Databases · alternatives
Alternatives to Amazon Redshift
23 databases tools sit alongside Amazon Redshift in this directory. Below is what separates each from Amazon Redshift on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 23
- With a free tier
- 17
- Cheaper to start
- 0
- Amazon Redshift starts at
- Free
Why people look past Amazon Redshift
Nothing on the record flags a reason to move. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, and starts at Free against a category median of $25/month. People still switch over fit and workflow, and those are not things a catalogue entry can measure, which is what the comparisons below are for.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
The AI Data Cloud for enterprise data warehousing
- 4 tiers to Amazon Redshift's 2.
Google Cloud's serverless analytical warehouse, billed either by bytes scanned per query or by reserved compute slots.
Priced and rated the same as Amazon Redshift on the figures we hold. The difference, if there is one, is in the feature records.
Sub-second analytics at cloud data warehouse scale
- No free tier, where Amazon Redshift has one.
- Starts $1.84 a hour dearer, at $1.84/hour.
MPP analytical database with a MySQL wire protocol and sub-second aggregation on wide tables
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than usage-based.
- 1 tier to Amazon Redshift's 2.
The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than usage-based.
- 1 tier to Amazon Redshift's 2.
Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
- Starts $234 a month dearer, at $234/month.
- Sold on a Per month by connection and session volume model rather than usage-based.
- 4 tiers to Amazon Redshift's 2.
Every Amazon Redshift alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Redshift (this page) | Free | Usage-based | 2 | |
| SnowflakeCloud data warehouse with better elasticity, multi-cloud support, and lower query performance tuning requirements than Redshift. | Free | - | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| BigQueryGoogle's serverless data warehouse with simpler scaling, no manual tuning, and competitive pricing for analytics workloads. | Free | Usage-based | 2 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| FireboltCloud data warehouse optimized for analytics with better price-performance and easier scaling than Redshift. | $1.84/hour | Usage-based | - | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Apache Doris | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Presto | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| EMQX | Free, then $234/month | Per month by connection and session volume | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| StarRocks | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Solace PubSub+ | Free | Quote | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Tinybird | Free, then $25/month | Per month by compute and storage | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Dremio | Free, then $0.2/hour | Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed | 3 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| VerneMQ | Free | Quote | 3 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Timeplus | Free, then $199/month | Per month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted | 3 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| RisingWave | Free, then $0.227/hour | Per RisingWave Unit hour | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| NATS | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Redpanda | Free | Source-available community edition with paid enterprise and cloud tiers | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| RabbitMQ | Free | Open source, no licence fee; managed services billed separately | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Canary Labs | $3000/year | Per tag band per year | 4 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Instaclustr | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Immuta | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Privacera | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| TIBCO Enterprise Message Service | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Apache Solr | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
| Apache Pulsar | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Amazon Redshift |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Amazon Redshift badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
Free to start (17)
These publish a tier that costs nothing, so they can be evaluated before any money changes hands.
- Snowflake , Free
- BigQuery , Free
- Apache Doris , Free
- Presto , Free
- EMQX , Free, then $234/month
- StarRocks , Free
- Solace PubSub+ , Free
- Tinybird , Free, then $25/month
What you would be giving up
Amazon Redshift is most often brought in for business intelligence, data warehousing, real-time analytics, reporting, machine learning. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Amazon Redshift is broadly right and the question is cost, the Amazon Redshift pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the Databases category lists everything the directory holds, and best databases tools ranks them.
Amazon Redshift runs on web. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Amazon Redshift alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Amazon Redshift?
- 23 other databases tools are listed in this directory, led by Snowflake, BigQuery, Firebolt, Apache Doris. They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Amazon Redshift?
- 17 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: Snowflake, BigQuery, Apache Doris, Presto, EMQX.
- Is there a reason to switch away from Amazon Redshift?
- Nothing in the data flags one. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, and starts at Free against a category median of $25/month. Fit and workflow are the usual reasons to move, and those are not things this record can measure.
- What would I give up by switching from Amazon Redshift?
- Amazon Redshift is most often brought in for business intelligence, data warehousing, real-time analytics, reporting, machine learning. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Amazon Redshift?
- None of the databases tools listed here are recorded as open source. That is what the licence field on each entry says, and the field is not always filled in, so it is worth checking directly for any tool you are serious about.
- How were these Amazon Redshift alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, Databases, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Amazon Redshift against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Amazon Redshift covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every databases tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the Databases category, 23 tools beside Amazon Redshift. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.