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Business Intelligence · head to head

Amazon QuickSight vs DynamoDB

Amazon QuickSight logo

Amazon QuickSight

Business Intelligence

Scalable, serverless BI by AWS

From
$3/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
DynamoDB logo

DynamoDB

Databases

AWS-only managed key-value and document database with fixed per-partition throughput limits and no ad hoc queries.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only DynamoDB 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; DynamoDB access patterns must be designed into the key schema before launch; a query nobody anticipated needs a new global secondary index, which is a full extra copy of the projected attributes billed as storage and as writes, or an offline migration.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, DynamoDB covers Managed and serverless.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon QuickSight and DynamoDB differ
AttributeAmazon QuickSightDynamoDB
Starting price$3/monthFree
Pricing modelper-userusage-based
Free tierNoYes
CategoryBusiness IntelligenceDatabases

Identical on both: platforms (AWS), user rating (Not yet rated), founded (2006).

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 DynamoDB

  • Managed and serverless
  • Predictable latency
  • On-demand or provisioned capacity
  • Global secondary indexes
  • Transactions
  • DynamoDB Streams
  • Global tables
  • Point-in-time recovery

What people use each for

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

Amazon QuickSight

  • Business intelligencenot DynamoDB
  • Dashboard creationnot DynamoDB
  • Data visualizationnot DynamoDB

DynamoDB

  • High-volume keyed workloads such as sessions, shopping carts, device state or user profiles where the access pattern is fixed and knownnot Amazon QuickSight
  • Traffic that spikes unpredictably, where on-demand capacity absorbs a burst without a capacity-planning exercisenot Amazon QuickSight
  • Serverless applications on Lambda, where an HTTP-based datastore avoids the connection pooling problem relational databases havenot Amazon QuickSight
  • Event or telemetry ingestion where writes vastly outnumber reads and each record is retrieved by a known identifiernot 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

DynamoDB

  • Access patterns must be designed into the key schema before launch; a query nobody anticipated needs a new global secondary index, which is a full extra copy of the projected attributes billed as storage and as writes, or an offline migration.
  • Global secondary indexes are eventually consistent and cannot be read strongly, so a read-after-write against an index can legitimately miss the item that was just written, and application code must be written to tolerate that.
  • Per-partition throughput is capped at roughly 3,000 read and 1,000 write units, so a hot key throttles even when the table has spare capacity overall, and the only real fix is changing the key design to spread the load.
  • Items are limited to 400 KB and query results paginate at 1 MB, so large or list-shaped data has to be split, offloaded to S3 with a pointer, or read through pagination loops that complicate every consumer.
  • It runs only on AWS and the API is proprietary rather than a standard, so moving the data layer means rewriting it; ScyllaDB's Alternator is the only meaningfully compatible target and it brings a much smaller ecosystem.

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon QuickSight

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

DynamoDB

Free
  • On-Demand Capacity$null/usage-based
    • Pay-per-request pricing with automatic scaling
    • Read: 0.5 RRU per 4 KB (eventually consistent), 1 RRU per 4 KB (strongly consistent), 2 RRU per 4 KB (transactional)
    • Write: 1 WRU per 1 KB
  • Provisioned Capacity$null/hourly
    • Fixed hourly charges based on reserved capacity
    • RCU rate: $0.00013 per hour (Standard)
    • WCU rate: $0.00065 per hour (Standard)
  • Standard Table Class Storage$0.25/per GB/month
    • $0.25 per GB/month after free tier
    • First 25 GB free per month (free tier)
  • Standard-Infrequent Access Table Class$0.1/per GB/month
    • $0.10 per GB/month

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 DynamoDB if

  • You need managed and serverless.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on AWS.
  • You also want predictable latency.
DynamoDB review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon QuickSight or DynamoDB better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and DynamoDB at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon QuickSight or DynamoDB?
DynamoDB has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3/month for Amazon QuickSight and Free for DynamoDB.
Does Amazon QuickSight or DynamoDB run on more platforms?
Both run on AWS, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use DynamoDB for free?
Yes. DynamoDB has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month.
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 DynamoDB is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon QuickSight do that DynamoDB cannot?
Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, ML Insights, Natural Language Queries, Embedded Analytics. DynamoDB covers Managed and serverless, Predictable latency, On-demand or provisioned capacity, Global secondary indexes.

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
DynamoDB: On-demand or provisioned capacity?

On-demand suits unpredictable or spiky traffic and removes capacity planning. Provisioned with autoscaling is considerably cheaper for steady high-volume workloads. Tables can be switched between them, though not arbitrarily often.

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
DynamoDB: Can I run DynamoDB outside AWS?

No. DynamoDB Local exists for development and testing only. For a production-compatible alternative elsewhere, ScyllaDB's Alternator implements the DynamoDB API, but it is a different system with a different ecosystem.

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
DynamoDB: Can I run ad hoc queries or analytics?

Not on the table itself. Scans are slow and expensive at scale. The usual pattern is to export to S3 or stream changes out and query them in Athena, Redshift or another analytical engine.

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
DynamoDB: Is single-table design necessary?

It is the pattern that gets the most from DynamoDB when access patterns are well known, because it lets related items be retrieved in one query. It also makes the model harder to evolve, so many teams reasonably choose multiple simpler tables and accept extra requests.

DynamoDB: What are the real limits I should design around?

400 KB per item, 1 MB per query or scan page, 100 items per transaction, roughly 3,000 read and 1,000 write units per partition, and eventual consistency on global secondary indexes.

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