Compares BigQuery’s GA ObjectRef feature for multimodal data with Snowflake’s external table support for unstructured assets.
Updated October 22, 2026
Google BigQuery ObjectRef
Ideal when your data lake lives in GCS and you need pure‑SQL, on‑the‑fly analytics over unstructured assets.
Snowflake External Tables
Better for multi‑cloud data strategies or when you already own Snowflake and need cross‑region external data access.
BigQuery ObjectRef delivers a groundbreaking, SQL‑first way to query multimodal data directly from Cloud Storage, giving it a decisive edge for GCP‑centric organizations. Snowflake remains a solid multi‑cloud contender, but its external table capabilities still lag behind BigQuery’s native media handling.