22-25 April 2026 
From Lock-In to Openness: The Shift in Data Platforms
Proposed session for SQLBits 2026TL; DR
Modern data platforms all claim to be open—but what does that mean? This talk compares Fabric, Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, AWS, and dbt/Fivetran, cutting through marketing to show what openness really is and how it benefits data practitioners.
Session Details
Take a look at the marketing of any modern data platform and you’ll notice a common theme — they all emphasize their openness. But what does that really mean? What happened to the good old days of vendor lock-in? And how “open” are these platforms, really?
In this talk, we’ll take a closer look at Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, dbt + Fivetran, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, AWS, and a few exotic birds like MotherDuck. We’ll explore how these platforms position themselves, what they truly have in common, and — most importantly — how this new era of openness benefits you as a data practitioner.
There’s never been a better time to work in data!
In this talk, we’ll take a closer look at Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, dbt + Fivetran, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, AWS, and a few exotic birds like MotherDuck. We’ll explore how these platforms position themselves, what they truly have in common, and — most importantly — how this new era of openness benefits you as a data practitioner.
There’s never been a better time to work in data!
3 things you'll get out of this session
- Learn how all data platforms look the same
- Learn about Delta Lake and Iceberg
- Learn about data lakes and metadata stores