Reviewing Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) and Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE)

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) and Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, earnings and profitability.

Profitability

This table compares Backblaze and Palantir Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Backblaze	-24.37%	-36.40%	-16.15%
Palantir Technologies	36.31%	23.81%	19.68%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Backblaze and Palantir Technologies”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Backblaze	$127.63 million	1.98	-$48.53 million	($0.67)	-6.52
Palantir Technologies	$4.48 billion	69.55	$1.63 billion	$0.63	207.30

Palantir Technologies has higher revenue and earnings than Backblaze. Backblaze is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Palantir Technologies, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Backblaze has a beta of 1.28, meaning that its stock price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Palantir Technologies has a beta of 1.64, meaning that its stock price is 64% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Backblaze and Palantir Technologies, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Backblaze	1	0	5	0	2.67
Palantir Technologies	2	11	13	1	2.48

Backblaze presently has a consensus target price of $9.50, indicating a potential upside of 117.39%. Palantir Technologies has a consensus target price of $191.05, indicating a potential upside of 46.28%. Given Backblaze’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Backblaze is more favorable than Palantir Technologies.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

54.0% of Backblaze shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.7% of Palantir Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 5.2% of Backblaze shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 12.9% of Palantir Technologies shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Palantir Technologies beats Backblaze on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc., a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things. In addition, the company offers Backblaze Computer Backup that automatically backs up data from laptops and desktops for businesses and individuals, which provides a subscription-based Software-as-a-Service and serves use cases, including computer backup, ransomware protection, theft and loss protection, and remote access. It serves the public cloud IaaS storage and Data-Protection-as-a-Service markets. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

About Palantir Technologies

Palantir Technologies, Inc. engages in the business of building and deploying software platforms that serve as the central operating systems for its customers. It operates under the Commercial and Government segments. The Commercial segment focuses on customers working in non-government industries. The Government segment is involved in providing services to customers that are the United States government and non-United States government agencies. The company was founded by Alexander Ceadmon Karp, Peter Andreas Thiel, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Dale Gettings in 2003 and is headquartered in Denver, CO.