Softwr

Business Intelligence · head to head

Amazon QuickSight vs Snowplow

Amazon QuickSight logo

Amazon QuickSight

Business Intelligence

Scalable, serverless BI by AWS

From
$3/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Snowplow logo

Snowplow

Business Intelligence

Behavioural data pipeline you run in your own cloud, relicensed away from Apache 2.0 in 2024

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Amazon QuickSight reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month; Snowplow the core pipeline was relicensed from Apache 2.0 on 8 January 2024 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement and a Confluent-derived community licence, so organisations that adopted it as permissively licensed software must now review their entitlement, buy a licence, or migrate.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, Snowplow covers Own-cloud deployment.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon QuickSight and Snowplow differ
AttributeAmazon QuickSightSnowplow
Starting price$3/monthOn request
Pricing modelper-userquote
PlatformsAWSLinux, Web, Docker
Founded2006Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Business Intelligence).

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 Snowplow

  • Own-cloud deployment
  • Schema enforcement
  • Warehouse loading
  • Enrichment
  • Trackers
  • Streaming output
  • Data models
  • Snowplow BDP

What people use each for

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

Amazon QuickSight

  • Business intelligencenot Snowplow
  • Dashboard creationnot Snowplow
  • Data visualizationnot Snowplow

Snowplow

  • A data team that needs full-fidelity event data in its own warehouse to build attribution or machine learning features rather than to populate dashboardsnot Amazon QuickSight
  • A regulated business that cannot send behavioural data to a third-party analytics vendor and must keep collection inside its own cloud accountnot Amazon QuickSight
  • A product organisation tired of silently malformed events, which wants a schema contract enforced at collection timenot Amazon QuickSight
  • A company modelling customer behaviour across web, mobile and server events that needs them in one consistent structurenot 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

Snowplow

  • The core pipeline was relicensed from Apache 2.0 on 8 January 2024 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement and a Confluent-derived community licence, so organisations that adopted it as permissively licensed software must now review their entitlement, buy a licence, or migrate.
  • You run the pipeline in your own cloud, which means the infrastructure bill, the on-call rota and the upgrade work are yours, and at high event volume that operational cost frequently exceeds what a hosted product would have charged.
  • Schema enforcement is the main benefit and the main friction, because every new event requires a schema to be authored and versioned, and teams without discipline around that end up blocked on their own governance process.
  • There is no analysis layer: Snowplow delivers data to your warehouse and nothing else, so you still need modelling, a BI tool and the people to run them before anyone sees a number.
  • The licence change fractured the community, spawning an Apache 2.0 fork, which means community contributions and third-party tooling are now split across two codebases with uncertain long-term maintenance.

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

Snowplow

On request
  • Snowplow BDP$undefined/year
    • Commercial pricing quoted by event volume and deployment
    • Core pipeline components under the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement, not Apache 2.0
    • Trackers, analytics SDKs and Iglu SDKs remain Apache 2.0

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 Snowplow if

  • You need own-cloud deployment.
  • You work on Linux, Web, Docker.
  • You also want schema enforcement.
Snowplow review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon QuickSight or Snowplow better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and Snowplow at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon QuickSight or Snowplow?
Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and Snowplow at On request.
Does Amazon QuickSight or Snowplow run on more platforms?
Amazon QuickSight runs on AWS. Snowplow runs on Linux, Web, Docker.
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 Snowplow is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon QuickSight do that Snowplow cannot?
Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, ML Insights, Natural Language Queries, Embedded Analytics. Snowplow covers Own-cloud deployment, Schema enforcement, Warehouse loading, Enrichment.

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
Snowplow: Is Snowplow still open source?

Not in the permissive sense. On 8 January 2024 the core pipeline moved from Apache 2.0 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement, with version 1.1 following in December 2024, alongside a community licence based on the Confluent Community Licence. Trackers and analytics SDKs remain Apache 2.0.

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
Snowplow: Can we still run it for free in production?

Free use of the relicensed core components is materially constrained and commercial use generally requires an agreement. Read the current licence text against your intended use rather than relying on older documentation.

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
Snowplow: Is there an Apache 2.0 alternative?

Yes, a fork called OpenSnowcat was created in response to the relicensing and continues under Apache 2.0.

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
Snowplow: What does Snowplow BDP cost?

Not published. It is quoted by event volume and deployment, and your own cloud infrastructure costs are separate and additional.

Share

Related pages

More on Amazon QuickSight

More on Snowplow

Keep looking

Other head to heads