Our take
Pick Databricks if students / hobbyists who will stay on Free Edition at $0 (serverless, quota-limited) while they open a first notebook table, then pay-as-you-go DBUs on AWS / Azure / GCP when a production warehouse is required. Pick Snowflake if data teams who will open Snowsight Home and run a first Query data worksheet, then size warehouses against the published $2 / credit worked example (4,464 credits = $8,928
Best for
Databricks A query table you start at a public $
Snowflake A warehouse query you bill in credits
Free plan
Databricks $0 · replaced Community Edition (retired 2025). Serverless-only, quota-limited. SQL editor, notebooks, dashboards, Genie, Lakeflow. Personal learning / prototyping
Snowflake No free plan
Lowest paid
Databricks Not published by the vendor
Snowflake
Runs where
Databricks Hosted
Snowflake Hosted
Watch out
Databricks Free Edition is quota-limited and serverless-only
Snowflake Worksheets consume warehouse credits
Last checked
Databricks 2026-10-23 · databricks.com/product/pricing
Snowflake 2026-10-23 · docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/cost-understanding-overall
students / hobbyists who will stay on Free Edition at $0 (serverless, quota-limited) while they open a first notebook table, then pay-as-you-go DBUs on AWS / Azure / GCP when a production warehouse is required.
Read the Databricks pagedata teams who will open Snowsight Home and run a first Query data worksheet, then size warehouses against the published $2 / credit worked example (4,464 credits = $8,928 compute on that page).
Read the Snowflake page
