BigQuery vs Snowflake

Pick BigQuery if your data warehouse already lives in Google Cloud and you want zero-friction auth through existing GCP service accounts. The MCP currently exposes no pre-built tools, so you're wiring raw SQL queries through Claude—fine for analytics teams who write SQL all day. Pick Snowflake if you need 15 ready-made tools that handle schema inspection, query execution, and result formatting without custom prompts. Snowflake's MCP suits data teams supporting non-technical stakeholders who ask questions in plain English. Buy Snowflake for broader tool coverage out of the box. Switching later means rewriting every workflow that depends on those 15 tools—budget three to five days if you've automated reporting or embedded the MCP in customer-facing features. BigQuery works if you're already deep in GCP and comfortable building your own tool layer on top of the raw connection.