Databases · alternatives
Alternatives to Dremio
22 databases tools sit alongside Dremio in this directory. Below is what separates each from Dremio on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 22
- With a free tier
- 17
- Cheaper to start
- 1
- Dremio starts at
- Free, then $0.2/hour
Why people look past Dremio
Nothing on the record flags a reason to move. Dremio has a free tier, and starts at $0.2/hour against a category median of $199/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.
A distributed SQL engine that queries data where it already lives, across object storage, warehouses and operational databases.
- Sold on a open-source model rather than Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed.
Unified analytics platform for data engineering and data science
- Starts $0.2 a month cheaper, at Free.
- Sold on a usage-based model rather than Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed.
- 2 tiers to Dremio's 3.
The AI Data Cloud for enterprise data warehousing
- 4 tiers to Dremio's 3.
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 Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed.
- 1 tier to Dremio's 3.
The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed.
- 1 tier to Dremio's 3.
Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
- Starts $233.8 a month dearer, at $234/month.
- Sold on a Per month by connection and session volume model rather than Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed.
- 4 tiers to Dremio's 3.
Every Dremio 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dremio (this page) | Free, then $0.2/hour | Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed | 3 | |
| TrinoIf you want a free federated SQL engine and are willing to operate it and build acceleration yourself | Free | Open-source | - | vs Dremio |
| DatabricksIf you want lakehouse plus data science and ML on one platform and accept a heavier commercial footprint | Free | Usage-based | 2 | vs Dremio |
| SnowflakeIf you would rather load the data and pay for a fully managed warehouse than manage lake file layout | Free | - | 4 | vs Dremio |
| Apache Doris | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Presto | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Dremio |
| EMQX | Free, then $234/month | Per month by connection and session volume | 4 | vs Dremio |
| StarRocks | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Dremio |
| Solace PubSub+ | Free | Quote | 4 | vs Dremio |
| Tinybird | Free, then $25/month | Per month by compute and storage | 4 | vs Dremio |
| VerneMQ | Free | Quote | 3 | vs Dremio |
| Timeplus | Free, then $199/month | Per month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted | 3 | vs Dremio |
| RisingWave | Free, then $0.227/hour | Per RisingWave Unit hour | 4 | vs Dremio |
| NATS | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Redpanda | Free | Source-available community edition with paid enterprise and cloud tiers | 1 | vs Dremio |
| RabbitMQ | Free | Open source, no licence fee; managed services billed separately | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Canary Labs | $3000/year | Per tag band per year | 4 | vs Dremio |
| Instaclustr | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Immuta | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Privacera | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Dremio |
| TIBCO Enterprise Message Service | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Apache Solr | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Dremio |
| Apache Pulsar | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Dremio |
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 Dremio 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.
- Trino , Free
- Databricks , Free
- Snowflake , Free
- Apache Doris , Free
- Presto , Free
- EMQX , Free, then $234/month
- StarRocks , Free
- Solace PubSub+ , Free
Cheaper than Dremio (1)
Entry price under Dremio's $0.2/hour. The record does not say what unit that price is charged in, so confirm per-seat versus flat rate before comparing budgets.
- Databricks , Free
What you would be giving up
Dremio is most often brought in for a company with petabytes of parquet in s3 that wants bi dashboards without duplicating it into a warehouse, a data platform team standardising on apache iceberg and needing a sql engine plus catalogue that does not lock the tables in, an analytics group accelerating slow lake queries with reflections instead of hand-built aggregate tables, a regulated enterprise that must keep data on premises but wants a modern lakehouse sql layer. 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 Dremio is broadly right and the question is cost, the Dremio 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.
Dremio runs on linux, kubernetes, cloud, docker. 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 Dremio alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Dremio?
- 22 other databases tools are listed in this directory, led by Trino, Databricks, Snowflake, 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 Dremio?
- 17 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: Trino, Databricks, Snowflake, Apache Doris, Presto.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to Dremio?
- Yes. 1 of the alternatives below start under Dremio's $0.2/hour: Databricks at Free.
- Is there a reason to switch away from Dremio?
- Nothing in the data flags one. Dremio has a free tier, and starts at $0.2/hour against a category median of $199/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 Dremio?
- Dremio is most often brought in for a company with petabytes of parquet in s3 that wants bi dashboards without duplicating it into a warehouse, a data platform team standardising on apache iceberg and needing a sql engine plus catalogue that does not lock the tables in, an analytics group accelerating slow lake queries with reflections instead of hand-built aggregate tables, a regulated enterprise that must keep data on premises but wants a modern lakehouse sql layer. 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 Dremio?
- Trino is recorded with an open-source licence model.
- How were these Dremio 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 Dremio against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Dremio 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, 22 tools beside Dremio. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.