Snowflake, Databricks, Tabular, Iceberg, what does it all mean?

The recent Snowflake Summit was marked by major announcements, including Databricks acquiring Tabular, the creator of Apache Iceberg, and Snowflake introducing Polaris, an open-source implementation of the Iceberg REST catalog. These moves highlight the growing importance of open table formats like Iceberg in the data warehousing industry, which has traditionally been dominated by proprietary systems. The acquisition of Tabular by Databricks underscores Iceberg's dominance in the lakehouse format wars and raises questions about the future of Databricks' own Delta Lake. Snowflake's Polaris announcement reflects a shift towards embracing open standards to reduce vendor lock-in, a common concern among its customers due to Snowflake's cost and migration challenges. These developments are seen as beneficial for customers of both Snowflake and Databricks, offering them greater flexibility and the potential for improved price-performance by allowing them to use the best compute engines for their needs. Starburst, a company advocating for open data access, supports these changes and offers integration with various catalogs, enabling customers to leverage modern table formats across different deployment models, including on-premises and hybrid environments, through partnerships like the one with Dell's Data Lakehouse.