European Alternatives to Snowflake
Looking for a European alternative to Snowflake? Snowflake Inc. is a Delaware company headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. Customers in Europe sign with Snowflake Computing Netherlands B.V. in Amsterdam, but its Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law with the Delaware courts as venue.
Eleven European tools cover the job, in different shapes: managed warehouses and lakehouses (Exasol, Aiven and Scaleway on ClickHouse, STACKIT on Dremio, OVHcloud, T Cloud Public), self-managed engines (Stackable, MonetDB, CedarDB, DuckDB) and a data operations platform (Keboola), from companies in Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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1
European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA or Switzerland, and processes customer data in Europe. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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2
Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Paid placement can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. Editorial policy
11 European Alternatives to Snowflake
Exasol
Nuremberg in-memory analytical database for warehouse, analytics acceleration and lakehouse use, with a free Personal edition
Aiven for ClickHouse
Managed ClickHouse with published plans from $155 a month, a free tier and your choice of cloud
Scaleway Data Warehouse for ClickHouse
Fully managed ClickHouse warehouse from Paris, available in the Paris and Milan regions
STACKIT Dremio
Managed Dremio lakehouse on STACKIT Object Storage with Apache Iceberg and Parquet, free to try
OVHcloud Data Platform
Roubaix cloud data platform sold pay as you go, with detailed pricing still marked coming soon
T Cloud Public Data Warehouse Service
T-Systems managed warehouse service in a German data centre, with a EUR 250 starting credit
Stackable
Wedel open-source data platform on Kubernetes with a managed lakehouse and a 30-day trial
CedarDB
Munich PostgreSQL-compatible database for transactions and analytics, free Community Edition, cloud on a waitlist
MonetDB
Amsterdam open-source columnar analytical database under the Mozilla Public License 2.0
Keboola
Prague data operations platform with 1,500+ connectors and SQL, Python and R transformations; a platform, not a bare warehouse
DuckDB
MIT-licensed analytical database that runs in-process, from the DuckDB Foundation in Amsterdam; no managed service
Key takeaways
- Snowflake Inc. is in Bozeman, Montana. Europeans contract with Snowflake Computing Netherlands B.V., but the Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law with Delaware courts.
- Snowflake does not show a price per credit on its pricing page, only a consumption model by edition, platform and region.
- Exasol (Nuremberg) is the nearest in spirit to a classic warehouse, with a free Personal edition and German and Swiss law for customers in Europe.
- Aiven (Finland) and Scaleway (France) both run managed ClickHouse, and Aiven is the only one of the two that publishes plan prices.
- STACKIT, OVHcloud and T Cloud Public are cloud providers that offer a managed lakehouse or warehouse next to their servers.
- Stackable, CedarDB, MonetDB and DuckDB are engines you run yourself, and Keboola is a data platform rather than a warehouse, so they suit smaller or more technical teams.
Why people leave Snowflake
Snowflake is the cloud data warehouse that many companies picked when they moved analytics off their own servers. You load data, size a compute cluster, run SQL, and pay for what you consume. Storage and compute are billed separately, you buy it on demand or as pre-paid capacity, and it comes in four editions: Standard, Enterprise, Business Critical and Virtual Private Snowflake.
The legal setup has more layers than the name suggests. Snowflake Inc. is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. For customers in Europe, the Contracting Entities page names Snowflake Computing Netherlands B.V. in Amsterdam as the party you sign with (and Snowflake Computing U.K. Limited in London for the UK). Yet the Terms of Service say the agreement is governed by Delaware law, with the state and federal courts in New Castle County, Delaware as the venue.
This page covers the warehouse job: storing analytical data and running SQL over it. The eleven European tools below differ a lot in shape. Some are managed warehouses or lakehouses, some are engines you run yourself, and one is a data platform that sits around a warehouse.
- A Dutch counterparty, but Delaware law Signing with an Amsterdam B.V. looks European, but the Terms of Service choose Delaware law and send disputes to courts in New Castle County. If you want the governing law and the court to be in Europe, that is the part to check against the tools here. Exasol applies German and Swiss law to customers in Europe, Aiven applies Finnish law, and STACKIT, CedarDB and Stackable are German companies.
- Pricing is not visible until you pick a platform and region Snowflake sells on consumption, and its pricing page shows no dollar amounts. The rate per credit sits in a consumption table (a PDF) that depends on the cloud platform, the region and the edition. That model works well for spiky workloads, but it makes a budget hard to read in advance. Aiven publishes plan prices from $155 a month, and the free options here (Exasol Personal, CedarDB Community, DuckDB, MonetDB) cost nothing to try.
- Transfers rely on contract clauses Snowflake publishes a Data Processing Addendum, and for personal data moved out of the EEA or Switzerland it applies the EU standard contractual clauses and a UK Addendum. That is a recognised route, and it also tells you the data is expected to be able to leave. A vendor with a European parent and European hosting removes the question for the data you keep with them.
- You can unbundle the warehouse A lot of Snowflake work does not need Snowflake. Open table formats such as Apache Iceberg and Parquet (STACKIT Dremio), ClickHouse (Aiven, Scaleway) and PostgreSQL-compatible engines (CedarDB) let you keep data in a format that other engines can read. That does not remove migration work, but it makes the next move cheaper.
What you have to replace, not just match
Start by listing what runs on Snowflake today: how big the data is, how many users query it at once, whether you rely on features such as data sharing with partners, the marketplace or Snowpark. A warehouse used by a small analytics team for dashboards moves to ClickHouse or Exasol with SQL changes. A setup built on data sharing and Snowpark code needs a longer plan, and none of the tools here replicates the sharing feature as such.
Move one workload first, not everything. Copy a representative dataset to the new engine, rewrite the ten most expensive queries, compare run time and cost on your own data, and only then plan the cutover. Keep Snowflake running in parallel until reports agree, and check the new vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processors before real data goes in.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Exasol | Nuremberg, Germany | Exasol Personal free for personal use / Exasol Enterprise by quote | EU (Germany) |
| #2 | Aiven for ClickHouse | Helsinki, Finland | Free tier for small services / from about $20/month, usage-based | EU (Finland) |
| #3 | Scaleway Data Warehouse for ClickHouse | Paris, France | From about €0.0006/hour (DEV1-S) | EU (France) |
| #4 | STACKIT Dremio | Bad Friedrichshall, Germany | EU (Germany) | |
| #5 | OVHcloud Data Platform | Roubaix, France | PostgreSQL essential from about €0.16/hour (2 vCPU / 8GB RAM); MySQL, MongoDB, Kafka, Cassandra, OpenSearch, M3DB and Valkey priced separately by engine and tier | EU (France) |
| #6 | T Cloud Public Data Warehouse Service | Frankfurt am Main, Germany | Pay-per-use; list prices in the service description PDF / EUR 250 starting credit until 31 December 2026 | EU (Germany) |
| #7 | Stackable | Wedel, Germany | Subscription and managed data lakehouse; no prices published | EU (Germany) |
| #9 | MonetDB | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Software free and open source under MPL 2.0 / services by quote | EU (Netherlands) |
| #10 | Keboola | Prague, Czech Republic | Free plan with 120 minutes of compute in the first month and 60 minutes a month after that; additional compute at $0.14 per minute; subscription and Enterprise tiers quoted | EU (Czech Republic) |
How each alternative compares to Snowflake
Exasol
the nearest classic warehouse, from Nuremberg
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Not stated on the product page; deployment options include on-premises, cloud and hybrid.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
Best for: Teams with demanding SQL workloads who want a fast analytical database on-premises, in the cloud or as a hybrid
Exasol AG is in Nuremberg (Amtsgericht Nuremberg, HRB 23037, as recorded in the site's data warehouse category). Its terms say that for customers in Europe (Germany, Austria, the Nordics, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Benelux and others, except the UK), the Terms and Conditions apply under German and Swiss law, unless the quote says otherwise.
Its site presents Exasol Personal as free for personal use, Exasol Enterprise as the commercial product, and use cases for data warehouse, analytics acceleration and lakehouse. It also describes a Model Context Protocol connection for AI agents and a semantic layer.
No prices are published for Enterprise. Check in the quote which entity and which law applies to you, since the terms allow the quote to override the default.
What Exasol does better than Snowflake
- Contract under German and Swiss law for customers in Europe, where Snowflake uses Delaware law
- A free Personal edition to try on your own hardware
- Runs on-premises, in the cloud or hybrid, not only as a hosted service
Where Exasol is a step down from Snowflake
- No published enterprise prices
- No marketplace or cross-cloud data sharing like Snowflake's
- Free edition is for personal use, not production
Standout against Snowflake. An analytical database built for speed, with the free Personal edition as the entry point.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Finland). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Your chosen region, including EU-only.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
- Independently checked. Services are open source.
Best for: Teams that want a managed ClickHouse warehouse on the cloud they already use, with prices they can read
Aiven's terms are governed by Finnish law, and disputes are settled by arbitration under the Arbitration Rules of the Finland Chamber of Commerce, seated in Helsinki (Aiven may claim unpaid fees in a public court). The terms text on its site does not name the contracting company, so check the order for the entity.
Its ClickHouse page lists a Startup plan from $155 a month for test environments with high performance needs and a Business plan from $654 a month for business-critical production, a 99.99% SLA, and says it runs on any cloud. It also offers a free tier across its products.
Prices are in US dollars on this page, and region and cloud affect what you pay. It is ClickHouse as a service, not a full warehouse suite, so you bring your own loading and BI tools.
What Aiven for ClickHouse does better than Snowflake
- Plan prices on the page, where Snowflake shows none
- Finnish law with arbitration in Helsinki, where Snowflake uses Delaware courts
- A free tier and a choice of cloud
Where Aiven for ClickHouse is a step down from Snowflake
- Arbitration rather than a public court for most disputes
- Runs on third-party hyperscalers, so hosting is not sovereign by itself
- No built-in marketplace, sharing or Snowpark equivalent
Standout against Snowflake. The only managed ClickHouse here with plan prices printed on the product page.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw — EU only.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
Best for: Teams already on Scaleway, or those who want a managed warehouse hosted in France or Italy
Scaleway SAS is a Paris company (RCS Paris, SIREN 433 115 904, as recorded in the site's data warehouse category). The product page calls the service a fully managed data warehouse and lists the Paris and Milan regions.
It is positioned for dashboards and analytics at scale without managing servers. The page shows no price, so you have to use the calculator or the console to see cost.
The warehouse sits in the same Scaleway account as its other cloud services.
What Scaleway Data Warehouse for ClickHouse does better than Snowflake
- Hosted by a French company in Paris and Milan regions
- Part of one European cloud account with other services
Where Scaleway Data Warehouse for ClickHouse is a step down from Snowflake
- No price on the product page
- Only two regions
- Narrower tooling and ecosystem than Snowflake
Standout against Snowflake. A hosted ClickHouse warehouse inside a European cloud, in two regions.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Germany: the AI Model Serving pricing table names the region Germany South.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
Best for: Organisations that want a lakehouse on Iceberg and Parquet in a German cloud, such as public bodies and regulated firms
STACKIT is operated by Schwarz Digits Cloud GmbH & Co. KG in Bad Friedrichshall (Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRA 741347), as its imprint states. The Dremio service is described as fully managed, with STACKIT handling infrastructure and licences.
The product page says compute and storage are strictly separated and data stays in STACKIT Object Storage, with native support for Apache Iceberg and Parquet and a semantic layer that virtualises data instead of copying it. It says you can try it for free in the STACKIT portal.
No price is shown on the product page; the STACKIT calculator is linked from its price menu. STACKIT is a large cloud, so expect a platform approach rather than a standalone warehouse tool.
What STACKIT Dremio does better than Snowflake
- Open table formats, so the data is not locked into a proprietary store
- German company and German cloud for the whole stack
- Free to try in the portal
Where STACKIT Dremio is a step down from Snowflake
- No price on the product page
- Dremio is a lakehouse query engine, so you need to organise your own data layout
- Smaller ecosystem of integrations than Snowflake
Standout against Snowflake. Open Iceberg and Parquet formats on a sovereign German cloud.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. 30+ data centres, majority in Europe.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
- Independently checked. SecNumCloud (ANSSI), GAIA-X founding member.
Best for: Teams already on OVHcloud who want a data platform next to their compute and storage
OVHcloud is headquartered in Roubaix, France. The Data Platform page presents a pay-as-you-go service on its Public Cloud, with detailed pricing marked coming soon on the page checked.
The company entity (OVH SAS, with OVH Groupe SA as the parent registered in Lille) comes from the site's data warehouse category. The page does not state a data location, and it appears in this list because the product is a data and lakehouse platform in the Snowflake role.
Treat it as early: the detail you need to plan a budget is not yet public.
What OVHcloud Data Platform does better than Snowflake
- French provider with its own data centres
- No credit table to decode, once prices are published
- Sits in the same account as your OVHcloud servers
Where OVHcloud Data Platform is a step down from Snowflake
- Detailed pricing not yet public
- Newer and less proven as a warehouse
- No marketplace or sharing
Standout against Snowflake. A data platform from a European cloud that already hosts your servers.
T Cloud Public Data Warehouse Service
a managed warehouse from T-Systems in a German data centre
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Data centre in Germany.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
Best for: Large organisations that already buy from T-Systems and want a warehouse in a German data centre
The service is offered by T-Systems International GmbH, Frankfurt am Main (HRB 55933), a Deutsche Telekom group company, as recorded in the site's data warehouse category. The category data says the data centre is in Germany and that new customers get a starting credit of EUR 250 until 31 December 2026.
The product page returned no readable text in this check, so this entry relies on the category file for its detail. Pricing is listed in a service description PDF, not on the page.
It is a corporate-scale offer and suits buyers who already sit inside the T-Systems framework.
What T Cloud Public Data Warehouse Service does better than Snowflake
- German provider and data centre
- A starting credit to test with
- Fits public-sector and large-enterprise procurement
Where T Cloud Public Data Warehouse Service is a step down from Snowflake
- Prices only in a PDF
- Product page could not be verified in this check
- Aimed at large buyers, less friendly to a small team
Standout against Snowflake. A warehouse service from a German telecom group, hosted in Germany.
Stackable
open-source data platform on Kubernetes from Germany
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Not stated on the pages checked.
- Source code. Open source, where Snowflake is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Engineering teams that want to run an open-source lakehouse stack on their own or a European cloud
Stackable GmbH is in Wedel (Amtsgericht Pinneberg, HRB 15351, as recorded in the site's data warehouse category). It sells a data platform built on open-source components, with a subscription and a managed data lakehouse.
Its site mentions a 30-day free trial of the managed lakehouse. It publishes no prices.
This is a platform for engineers: you assemble and operate the pieces, with vendor support, rather than log in to a ready warehouse.
What Stackable does better than Snowflake
- Open source, so you can inspect and move the stack
- German company; run it where you like
- A 30-day trial of the managed lakehouse
Where Stackable is a step down from Snowflake
- No published prices
- Needs engineering skill to operate
- No hosted console like Snowflake's
Standout against Snowflake. An open-source lakehouse stack with a German vendor behind it.
CedarDB
a PostgreSQL-compatible engine for transactions and analytics, from Munich
Best for: Teams on PostgreSQL that want fast analytics without a separate warehouse and copy pipelines
CedarDB GmbH is at Seidlstr. 8, Munich (Amtsgericht München, HRB 291073, VAT ID DE367135645), as its imprint states. The site says it is PostgreSQL-compatible and runs transactional and analytical workloads on one engine and one copy of data.
You can run it free on your own infrastructure or in Docker, and a managed CedarDB Cloud is on a waitlist. An enterprise edition is by quote.
It is young compared with Snowflake, and it is a database more than a warehouse product, so expect to bring your own loaders and BI.
What CedarDB does better than Snowflake
- Free Community Edition to run yourself
- One engine for transactions and analytics, no ETL copy needed
- German GmbH with a full imprint
Where CedarDB is a step down from Snowflake
- Managed cloud not yet available (waitlist)
- Young product with a smaller ecosystem
- No data sharing or marketplace
Standout against Snowflake. Transactions and analytics on a single PostgreSQL-compatible engine.
MonetDB
an open-source columnar database from the Netherlands
- Which law reaches it. EU (Netherlands). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Self-hosted; cloud instances through cloud marketplaces.
- Source code. Open source, where Snowflake is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Technical teams that want a free, proven columnar SQL engine for analytics they run themselves
MonetDB is open source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, as its site states. According to the site's data warehouse category, the software is stewarded by Stichting MonetDB Foundation (which holds the IP) and MonetDB Solutions B.V., in Amsterdam, which offers services.
It is a column-store designed for analytical queries. You run it yourself, so there is no hosted service, no per-credit bill and no vendor SLA unless you buy services.
It suits smaller analytic workloads and research. Do not expect the managed features of a commercial warehouse.
What MonetDB does better than Snowflake
- Free and open source, no vendor lock-in
- Dutch foundation behind the software
- No consumption billing
Where MonetDB is a step down from Snowflake
- Self-hosted, you do the operations
- Smaller community than ClickHouse or DuckDB
- No managed cloud, sharing or marketplace
Standout against Snowflake. A long-established open-source columnar engine with a Dutch foundation.
Keboola
a data operations platform around your warehouse, from Prague
- Which law reaches it. EU (Czech Republic). Snowflake Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and run from Bozeman, Montana, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Multi-cloud on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud; free-plan projects run on Microsoft Azure in the EU, and enterprise contracts can pin the provider, the region or a private cloud.
- Source code. Closed source, as Snowflake is.
- Independently checked. SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA, listed against the Enterprise tier.
Best for: Teams that want pipelines, transformations and orchestration managed in one place
Keboola is a Prague company; the Czech register shows Keboola Industries SE (ICO 06659730) and Keboola Czech s.r.o. Its public terms do not say which entity contracts with you: the Software Subscription Agreement says the governing law is that of the country of Keboola's registered address as stated in the Order Form.
Its site describes 1,500+ connectors, change data capture, SQL, Python and R transformations, a flow builder and a data catalog. It has separate Free Plan terms and a DPA.
It is a platform for moving and shaping data, not a warehouse engine alone, so it replaces part of a Snowflake setup rather than the whole.
What Keboola does better than Snowflake
- Connectors, transformations and orchestration in one managed place
- A free plan with its own terms
- Czech company under EU law
Where Keboola is a step down from Snowflake
- Contracting entity not named in the public terms
- Not a standalone warehouse
- Prices were not verified for this page
Standout against Snowflake. Pipeline and transformation tooling bundled with the data platform.
DuckDB
a free analytical engine from an Amsterdam foundation, without a managed service
Best for: Analysts and engineers with small to medium data who want fast SQL on their own machine or server
DuckDB's site footer says it is run by the DuckDB Foundation in Amsterdam, NL. The foundation site describes a non-profit that holds the IP and trademarks of DuckDB, DuckLake and Quack, with an irrevocable MIT licence.
There is no managed service from the foundation, so there is no contract, no support plan and no hosted console to evaluate. You run it where you want.
It will not replace a shared multi-user warehouse with access control for a large team. It does replace Snowflake for many single-user or small-team analytics jobs.
What DuckDB does better than Snowflake
- Free under the MIT licence, no consumption bill
- Runs anywhere, including a laptop
- No account, no sub-processors to review
Where DuckDB is a step down from Snowflake
- No managed service or SLA
- Not a multi-user warehouse with governance
- Does not match Snowflake at very large scale
Standout against Snowflake. The lightest option here, free to run with no vendor relationship.
What actually breaks when you switch
The hard part of leaving Snowflake is the code, not the data. SQL dialects differ, and stored procedures, tasks, streams and Snowpark code have to be rewritten for another engine. Budget time to translate and test the queries that matter most for your reports.
Check the data transfer path. Moving large volumes out of Snowflake means exporting to cloud storage and loading elsewhere, and the cloud provider's egress charges can apply. Price that before you commit.
Several of the vendors here do not publish prices (Exasol Enterprise, Scaleway, OVHcloud, T Cloud Public, Stackable), and OVHcloud and CedarDB Cloud are early. Ask for a written quote and a proof of concept on your own data.
Is there a European tool that works exactly like Snowflake?
Not exactly. The closest in role are the managed warehouses and lakehouses: Exasol, Aiven and Scaleway on ClickHouse, STACKIT Dremio, OVHcloud's Data Platform and the T Cloud Public warehouse service. They give you SQL over large analytical data without running servers yourself.
What none of them replicates one-to-one is Snowflake's breadth: cross-cloud data sharing, the marketplace, and the Snowpark developer framework. If you depend on those, plan to rebuild them rather than expect a switch.
Which of these can I try without paying?
Exasol offers Exasol Personal, free for personal use. CedarDB, MonetDB and DuckDB are free to download and run yourself. Aiven has a free tier and STACKIT Dremio says you can try it for free in its portal. Stackable gives a 30-day trial of its managed lakehouse and T Cloud Public a starting credit of EUR 250.
Keboola has separate Free Plan terms. For Scaleway and OVHcloud no free option was verified: the OVHcloud Data Platform lists detailed pricing as coming soon, and Scaleway shows no price on its product page.
Do I need to run my own servers?
Not with the managed options. Aiven, Scaleway, STACKIT, OVHcloud and T Cloud Public operate the infrastructure, and Exasol offers SaaS next to on-premises. Stackable, CedarDB, MonetDB and DuckDB are software you run on your own or rented infrastructure, and CedarDB's managed cloud is on a waitlist.
For a team without database administrators, a managed service is the practical choice. Self-managed engines make sense if you already run infrastructure and want to avoid a per-credit bill.
Does a European tool remove all legal risk?
No, and it should not be sold that way. It changes who your contract is with, which law governs it and where the vendor is established. You still need to look at where the data is hosted and which sub-processors the vendor uses, and several of the vendors here do not state a hosting location on the pages checked.
The Snowflake case shows why the details matter: a Dutch contracting entity alone did not change the governing law in the terms. Read the governing-law clause of each vendor, not only its address.
Which one to pick
If you want a classic analytical warehouse with a free way to try it, Exasol is the first look. If you prefer managed ClickHouse, Aiven is the one that prints its plan prices, and Scaleway is the one hosted by a French cloud in Paris and Milan.
If open table formats and a German cloud matter, STACKIT Dremio fits, and OVHcloud and T Cloud Public are the options if you already buy from those providers. Stackable, CedarDB, MonetDB and DuckDB are for teams that will run an engine themselves, and Keboola is the pick if the pipelines are the harder part.
Be realistic about the gap. Snowflake has data sharing, a marketplace and a developer framework that none of these match, and it is the more mature managed warehouse. Switch if you want a European counterparty, a governing law and court in Europe, or lower cost on a defined workload, and keep Snowflake if cross-company sharing or Snowpark is core to your work.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the job. Exasol is the most direct classic warehouse, with a free Personal edition. Aiven and Scaleway are the managed ClickHouse options, and STACKIT is the one built on open table formats with Dremio. If you want to run your own engine, Stackable, CedarDB, MonetDB and DuckDB are the choices.
No. Snowflake Inc. is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. Customers in Europe contract with Snowflake Computing Netherlands B.V. in Amsterdam, and UK customers with Snowflake Computing U.K. Limited in London, but the Terms of Service are governed by Delaware law.
The Terms of Service state that the agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Delaware and the United States, and that the venue is the state and federal courts in New Castle County, Delaware. Order Forms and a Local Country Addendum can change terms for some countries, so check yours.
Snowflake uses consumption-based pricing, with compute billed in credits and storage billed monthly on the average compressed volume stored. Its pricing page names the Standard, Enterprise, Business Critical and Virtual Private Snowflake editions but shows no dollar amounts. The rate per credit is in a consumption table that depends on platform and region.
Aiven lists ClickHouse plans from $155 a month (Startup) and $654 a month (Business), and has a free tier. Exasol Personal is free for personal use and Enterprise is by quote. Scaleway shows no price on its product page, and OVHcloud lists detailed pricing as coming soon. Stackable, CedarDB Enterprise and Keboola's paid plans are not priced on the pages checked.
Snowflake runs on several cloud platforms and regions that you choose when you create an account, so you can place an account in a European region. Residency is not the same as the governing law of the contract, which is the point this page is about.
Aiven for ClickHouse and Scaleway Data Warehouse for ClickHouse are managed ClickHouse services. Aiven runs on the cloud you choose, and Scaleway lists the Paris and Milan regions. ClickHouse is an open-source columnar database made for analytical queries.
STACKIT Dremio says it supports Apache Iceberg and Parquet, with data staying in STACKIT Object Storage. DuckDB, MonetDB and CedarDB are open or free to run themselves. Keeping data in open formats makes a later move easier, because a different engine can read the same files.
For small and medium analytics, yes, and it costs nothing. It is an embedded analytical engine, not a managed multi-user service, so it does not give you warehouses for many users, role-based access or a hosted console on its own. The DuckDB Foundation in Amsterdam holds the trademarks and the MIT-licensed code.
Partly. Keboola, from Prague, is a data operations platform: connectors, transformations in SQL, Python and R, and orchestration. It is not a bare warehouse engine, so it fits teams that want a managed pipeline and workspace around their analytics. Its terms apply the law of the country where Keboola's registered address in the Order Form is.
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Explore More European Alternatives
Discover privacy-focused European alternatives to other popular US tech services.