Best Big Data Platforms for SQL

BigQuery is specifically built to manage and analyze large-scale data, making it an excellent solution for companies dealing with extensive datasets. Whether you're working with gigabytes or petabytes of information, BigQuery's automatic scaling ensures optimal performance for queries, enhancing efficiency. This powerful tool allows organizations to process data at remarkable speeds, enabling them to remain competitive in rapidly evolving markets. New users can take advantage of $300 in complimentary credits to delve into BigQuery's capabilities, gaining hands-on experience in handling and analyzing substantial amounts of data. With its serverless design, BigQuery eliminates concerns about scaling, streamlining the management of big data like never before.

Snowflake is a cloud-native data platform that combines data warehousing, data lakes, and data sharing into a single solution. By offering elastic scalability and automatic scaling, Snowflake enables businesses to handle vast amounts of data while maintaining high performance at low cost. The platform's architecture allows users to separate storage and compute, offering flexibility in managing workloads. Snowflake supports real-time data sharing and integrates seamlessly with other analytics tools, enabling teams to collaborate and gain insights from their data more efficiently. Its secure, multi-cloud architecture makes it a strong choice for enterprises looking to leverage data at scale.

Gigasheet is the big data spreadsheet that requires no set up, training, database or coding skills. No SQL or Python code, no IT infrastructure required to explore big data. Big data answers are available to anyone, even if they're not data scientists. Best of all, your first 3GB are free! Gigasheet is used by thousands of people and teams to gain insights in minutes, rather than hours or days. Anyone who can use a spreadsheet can access Gigasheet's big data and analysis capabilities. Sharing and collaboration tools make distributing huge data sets a snap. Gigasheet integrates with more than 135 SaaS platforms and databases.

You can quickly find answers with the flexible visual query builder. You can access data via your browser or phone and analyze it anywhere you are. No SQL, data scientist, or desktop required. You can learn from your team mates and search for any questions within your organization with shared questions. @mentions, push notifications and shared chat allow you to bring the right people in the conversation and make data actionable. You can easily copy and modify shared questions, export data and change the way charts are displayed so you don't just see someone else's analysis but make it yours. External sharing can be turned on to allow access to data tables and partners outside your domain. In just two clicks, you can access the underlying data tables. Smart typeaheads make it easy to run custom SQL.

Trino is a remarkably fast query engine designed to operate at exceptional speeds. It serves as a high-performance, distributed SQL query engine tailored for big data analytics, enabling users to delve into their vast data environments. Constructed for optimal efficiency, Trino excels in low-latency analytics and is extensively utilized by some of the largest enterprises globally to perform queries on exabyte-scale data lakes and enormous data warehouses. It accommodates a variety of scenarios, including interactive ad-hoc analytics, extensive batch queries spanning several hours, and high-throughput applications that require rapid sub-second query responses. Trino adheres to ANSI SQL standards, making it compatible with popular business intelligence tools like R, Tableau, Power BI, and Superset. Moreover, it allows direct querying of data from various sources such as Hadoop, S3, Cassandra, and MySQL, eliminating the need for cumbersome, time-consuming, and error-prone data copying processes. This capability empowers users to access and analyze data from multiple systems seamlessly within a single query. Such versatility makes Trino a powerful asset in today's data-driven landscape.

Iceberg is an advanced format designed for managing extensive analytical tables efficiently. It combines the dependability and ease of SQL tables with the capabilities required for big data, enabling multiple engines such as Spark, Trino, Flink, Presto, Hive, and Impala to access and manipulate the same tables concurrently without issues. The format allows for versatile SQL operations to incorporate new data, modify existing records, and execute precise deletions. Additionally, Iceberg can optimize read performance by eagerly rewriting data files or utilize delete deltas to facilitate quicker updates. It also streamlines the complex and often error-prone process of generating partition values for table rows while automatically bypassing unnecessary partitions and files. Fast queries do not require extra filtering, and the structure of the table can be adjusted dynamically as data and query patterns evolve, ensuring efficiency and adaptability in data management. This adaptability makes Iceberg an essential tool in modern data workflows.

Etlworks is a cloud-first, all-to-any data integration platform. It scales with your business. It can connect to databases and business applications as well as structured, semi-structured and unstructured data of all types, shapes, and sizes. With an intuitive drag-and drop interface, scripting languages and SQL, you can quickly create, test and schedule complex data integration and automation scenarios. Etlworks supports real time change data capture (CDC), EDI transformations and many other data integration tasks. It works exactly as advertised.

Hydrolix serves as a streaming data lake that integrates decoupled storage, indexed search, and stream processing, enabling real-time query performance at a terabyte scale while significantly lowering costs. CFOs appreciate the remarkable 4x decrease in data retention expenses, while product teams are thrilled to have four times more data at their disposal. You can easily activate resources when needed and scale down to zero when they are not in use. Additionally, you can optimize resource usage and performance tailored to each workload, allowing for better cost management. Imagine the possibilities for your projects when budget constraints no longer force you to limit your data access. You can ingest, enhance, and transform log data from diverse sources such as Kafka, Kinesis, and HTTP, ensuring you retrieve only the necessary information regardless of the data volume. This approach not only minimizes latency and costs but also eliminates timeouts and ineffective queries. With storage being independent from ingestion and querying processes, each aspect can scale independently to achieve both performance and budget goals. Furthermore, Hydrolix's high-density compression (HDX) often condenses 1TB of data down to an impressive 55GB, maximizing storage efficiency. By leveraging such innovative capabilities, organizations can fully harness their data potential without financial constraints.

Cognos Analytics with Watson brings BI to a new level with AI capabilities that provide a complete, trustworthy, and complete picture of your company. They can forecast the future, predict outcomes, and explain why they might happen. Built-in AI can be used to speed up and improve the blending of data or find the best tables for your model. AI can help you uncover hidden trends and drivers and provide insights in real-time. You can create powerful visualizations and tell the story of your data. You can also share insights via email or Slack. Combine advanced analytics with data science to unlock new opportunities. Self-service analytics that is governed and secures data from misuse adapts to your needs. You can deploy it wherever you need it - on premises, on the cloud, on IBM Cloud Pak®, for Data or as a hybrid option.

Starburst empowers organizations to enhance their decision-making capabilities by providing rapid access to all their data without the hassle of transferring or duplicating it. As companies accumulate vast amounts of data, their analysis teams often find themselves waiting for access to perform their evaluations. By facilitating direct access to data at its source, Starburst ensures that teams can quickly and accurately analyze larger datasets without the need for data movement. Starburst Enterprise offers a robust, enterprise-grade version of the open-source Trino (formerly known as Presto® SQL), which is fully supported and tested for production use. This solution not only boosts performance and security but also simplifies the deployment, connection, and management of a Trino environment. By enabling connections to any data source—be it on-premises, in the cloud, or within a hybrid cloud setup—Starburst allows teams to utilize their preferred analytics tools while seamlessly accessing data stored in various locations. This innovative approach significantly reduces the time taken for insights, helping businesses stay competitive in a data-driven world.

IBM Db2 Big SQL is a sophisticated hybrid SQL-on-Hadoop engine that facilitates secure and advanced data querying across a range of enterprise big data sources, such as Hadoop, object storage, and data warehouses. This enterprise-grade engine adheres to ANSI standards and provides massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities, enhancing the efficiency of data queries. With Db2 Big SQL, users can execute a single database connection or query that spans diverse sources, including Hadoop HDFS, WebHDFS, relational databases, NoSQL databases, and object storage solutions. It offers numerous advantages, including low latency, high performance, robust data security, compatibility with SQL standards, and powerful federation features, enabling both ad hoc and complex queries. Currently, Db2 Big SQL is offered in two distinct variations: one that integrates seamlessly with Cloudera Data Platform and another as a cloud-native service on the IBM Cloud Pak® for Data platform. This versatility allows organizations to access and analyze data effectively, performing queries on both batch and real-time data across various sources, thus streamlining their data operations and decision-making processes. In essence, Db2 Big SQL provides a comprehensive solution for managing and querying extensive datasets in an increasingly complex data landscape.

kdb Insights is an advanced analytics platform built for the cloud, enabling high-speed real-time analysis of both live and past data streams. It empowers users to make informed decisions efficiently, regardless of the scale or speed of the data, and boasts exceptional price-performance ratios, achieving analytics performance that is up to 100 times quicker while costing only 10% compared to alternative solutions. The platform provides interactive data visualization through dynamic dashboards, allowing for immediate insights that drive timely decision-making. Additionally, it incorporates machine learning models to enhance predictive capabilities, identify clusters, detect patterns, and evaluate structured data, thereby improving AI functionalities on time-series datasets. With remarkable scalability, kdb Insights can manage vast amounts of real-time and historical data, demonstrating effectiveness with loads of up to 110 terabytes daily. Its rapid deployment and straightforward data ingestion process significantly reduce the time needed to realize value, while it natively supports q, SQL, and Python, along with compatibility for other programming languages through RESTful APIs. This versatility ensures that users can seamlessly integrate kdb Insights into their existing workflows and leverage its full potential for a wide range of analytical tasks.

The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform empowers every member of your organization to leverage data and artificial intelligence effectively. Constructed on a lakehouse architecture, it establishes a cohesive and transparent foundation for all aspects of data management and governance, enhanced by a Data Intelligence Engine that recognizes the distinct characteristics of your data. Companies that excel across various sectors will be those that harness the power of data and AI. Covering everything from ETL processes to data warehousing and generative AI, Databricks facilitates the streamlining and acceleration of your data and AI objectives. By merging generative AI with the integrative advantages of a lakehouse, Databricks fuels a Data Intelligence Engine that comprehends the specific semantics of your data. This functionality enables the platform to optimize performance automatically and manage infrastructure in a manner tailored to your organization's needs. Additionally, the Data Intelligence Engine is designed to grasp the unique language of your enterprise, making the search and exploration of new data as straightforward as posing a question to a colleague, thus fostering collaboration and efficiency. Ultimately, this innovative approach transforms the way organizations interact with their data, driving better decision-making and insights.

Qubole stands out as a straightforward, accessible, and secure Data Lake Platform tailored for machine learning, streaming, and ad-hoc analysis. Our comprehensive platform streamlines the execution of Data pipelines, Streaming Analytics, and Machine Learning tasks across any cloud environment, significantly minimizing both time and effort. No other solution matches the openness and versatility in handling data workloads that Qubole provides, all while achieving a reduction in cloud data lake expenses by more than 50 percent. By enabling quicker access to extensive petabytes of secure, reliable, and trustworthy datasets, we empower users to work with both structured and unstructured data for Analytics and Machine Learning purposes. Users can efficiently perform ETL processes, analytics, and AI/ML tasks in a seamless workflow, utilizing top-tier open-source engines along with a variety of formats, libraries, and programming languages tailored to their data's volume, diversity, service level agreements (SLAs), and organizational regulations. This adaptability ensures that Qubole remains a preferred choice for organizations aiming to optimize their data management strategies while leveraging the latest technological advancements.

Apache Spark™ serves as a comprehensive analytics platform designed for large-scale data processing. It delivers exceptional performance for both batch and streaming data by employing an advanced Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) scheduler, a sophisticated query optimizer, and a robust execution engine. With over 80 high-level operators available, Spark simplifies the development of parallel applications. Additionally, it supports interactive use through various shells including Scala, Python, R, and SQL. Spark supports a rich ecosystem of libraries such as SQL and DataFrames, MLlib for machine learning, GraphX, and Spark Streaming, allowing for seamless integration within a single application. It is compatible with various environments, including Hadoop, Apache Mesos, Kubernetes, and standalone setups, as well as cloud deployments. Furthermore, Spark can connect to a multitude of data sources, enabling access to data stored in systems like HDFS, Alluxio, Apache Cassandra, Apache HBase, and Apache Hive, among many others. This versatility makes Spark an invaluable tool for organizations looking to harness the power of large-scale data analytics.

Polars offers a comprehensive Python API that reflects common data wrangling practices, providing a wide array of functionalities for manipulating DataFrames through an expression language that enables the creation of both efficient and clear code. Developed in Rust, Polars makes deliberate choices to ensure a robust DataFrame API that caters to the Rust ecosystem's needs. It serves not only as a library for DataFrames but also as a powerful backend query engine for your data models, allowing for versatility in data handling and analysis. This flexibility makes it a valuable tool for data scientists and engineers alike.

Discover the reasons why leading companies are turning to the Crux external data automation platform to enhance their external data integration, transformation, and monitoring without the need for additional personnel. Our cloud-native technology streamlines the processes of ingesting, preparing, observing, and consistently delivering any external dataset. Consequently, this enables you to receive high-quality data precisely where and when you need it, formatted correctly. Utilize features such as automated schema detection, inferred delivery schedules, and lifecycle management to swiftly create pipelines from diverse external data sources. Moreover, boost data discoverability across your organization with a private catalog that links and matches various data products. Additionally, you can enrich, validate, and transform any dataset, allowing for seamless integration with other data sources, which ultimately speeds up your analytics processes. With these capabilities, your organization can fully leverage its data assets to drive informed decision-making and strategic growth.

Dremio provides lightning-fast queries as well as a self-service semantic layer directly to your data lake storage. No data moving to proprietary data warehouses, and no cubes, aggregation tables, or extracts. Data architects have flexibility and control, while data consumers have self-service. Apache Arrow and Dremio technologies such as Data Reflections, Columnar Cloud Cache(C3), and Predictive Pipelining combine to make it easy to query your data lake storage. An abstraction layer allows IT to apply security and business meaning while allowing analysts and data scientists access data to explore it and create new virtual datasets. Dremio's semantic layers is an integrated searchable catalog that indexes all your metadata so business users can make sense of your data. The semantic layer is made up of virtual datasets and spaces, which are all searchable and indexed.