IT AI Index
Index › Data platform › Data warehouses › Small business › September 2026 Edition

Data warehouses for small business buyers

Asked as “cloud data warehouse”, and as “analytical data warehouse platform”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 49 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Google BigQuery
Clear leader
80% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 67 categories →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessGoogle BigQuery80%Clear leaderThis pageMid-marketSnowflake47%Clear leaderStanding →EnterpriseSnowflake72%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Google BigQuery80%13%69endorsed leader
02Snowflake12%29%63criticized challenger
03Amazon Redshift4%25%64criticized challenger
04MotherDuck2%0%23accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08Databricks0%31%16criticized challenger
06ClickHouse Cloud0%24%21accepted challenger
07Azure Synapse Analytics0%20%15accepted challenger
05PostgreSQL0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Snowflake vs Google BigQuerySnowflake vs ClickHouse CloudGoogle BigQuery vs ClickHouse Cloud

One product takes 80% of first choices here, so the chart would put seven markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Three products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category. Jump to the standing

02What they warned about

Seven of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Amazon Redshift
25%
16 of 64 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Amazon Redshift: Redshift Serverless has a high baseline cost, and provisioned clusters require a constant running fee” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Snowflake
29%
18 of 63 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Snowflake is better suited to large enterprises than small businesses. The platform's architecture, while powerful, may be overengineered for smaller data needs.” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
Google BigQuery
13%
9 of 69 labels negative · 9 of 12 models
“Some warehouses, like Google BigQuery, are powerful but can become expensive quickly, especially with complex queries or large data volumes.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
ClickHouse Cloud
24%
5 of 21 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Why SMBs should avoid it: ... self-hosting ClickHouse is a full-time job.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

60 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 757 links across 179 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

g2.com
30 answers · 33 citations · 9 models
atlan.com
30 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
trustradius.com
27 answers · 29 citations · 9 models
valiotti.com
24 answers · 25 citations · 10 models
clickhouse.com
23 answers · 39 citations · 8 models
fortegrp.com
22 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
blog.dataddo.com
20 answers · 20 citations · 9 models
motherduck.com
vendor site · MotherDuck18 answers · 38 citations · 8 models
definite.app
18 answers · 21 citations · 6 models
domo.com
vendor site · Domo18 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
reddit.com
16 answers · 25 citations · 9 models
umatechnology.org
12 answers · 12 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

g2.com/categories/data-warehouse/small-business
30 answers · 9 models
atlan.com/best-cloud-data-warehouses
29 answers · 10 models
trustradius.com/cloud-data-warehouse?company-size=small-business
24 answers · 9 models
valiotti.com/data-warehouse-for-startups-bigquery-vs-snowflake-vs-redshift-…
24 answers · 10 models
fortegrp.com/insights/best-cloud-data-warehouse
22 answers · 9 models
blog.dataddo.com/best-cloud-data-warehouse-solutions-and-how-to-choose-the-…
20 answers · 9 models
clickhouse.com/resources/engineering/top-5-cloud-data-warehouses
18 answers · 7 models
domo.com/learn/article/best-data-warehouse-platforms
16 answers · 8 models
clickhouse.com/blog/cloud-data-warehouses-cost-performance-comparison
15 answers · 6 models
definite.app/blog/data-warehouse-for-startups
14 answers · 6 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best cloud data warehouse for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which analytical data warehouse platform would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top cloud data warehouses for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best cloud data warehouse for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a cloud data warehouse. What should we look at?”Negative“Which cloud data warehouses should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Google BigQuery
Three alternativesClicData, Firebolt, Panoply
against: SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery, SnowflakeChanged
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Databricks
Snowflake
One alternativeClicData
against: Google BigQueryGoogle BigQuery
One alternativeSnowflake
against: DuckDBno first choiceagainst: Amazon Redshift, Snowflake
GPT-5.4 miniGoogle BigQuery
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Databricks SQL, Snowflake
Google BigQueryHeld
One alternativeSnowflake
against: Amazon Redshift, PostgreSQL + BI toolGoogle BigQuery, Snowflake
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics / Microsoft Fabric warehouse
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Snowflake
against: Databricks SQL / Lakehouse, DuckDB / Postgres + BI toolsno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashGoogle BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, MotherDuck, PostgreSQL
against: SnowflakeGoogle BigQueryHeld
Two alternativesMotherDuck, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, MotherDuck
against: SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery
Four alternativesMotherDuck, Neon, PostgreSQL, Supabase
against: Amazon Redshift, SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery, MotherDuck
Three alternativesAmazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake
against: Amazon Redshift, Databricksagainst: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, ClickHouse Cloud, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake
Perplexity SonarGoogle BigQuery
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, Databricks, MotherDuck, Snowflake
Google BigQueryHeld
One alternativeMotherDuck/Definite
MotherDuck
Five alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Fabric, MotherDuck
against: ClickHouse Cloudno first choiceagainst: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse/Fabric, Databricks SQL / lakehouse-style platforms, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
Grok 4.1 FastGoogle BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQueryHeld
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Databricks, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, MotherDuck, Snowflake
against: ClickHouse Cloud, Databricks SQLGoogle BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, Snowflake
Google BigQuery, Snowflake
One alternativeAmazon Redshift
against: Amazon Redshift, Databricks, Snowflake
Mistral SmallGoogle BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQueryHeld
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
against: FireboltMotherDuck
Two alternativesAzure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery
against: Amazon Redshift, SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery
Two alternativesFirebolt, Panoply
no first choiceagainst: Google BigQuery
DeepSeek V4 FlashGoogle BigQuery
Three alternativesDatabricks, MotherDuck, Snowflake
against: Amazon RedshiftGoogle BigQueryHeld
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
against: ClickHouse Cloud, DatabricksGoogle BigQuery, MotherDuck
One alternativeDatabricks SQL
against: Amazon Redshift, SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Panoply
against: SnowflakeGoogle BigQuery, Snowflakeagainst: Amazon Redshiftagainst: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
Llama 4 MaverickAmazon Redshift, Google BigQueryGoogle BigQueryChanged
Five alternativesAmazon Redshift, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse, Snowflake
no first choiceGoogle BigQuery
Four alternativesDremio Cloud, Firebolt, Panoply, Snowflake
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashGoogle BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQuery, Microsoft FabricChanged
Two alternativesFivetran, Looker Studio
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, MotherDuck, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud
against: SnowflakeAmazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Snowflakeagainst: ClickHouse Cloud, Prestoagainst: Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
Kimi K2Google BigQuery
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQueryHeld
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, MotherDuck, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Panoply, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
One alternativeAmazon Redshift
against: Snowflakeagainst: Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
GLM 4.7 FlashXSnowflake
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Google BigQuery
Google BigQueryChanged
Two alternativesAmazon Redshift, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Firebolt, Panoply
no first choice
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
against: Amazon Redshift, Databricks SQL, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric, Oracle Autonomous Database, Snowflake, Teradata Vantage
MiniMax M2.5Google BigQuery
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, Databricks, Snowflake
SnowflakeChanged
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, Azure Synapse Analytics, Google BigQuery, PostgreSQL + columnar extension
against: PanoplyGoogle BigQuery, MotherDuck
Three alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, Snowflake
Google BigQuery
Four alternativesAmazon Redshift, ClickHouse Cloud, Snowflake, Tinybird
no first choiceagainst: Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Snowflake
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:04yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:19yes57 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:40yes622 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:46yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:22yes1910 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:50yes119 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:26yes1013 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:06yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:28yes1036 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:17yes1534 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:50yes1736 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:31yes1245 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:22no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:49no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:11yes1023 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:19yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:07yes179 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:05no04 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:00yes1917 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:49yes54 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:17no045 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:49yes1422 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:32yes18120 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:04no062 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:50yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:51yes67 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:02yes1835 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:05yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:21yes3715 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:12yes1010 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:05yes1819 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:02yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:52yes534 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:01yes1453 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:19yes2363 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:31yes830 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:00no05 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:52no04 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:43yes1423 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:21yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:26yes1710 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:39yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:45yes911 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:57yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:17yes868 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:26yes10253 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:36yes25132 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:47no013 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:08no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:40no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:32yes925 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:03yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:00yes1610 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:19no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:54yes1015 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:25yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 09:07yes536 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:25yes1545 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:53yes1035 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:48yes522 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:21yes2511 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:33no06 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:30yes2925 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:01yes208 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:34yes3716 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:56yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:00yes3027 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:59yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:28yes1056 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:20yes2036 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:46yes2542 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:11yes1447 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Azure Synapse read as Azure Synapse Analytics
Unresolved, counted raw
Actian Avalanche
Azure Synapse Analytics / Microsoft Fabric warehouse
Databricks SQL / lakehouse-style platforms
Definite
DuckDB / Postgres + BI tools
Looker Studio
MotherDuck/Definite
PostgreSQL + BI tool
PostgreSQL + columnar extension (e.g., Citus, TimescaleDB)
Presto
Tinybird
Y42
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in data platform

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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