Databases · alternatives
Alternatives to Presto
22 databases tools sit alongside Presto in this directory. Below is what separates each from Presto 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
- -
- Presto starts at
- Free
Why people look past Presto
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Presto entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
There is only one tier
Presto publishes a single plan, Presto at Free. There is no smaller tier to drop to if the fit is wrong or the budget moves.
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 Open source, no licence fee.
Fast open-source column-oriented database for real-time analytics
Priced and rated the same as Presto on the figures we hold. The difference, if there is one, is in the feature records.
The AI Data Cloud for enterprise data warehousing
- 4 tiers to Presto's 1.
MPP analytical database with a MySQL wire protocol and sub-second aggregation on wide tables
Priced and rated the same as Presto on the figures we hold. The difference, if there is one, is in the feature records.
Erlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
- Publishes an entry price of $234/month, where Presto does not.
- Sold on a Per month by connection and session volume model rather than Open source, no licence fee.
- 4 tiers to Presto's 1.
Apache 2.0 MPP analytical database built for joins on open table formats
- 2 tiers to Presto's 1.
Every Presto 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presto (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | |
| TrinoTrino if you want the branch that has the creators, the community and most of the connector development. | Free | Open-source | - | vs Presto |
| ClickHouseClickHouse if you want an engine with its own fast storage rather than a pure federated query layer. | Free | - | - | vs Presto |
| SnowflakeSnowflake if you would rather buy a managed warehouse than operate a query cluster at all. | Free | - | 4 | vs Presto |
| Apache Doris | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Presto |
| EMQX | Free, then $234/month | Per month by connection and session volume | 4 | vs Presto |
| StarRocks | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Presto |
| Solace PubSub+ | Free | Quote | 4 | vs Presto |
| Tinybird | Free, then $25/month | Per month by compute and storage | 4 | vs Presto |
| Dremio | Free, then $0.2/hour | Per Dremio Compute Unit consumed | 3 | vs Presto |
| VerneMQ | Free | Quote | 3 | vs Presto |
| Timeplus | Free, then $199/month | Per month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted | 3 | vs Presto |
| RisingWave | Free, then $0.227/hour | Per RisingWave Unit hour | 4 | vs Presto |
| NATS | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Presto |
| Redpanda | Free | Source-available community edition with paid enterprise and cloud tiers | 1 | vs Presto |
| RabbitMQ | Free | Open source, no licence fee; managed services billed separately | 1 | vs Presto |
| Canary Labs | $3000/year | Per tag band per year | 4 | vs Presto |
| Instaclustr | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Presto |
| Immuta | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Presto |
| Privacera | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Presto |
| TIBCO Enterprise Message Service | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Presto |
| Apache Solr | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Presto |
| Apache Pulsar | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Presto |
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 Presto 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
- ClickHouse , Free
- Snowflake , Free
- Apache Doris , Free
- EMQX , Free, then $234/month
- StarRocks , Free
- Solace PubSub+ , Free
- Tinybird , Free, then $25/month
What you would be giving up
Presto is most often brought in for an existing prestodb estate that needs continued upgrades rather than a migration to trino, a team buying ibm watsonx.data, where presto is the underlying query engine, joining a hive or iceberg lake to an operational postgresql database in one query without an etl step, very large scale interactive sql where the meta-tested branch is a specific requirement. 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 Presto is broadly right and the question is cost, the Presto 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.
Presto runs on linux, docker, kubernetes. 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 Presto alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Presto?
- 22 other databases tools are listed in this directory, led by Trino, ClickHouse, 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 Presto?
- 17 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: Trino, ClickHouse, Snowflake, Apache Doris, EMQX.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Presto?
- On the figures on record, one thing stands out: there is only one tier. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Presto?
- Presto is most often brought in for an existing prestodb estate that needs continued upgrades rather than a migration to trino, a team buying ibm watsonx.data, where presto is the underlying query engine, joining a hive or iceberg lake to an operational postgresql database in one query without an etl step, very large scale interactive sql where the meta-tested branch is a specific requirement. 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 Presto?
- Trino is recorded with an open-source licence model.
- How were these Presto 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 Presto against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Presto 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 Presto. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.