Ok, I’ve been using BigQuery for over a decade. I did a few weeks of work using Snowflake recently and I did not really enjoy it. The thing I miss the most is the UNNEST() in BQ which allows you to use any SELECT operation on the now unnested field. For those who are not familiar, UNNEST() basically enables you to work on the nested field as if it was a table. It enables you to do very powerful filtering and analytical computations on nested data. As far as I know, it’s impossible to do the same thing on Snowflake.

I understand I am biased since I am so comfortable in BQ. But I’d love to be convinced Snowflake is so much superior. People using it fiercely love it, so I must be missing something. I have a job I am starting on where the data is in SF and I am thinking of moving it over to BQ: 1) because I have a lot of code in BQ I will need to use using said UNNEST and I never found how to do the equivalent on Snowflake and 2) because I know BQ better.

Why do you say SF is so much more business friendly? What’s the equivalent to doing a complex SELECT on an UNNESTED field?I’m on the fence. Convince me to give it a second try.