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Amazon QuickSight vs Amazon Redshift

Amazon QuickSight logo

Amazon QuickSight

Software

Scalable, serverless BI by AWS

From
$3/month per user
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon QuickSight reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon QuickSight and Amazon Redshift differ
AttributeAmazon QuickSightAmazon Redshift
Starting price$3/month per userFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionusage-based
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsAWSWeb
Founded20062012

Identical on both: 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 QuickSight

  • SPICE In-memory Engine
  • ML Insights
  • Natural Language Queries
  • Embedded Analytics
  • Pay-per-session
  • Redshift
  • Athena
  • Aurora

Only in Amazon Redshift

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

Both cover

  • S3
  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon QuickSight

  • Business intelligence dashboards and analyticsnot Amazon Redshift
  • Scalable embedded analytics for applicationsnot Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift

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

Where each one falls short

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

Amazon QuickSight

  • Reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month
  • Author and Author Pro roles charged at $24 and $40/month
  • $250/month infrastructure fee required if Pro users or Q&A enabled
  • SPICE storage charged at $0.38/GB monthly (10 GB included)
  • Pixel-perfect reports start at $500/month for 500 monthly units
  • Alerts charged at $0.05-$0.50 per 1,000 metrics evaluated

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 QuickSight

$3/month per user

No published plan breakdown. See the Amazon QuickSight review.

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 QuickSight if

  • You need spice in-memory engine.
  • You work on AWS.
  • You also want ml insights.
Amazon QuickSight 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 QuickSight or Amazon Redshift better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month per user and Amazon Redshift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon QuickSight or Amazon Redshift?
Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3/month per user for Amazon QuickSight and Free for Amazon Redshift.
Does Amazon QuickSight or Amazon Redshift run on more platforms?
Amazon QuickSight runs on AWS. Amazon Redshift runs on Web.
Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month per user.
What is Amazon QuickSight best used for?
Amazon QuickSight is most often used for business intelligence dashboards and analytics, scalable embedded analytics for applications. Of those, business intelligence dashboards and analytics and scalable embedded analytics for applications are not what Amazon Redshift is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon QuickSight do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, ML Insights, Natural Language Queries, Embedded Analytics. Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Both handle S3, 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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