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Business Intelligence · head to head

Amazon QuickSight vs Cortex

Amazon QuickSight logo

Amazon QuickSight

Business Intelligence

Scalable, serverless BI by AWS

From
$3/month
Free plan
No
Visit Amazon QuickSightFull review
Cortex logo

Cortex

Developer Tools

Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit CortexFull review

The short version

  • Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/mo; Cortex prices on request.
  • Only Amazon QuickSight lists SPICE In-memory Engine; only Cortex lists service catalogue.
  • Where Amazon QuickSight falls short: reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon QuickSight and Cortex differ
AttributeAmazon QuickSightCortex
Starting price$3/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer-userQuote
PlatformsAWSWeb, API
CategoryBusiness IntelligenceDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: free tier (No).

Not yet recorded: founded for Cortex.

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
  • S3
  • Athena

Only in Cortex

  • Service catalogue
  • Scorecards
  • Initiatives
  • Self-service templates
  • Query language
  • Eng intelligence
  • Integrations layer
  • On-call and ownership mapping

What people use each for

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

Amazon QuickSight

  • Business intelligencenot Cortex
  • Dashboard creationnot Cortex
  • Data visualizationnot Cortex

Cortex

  • A platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a Kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of servicesnot Amazon QuickSight
  • An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Amazon QuickSight
  • Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Amazon QuickSight
  • Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot 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

Cortex

  • Pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first
  • The catalogue is only as accurate as the metadata you supply, so an organisation with inconsistent repository conventions spends its first quarter cleaning data before any scorecard means anything
  • Scorecards create political friction: publishing a per-team grade turns an engineering standard into a performance metric, and teams will game the rules rather than fix the underlying issue
  • It is closed source and hosted, so organisations with strict data residency or air-gap requirements have limited options compared with running Backstage themselves
  • Value scales with organisation size, so a company with fifty engineers and thirty services will find the catalogue tells them nothing they did not already know while still paying an enterprise contract

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon QuickSight

$3/month
  • Reader$3/mo
    • Dashboard viewing only
  • Reader Pro$20/mo
    • Enhanced reader capabilities
  • Author$24/mo
    • Dashboard creation and editing
  • Author Pro$40/mo
    • Advanced authoring features

Cortex

On request
  • CortexOn request
    • Service catalogue and ownership mapping
    • Scorecards and initiatives
    • Self-service templates

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 Cortex if

  • You need service catalogue.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want scorecards.
Cortex review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon QuickSight or Cortex better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and Cortex at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon QuickSight or Cortex?
Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and Cortex at On request.
Does Amazon QuickSight or Cortex run on more platforms?
Amazon QuickSight runs on AWS. Cortex runs on Web, API.
What is Amazon QuickSight best used for?
Amazon QuickSight is most often used for business intelligence, dashboard creation, data visualization. Of those, business intelligence and dashboard creation are not what Cortex is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon QuickSight do that Cortex cannot?
Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, ML Insights, Natural Language Queries, Embedded Analytics. Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon QuickSight: What does Amazon QuickSight cost per user?

QuickSight pricing varies by user role. Readers start at $3/month, Reader Pro at $20/month, Authors at $24/month, and Author Pro at $40/month. All prices are per user per month.

Source
Cortex: How is Cortex different from Backstage?

Backstage is an open source framework you build and staff. Cortex is a hosted product with scorecards and initiatives out of the box and no platform team required to keep it running.

Amazon QuickSight: Does QuickSight charge an infrastructure fee?

Yes, QuickSight charges an infrastructure fee of $250/month per account if the account has at least one Pro user, has Q&A enabled via topics, or has dashboard Q&A enabled.

Source
Cortex: Is pricing published?

No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.

Amazon QuickSight: What are QuickSight's session capacity pricing options?

Session capacity pricing starts at $250/month for 500 sessions. Annual plans range from $20,000/year for 50,000 sessions to $258,000/year for 1,600,000 sessions, with volume discounts reducing unit costs from $0.50 to $0.16 per additional session.

Source
Cortex: Can it self-host?

It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.

Amazon QuickSight: How much does additional SPICE storage cost?

Additional SPICE storage beyond the included 10 GB costs $0.38 per GB per month. Authors receive 10 GB included, but Readers do not.

Source
Cortex: What is the main adoption risk?

Bad or missing service metadata. The catalogue and every scorecard on top of it inherit whatever quality your repositories already have.

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