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Cloud & Infrastructure · head to head

Alibaba Cloud vs Amazon Redshift

Alibaba Cloud logo

Alibaba Cloud

Cloud & Infrastructure

Asia's leading cloud computing provider

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Database & Data Management

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Alibaba Cloud technical support is a separate subscription, from $19.99 a month for Developer up to $8,000 a month for Enterprise, with only Basic included; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • They diverge on capability: Alibaba Cloud covers Elastic Compute Service, Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Alibaba Cloud and Amazon Redshift actually diverge.

Attributes where Alibaba Cloud and Amazon Redshift differ
AttributeAlibaba CloudAmazon Redshift
PlatformsLinux, Windows, Api, CliWeb
CategoryCloud & InfrastructureDatabase & Data Management
Founded20092012

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Alibaba Cloud

  • Elastic Compute Service
  • Object Storage Service
  • RDS Database
  • MaxCompute
  • Function Compute
  • CDN
  • Load Balancer
  • API Gateway

Only in Amazon Redshift

  • Columnar Storage
  • Massively Parallel
  • Machine Learning
  • AQUA Acceleration
  • Data Sharing
  • Federated Query
  • Concurrency Scaling
  • S3

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Alibaba Cloud

  • Cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in China and Asia Pacificnot Amazon Redshift
  • Pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitmentnot Amazon Redshift
  • Committed-use discounts through savings plans for steady workloadsnot Amazon Redshift
  • CDN and data transfer packages for content deliverynot Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift

  • Business intelligencenot Alibaba Cloud
  • Data warehousingnot Alibaba Cloud
  • Real-time analyticsnot Alibaba Cloud
  • Reportingnot Alibaba Cloud
  • Machine learningnot Alibaba Cloud

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Alibaba Cloud

  • Technical support is a separate subscription, from $19.99 a month for Developer up to $8,000 a month for Enterprise, with only Basic included
  • Service prices are not shown as a rate card and route through a calculator or sales
  • Committed discounts require savings plans, reserved instances or capacity packages rather than being automatic

Amazon Redshift

  • On-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • Requires significant manual tuning including managing concurrency scaling costs and configuring Workload Management queues
  • Performance degrades without proper design of distribution keys and sort keys
  • Limited elastic resize options - can only halve or double current cluster size
  • AWS lock-in makes it unsuitable for multi-cloud architectures

Pricing, plan by plan

Alibaba Cloud

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • Free tier credits
    • ECS instances
    • Cloud storage
  • Pay-as-You-GoFree
    • Flexible billing
    • No commitments
    • Global reach

Amazon Redshift

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • 750 DC2.Large hours
    • 2 months free
    • Full features
  • On-Demand$0.25/hour
    • Pay per node hour
    • All features
    • Standard support

Which should you pick?

Choose Alibaba Cloud if

  • You need elastic compute service.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Api, Cli.
  • You also want object storage service.
Alibaba Cloud review

Choose Amazon Redshift if

  • You need columnar storage.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want massively parallel.
Amazon Redshift review

Questions people ask

Is Alibaba Cloud or Amazon Redshift better?
Neither clearly leads. Alibaba Cloud starts at Free and Amazon Redshift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Alibaba Cloud or Amazon Redshift?
Alibaba Cloud starts at Free and Amazon Redshift at Free.
Does Alibaba Cloud or Amazon Redshift run on more platforms?
Alibaba Cloud runs on Linux, Windows, Api, Cli. Amazon Redshift runs on Web.
Can I use Alibaba Cloud for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Alibaba Cloud best used for?
Alibaba Cloud is most often used for cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in china and asia pacific, pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitment, committed-use discounts through savings plans for steady workloads, cdn and data transfer packages for content delivery. Of those, cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in china and asia pacific and pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitment are not what Amazon Redshift is typically brought in for.
What can Alibaba Cloud do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
Alibaba Cloud covers Elastic Compute Service, Object Storage Service, RDS Database, MaxCompute. Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon Redshift: What deployment options does Amazon Redshift offer?

Redshift offers Provisioned Cluster (with RA3 or DC2 nodes) and Serverless options to match varying workloads. The new Redshift RG instance family, powered by Graviton, delivers 2.4x faster performance than RA3 at 30% lower cost per vCPU.

Source
Amazon Redshift: What does Amazon Redshift cost?

Provisioned cluster pricing: RA3 on-demand starts at $1.086/hour for ra3.xlplus. Serverless costs approximately $0.375 per RPU-hour with 4-RPU minimum (roughly $1.50/hour active workload). Managed storage costs $0.024/GB-month.

Source
Amazon Redshift: Does Redshift work with data lakes?

Yes, Redshift's integrated data lake query engine processes workloads on Apache Iceberg tables and other supported formats in Amazon S3, allowing you to run SQL analytics across your data warehouse and data lake from the same engine.

Source
Amazon Redshift: Is there a free tier for Amazon Redshift?

AWS offers a free trial with $300 USD in Serverless credits valid for 90 days, but Redshift is not part of the permanent AWS Free Tier.

Source
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