecks and increases costs, making it desirable for me as the end user to perform tasks without constant requests for support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."
"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."
"Palantir Foundry has different pricing models that can be negotiated."
"Palantir Foundry is an expensive solution."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"It's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?
Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?
Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...
What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?
It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...
What needs improvement with Palantir Foundry?
The Workshop application could be improved because it is not very customizable, but it is still very strong. We also have the React OSK apps, but it does not allow the inbuilt applications such as ...
What is your primary use case for Palantir Foundry?
My main use case for Palantir Foundry is to solve business problems, such as in healthcare. I also worked on a project for a law firm where thousands of PDFs were coming in, and we needed to check ...
What advice do you have for others considering Palantir Foundry?
I believe they should get started by completing all the free certificates, then they could apply to the paid certificates to get a master of Palantir Foundry, solve some real use cases, do examples...
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess
Merck KGaA, Airbus, Ferrari,United States Intelligence Community, United States Department of Defense
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Snowball vs. Palantir Foundry and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.