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Amazon Connect vs Amazon Redshift

Amazon Connect logo

Amazon Connect

Software

Cloud contact center from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Connect telephony is charged separately from the platform, so the $0.038 per minute voice rate is not the whole cost of a call; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Connect covers Voice, Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Connect and Amazon Redshift actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Connect and Amazon Redshift differ
AttributeAmazon ConnectAmazon Redshift
Founded20062012

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

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 Amazon Connect

  • Voice
  • Chat
  • Tasks
  • ML-powered analytics
  • Contact Lens
  • Outbound campaigns
  • Forecasting
  • Salesforce

Only in Amazon Redshift

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

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon Connect

  • Cloud contact centre with no per-seat licencenot Amazon Redshift
  • Voice, chat, email and SMS in one queuenot Amazon Redshift
  • Conversational analytics and agent assistnot Amazon Redshift
  • Outbound campaigns and automated contactnot Amazon Redshift
  • Workforce scheduling for contact centre agentsnot Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift

  • Business intelligencenot Amazon Connect
  • Data warehousingnot Amazon Connect
  • Real-time analyticsnot Amazon Connect
  • Reportingnot Amazon Connect
  • Machine learningnot Amazon Connect

Where each one falls short

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

Amazon Connect

  • Telephony is charged separately from the platform, so the $0.038 per minute voice rate is not the whole cost of a call
  • Every channel is metered individually: $0.010 per chat message, $0.080 per email and $0.014 per SMS
  • Rates vary by region and by third-party provider, so a published figure is indicative rather than final
  • Cost tracks contact volume, which makes forecasting hard for a queue with seasonal peaks

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

Amazon Connect

Free
  • Pay-as-you-go$0.018/minute
    • Voice minutes
    • Free tier available
    • No upfront costs

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 Amazon Connect if

  • You need voice.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want chat.
Amazon Connect 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 Amazon Connect or Amazon Redshift better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Connect 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, Amazon Connect or Amazon Redshift?
Amazon Connect starts at Free and Amazon Redshift at Free.
Does Amazon Connect or Amazon Redshift run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Amazon Connect for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Amazon Connect best used for?
Amazon Connect is most often used for cloud contact centre with no per-seat licence, voice, chat, email and sms in one queue, conversational analytics and agent assist, outbound campaigns and automated contact. Of those, cloud contact centre with no per-seat licence and voice, chat, email and sms in one queue are not what Amazon Redshift is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Connect do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
Amazon Connect covers Voice, Chat, Tasks, ML-powered analytics. Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Both handle Web support.

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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Related pages

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