List of the Top 18 Big Data Software for SQL in 2025

BigQuery is engineered for the management and analysis of large-scale data, positioning it as an optimal solution for enterprises dealing with extensive datasets. Whether you’re working with gigabytes or petabytes of information, BigQuery offers automatic scaling and high-performance query execution, ensuring exceptional efficiency. This platform enables organizations to conduct data analysis at remarkable speeds, allowing them to maintain a competitive edge in rapidly evolving sectors. New users can take advantage of $300 in complimentary credits to test out BigQuery's extensive data processing features, gaining hands-on experience with large data management and analysis. Its serverless design removes the hassle of scaling concerns, simplifying the task of handling big data significantly.

Snowflake is a comprehensive, cloud-based data platform designed to simplify data management, storage, and analytics for businesses of all sizes. With a unique architecture that separates storage and compute resources, Snowflake offers users the ability to scale both independently based on workload demands. The platform supports real-time analytics, data sharing, and integration with a wide range of third-party tools, allowing businesses to gain actionable insights from their data quickly. Snowflake's advanced security features, including automatic encryption and multi-cloud capabilities, ensure that data is both protected and easily accessible. Snowflake is ideal for companies seeking to modernize their data architecture, enabling seamless collaboration across departments and improving decision-making processes.

Gigasheet is an innovative big data spreadsheet that eliminates the need for setup, training, or coding expertise, allowing users to delve into large datasets without requiring SQL or Python knowledge or any IT infrastructure. This user-friendly platform democratizes access to big data insights for individuals who may not have a data science background, and the best part is that users can start with their first 3GB at no cost! With thousands of users and teams leveraging Gigasheet, insights that once took hours or days can now be obtained in just minutes, making it an invaluable tool for anyone familiar with spreadsheets. The platform also features intuitive sharing and collaboration tools that simplify the process of distributing large data sets. Additionally, Gigasheet seamlessly integrates with over 135 SaaS platforms and databases, enhancing its versatility and efficiency for users across various sectors.

With the adaptable visual query builder, you can swiftly obtain answers to your data inquiries. Whether you're using a browser or a mobile device, you can analyze data from virtually any location. There’s no need for SQL knowledge, a data scientist, or a dedicated desktop application. You can gain insights from your colleagues and explore questions within your organization through shared inquiries. Features like @mentions, push notifications, and shared chat help involve the right individuals in discussions, transforming data into actionable insights. Additionally, you can easily copy and adjust shared questions, export data, and personalize the way charts are presented, allowing you to take ownership of your analysis instead of relying solely on someone else's work. You can also enable external sharing to grant access to data tables for partners beyond your organization. In just a couple of clicks, accessing the underlying data tables becomes a breeze, and smart typeaheads simplify the process of running custom SQL queries, enhancing your overall experience. This level of flexibility makes it easier than ever to engage with and understand your data.

Trino is an exceptionally swift query engine engineered for remarkable performance. This high-efficiency, distributed SQL query engine is specifically designed for big data analytics, allowing users to explore their extensive data landscapes. Built for peak efficiency, Trino shines in low-latency analytics and is widely adopted by some of the biggest companies worldwide to execute queries on exabyte-scale data lakes and massive data warehouses. It supports various use cases, such as interactive ad-hoc analytics, long-running batch queries that can extend for hours, and high-throughput applications that demand quick sub-second query responses. Complying with ANSI SQL standards, Trino is compatible with well-known business intelligence tools like R, Tableau, Power BI, and Superset. Additionally, it enables users to query data directly from diverse sources, including Hadoop, S3, Cassandra, and MySQL, thereby removing the burdensome, slow, and error-prone processes related to data copying. This feature allows users to efficiently access and analyze data from different systems within a single query. Consequently, Trino's flexibility and power position it as an invaluable tool in the current data-driven era, driving innovation and efficiency across industries.

Iceberg is an advanced format tailored for high-performance large-scale analytics, merging the user-friendly nature of SQL tables with the robust demands of big data. It allows multiple engines, including Spark, Trino, Flink, Presto, Hive, and Impala, to access the same tables seamlessly, enhancing collaboration and efficiency. Users can execute a variety of SQL commands to incorporate new data, alter existing records, and perform selective deletions. Moreover, Iceberg has the capability to proactively optimize data files to boost read performance, or it can leverage delete deltas for faster updates. By expertly managing the often intricate and error-prone generation of partition values within tables, Iceberg minimizes unnecessary partitions and files, simplifying the query process. This optimization leads to a reduction in additional filtering, resulting in swifter query responses, while the table structure can be adjusted in real time to accommodate evolving data and query needs, ensuring peak performance and adaptability. Additionally, Iceberg’s architecture encourages effective data management practices that are responsive to shifting workloads, underscoring its significance for data engineers and analysts in a rapidly changing environment. This makes Iceberg not just a tool, but a critical asset in modern data processing strategies.

Etlworks is a data integration platform designed with a cloud-first approach, enabling connections to any type of data regardless of its source. As your business grows, this platform scales seamlessly to meet your evolving needs. It can interface with various databases and business applications, accommodating structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data in all forms, sizes, and formats. The user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, along with support for scripting languages and SQL, allows for the rapid creation, testing, and scheduling of intricate data integration and automation processes. Etlworks also facilitates real-time change data capture (CDC), EDI transformations, and a multitude of other data integration functionalities, ensuring that it performs precisely as promised while helping businesses streamline their data management tasks effectively. Furthermore, its versatility makes it suitable for a wide range of industry applications.

Hydrolix acts as a sophisticated streaming data lake, combining separated storage, indexed search, and stream processing to facilitate swift query performance at a scale of terabytes while significantly reducing costs. Financial officers are particularly pleased with a substantial 4x reduction in data retention costs, while product teams enjoy having quadruple the data available for their needs. It’s simple to activate resources when required and scale down to nothing when they are not in use, ensuring flexibility. Moreover, you can fine-tune resource usage and performance to match each specific workload, leading to improved cost management. Envision the advantages for your initiatives when financial limitations no longer restrict your access to data. You can intake, enhance, and convert log data from various sources like Kafka, Kinesis, and HTTP, guaranteeing that you extract only essential information, irrespective of the data size. This strategy not only reduces latency and expenses but also eradicates timeouts and ineffective queries. With storage functioning independently from the processes of ingestion and querying, each component can scale independently to meet both performance and budgetary objectives. Additionally, Hydrolix's high-density compression (HDX) often compresses 1TB of data down to an impressive 55GB, optimizing storage usage. By utilizing these advanced features, organizations can fully unlock their data's potential without being hindered by financial limitations, paving the way for innovative solutions and insights that drive success.

Cognos Analytics with Watson elevates business intelligence by integrating AI capabilities that deliver a comprehensive and reliable overview of your organization. This powerful software can not only project future trends and predict potential outcomes but also provide explanations for these predictions. Its integrated AI accelerates data blending processes and identifies optimal tables for your analytical models. By leveraging AI, you can discover hidden patterns and influential factors while receiving real-time insights. The tool empowers users to generate compelling visualizations that narrate their data effectively, with the added convenience of sharing these insights through platforms like email or Slack. By combining advanced analytics with data science, new avenues for growth can be explored. The self-service analytics feature is both governed and secure, ensuring protection against data misuse while adapting to various user needs. This versatile solution can be deployed in numerous environments—whether on-premises, in the cloud, on IBM Cloud Pak® for Data, or through a hybrid approach—making it suitable for diverse operational contexts. Additionally, it fosters collaboration across teams, enhancing decision-making processes.

Starburst enables organizations to strengthen their decision-making processes by granting quick access to all their data without the complications associated with transferring or duplicating it. As businesses gather extensive data, their analysis teams frequently experience delays due to waiting for access to necessary information for evaluations. By allowing teams to connect directly to data at its origin, Starburst guarantees they can swiftly and accurately analyze larger datasets without the complications of data movement. The Starburst Enterprise version offers a comprehensive, enterprise-level solution built on the open-source Trino (previously known as Presto® SQL), which comes with full support and is rigorously tested for production environments. This offering not only enhances performance and security but also streamlines the deployment, connection, and management of a Trino setup. By facilitating connections to any data source—whether located on-premises, in the cloud, or within a hybrid cloud framework—Starburst empowers teams to use their favored analytics tools while effortlessly accessing data from diverse locations. This groundbreaking strategy significantly accelerates the time it takes to derive insights, which is crucial for businesses striving to remain competitive in a data-centric landscape. Furthermore, with the constant evolution of data needs, Starburst adapts to provide ongoing support and innovation, ensuring that organizations can continuously optimize their data strategies.

IBM Db2 Big SQL serves as an advanced hybrid SQL-on-Hadoop engine designed to enable secure and sophisticated data queries across a variety of enterprise big data sources, including Hadoop, object storage, and data warehouses. This enterprise-level engine complies with ANSI standards and features massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities, which significantly boost query performance. Users of Db2 Big SQL can run a single database query that connects multiple data sources, such as Hadoop HDFS, WebHDFS, relational and NoSQL databases, as well as object storage solutions. The engine boasts several benefits, including low latency, high efficiency, strong data security measures, adherence to SQL standards, and robust federation capabilities, making it suitable for both ad hoc and intricate queries. Currently, Db2 Big SQL is available in two formats: one that integrates with Cloudera Data Platform and another offered as a cloud-native service on the IBM Cloud Pak® for Data platform. This flexibility enables organizations to effectively access and analyze data, conducting queries on both batch and real-time datasets from diverse sources, thereby optimizing their data operations and enhancing decision-making. Ultimately, Db2 Big SQL stands out as a comprehensive solution for efficiently managing and querying large-scale datasets in an increasingly intricate data environment, thereby supporting organizations in navigating the complexities of their data strategy.

kdb Insights is a cloud-based advanced analytics platform designed for rapid, real-time evaluation of both current and historical data streams. It enables users to make well-informed decisions quickly, irrespective of data volume or speed, and offers a remarkable price-performance ratio, delivering analytics that is up to 100 times faster while costing only 10% compared to other alternatives. The platform features interactive visualizations through dynamic dashboards, which facilitate immediate insights that are essential for prompt decision-making. Furthermore, it utilizes machine learning models to enhance predictive capabilities, identify clusters, detect patterns, and assess structured data, ultimately boosting AI functionalities with time-series datasets. With its impressive scalability, kdb Insights can handle enormous volumes of real-time and historical data, efficiently managing loads of up to 110 terabytes each day. Its swift deployment and easy data ingestion processes significantly shorten the time required to gain value, while also supporting q, SQL, and Python natively, and providing compatibility with other programming languages via RESTful APIs. This flexibility allows users to seamlessly incorporate kdb Insights into their current workflows, maximizing its potential for various analytical tasks and enhancing overall operational efficiency. Additionally, the platform's robust architecture ensures that it can adapt to future data challenges, making it a sustainable choice for long-term analytics needs.

The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform empowers every individual within your organization to effectively utilize data and artificial intelligence. Built on a lakehouse architecture, it creates a unified and transparent foundation for comprehensive data management and governance, further enhanced by a Data Intelligence Engine that identifies the unique attributes of your data. Organizations that thrive across various industries will be those that effectively harness the potential of data and AI. Spanning a wide range of functions from ETL processes to data warehousing and generative AI, Databricks simplifies and accelerates the achievement of your data and AI aspirations. By integrating generative AI with the synergistic benefits of a lakehouse, Databricks energizes a Data Intelligence Engine that understands the specific semantics of your data. This capability allows the platform to automatically optimize performance and manage infrastructure in a way that is customized to the requirements of your organization. Moreover, the Data Intelligence Engine is designed to recognize the unique terminology of your business, making the search and exploration of new data as easy as asking a question to a peer, thereby enhancing collaboration and efficiency. This progressive approach not only reshapes how organizations engage with their data but also cultivates a culture of informed decision-making and deeper insights, ultimately leading to sustained competitive advantages.

Qubole distinguishes itself as a user-friendly, accessible, and secure Data Lake Platform specifically designed for machine learning, streaming, and on-the-fly analysis. Our all-encompassing platform facilitates the efficient execution of Data pipelines, Streaming Analytics, and Machine Learning operations across any cloud infrastructure, significantly cutting down both time and effort involved in these processes. No other solution offers the same level of openness and flexibility for managing data workloads as Qubole, while achieving over a 50 percent reduction in expenses associated with cloud data lakes. By allowing faster access to vast amounts of secure, dependable, and credible datasets, we empower users to engage with both structured and unstructured data for a variety of analytics and machine learning tasks. Users can seamlessly conduct ETL processes, analytics, and AI/ML functions in a streamlined workflow, leveraging high-quality open-source engines along with diverse formats, libraries, and programming languages customized to meet their data complexities, service level agreements (SLAs), and organizational policies. This level of adaptability not only enhances operational efficiency but also ensures that Qubole remains the go-to choice for organizations looking to refine their data management strategies while staying at the forefront of technological innovation. Ultimately, Qubole’s commitment to continuous improvement and user satisfaction solidifies its position in the competitive landscape of data solutions.

Apache Spark™ is a powerful analytics platform crafted for large-scale data processing endeavors. It excels in both batch and streaming tasks by employing an advanced Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) scheduler, a highly effective query optimizer, and a streamlined physical execution engine. With more than 80 high-level operators at its disposal, Spark greatly facilitates the creation of parallel applications. Users can engage with the framework through a variety of shells, including Scala, Python, R, and SQL. Spark also boasts a rich ecosystem of libraries—such as SQL and DataFrames, MLlib for machine learning, GraphX for graph analysis, and Spark Streaming for processing real-time data—which can be effortlessly woven together in a single application. This platform's versatility allows it to operate across different environments, including Hadoop, Apache Mesos, Kubernetes, standalone systems, or cloud platforms. Additionally, it can interface with numerous data sources, granting access to information stored in HDFS, Alluxio, Apache Cassandra, Apache HBase, Apache Hive, and many other systems, thereby offering the flexibility to accommodate a wide range of data processing requirements. Such a comprehensive array of functionalities makes Spark a vital resource for both data engineers and analysts, who rely on it for efficient data management and analysis. The combination of its capabilities ensures that users can tackle complex data challenges with greater ease and speed.

Polars presents a robust Python API that embodies standard data manipulation techniques, offering extensive capabilities for DataFrame management via an expressive language that promotes both clarity and efficiency in code creation. Built using Rust, Polars strategically designs its DataFrame API to meet the specific demands of the Rust community. Beyond merely functioning as a DataFrame library, it also acts as a formidable backend query engine for various data models, enhancing its adaptability for data processing and evaluation. This versatility not only appeals to data scientists but also serves the needs of engineers, making it an indispensable resource in the field of data analysis. Consequently, Polars stands out as a tool that combines performance with user-friendliness, fundamentally enhancing the data handling experience.

Explore why top companies are choosing the Crux external data automation platform to improve their integration, transformation, and monitoring of external data without hiring extra staff. This innovative cloud-native technology optimizes the ingestion, preparation, monitoring, and delivery of any external dataset in a streamlined manner. As a result, you gain access to high-quality data exactly when and where you need it, presented in the right format. Take advantage of features like automated schema detection, inferred delivery schedules, and lifecycle management to quickly develop pipelines from a variety of external data sources. In addition, enhance data discoverability within your organization through a private catalog that connects and aligns different data products. You can also enrich, validate, and transform any dataset for seamless integration with other data sources, significantly accelerating your analytics processes. With these robust capabilities, your organization can maximize its data assets, facilitating informed decision-making and driving strategic growth while remaining agile in a competitive landscape. Ultimately, leveraging the Crux platform can lead to transformative insights that empower your organization’s future.

Dremio offers rapid query capabilities along with a self-service semantic layer that interacts directly with your data lake storage, eliminating the need to transfer data into exclusive data warehouses, and avoiding the use of cubes, aggregation tables, or extracts. This empowers data architects with both flexibility and control while providing data consumers with a self-service experience. By leveraging technologies such as Apache Arrow, Data Reflections, Columnar Cloud Cache (C3), and Predictive Pipelining, Dremio simplifies the process of querying data stored in your lake. An abstraction layer facilitates the application of security and business context by IT, enabling analysts and data scientists to access and explore data freely, thus allowing for the creation of new virtual datasets. Additionally, Dremio's semantic layer acts as an integrated, searchable catalog that indexes all metadata, making it easier for business users to interpret their data effectively. This semantic layer comprises virtual datasets and spaces that are both indexed and searchable, ensuring a seamless experience for users looking to derive insights from their data. Overall, Dremio not only streamlines data access but also enhances collaboration among various stakeholders within an organization.