Software · head to head
Amazon Redshift vs Buildkite
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Buildkite free plan caps at 5 users and 10 concurrent jobs, with 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month and 30 day build retention
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Buildkite actually diverge.
| Attribute | Amazon Redshift | Buildkite |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | usage-based | freemium |
| Founded | 2012 | Unknown |
Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 Redshift
- Columnar Storage
- Massively Parallel
- Machine Learning
- AQUA Acceleration
- Data Sharing
- Federated Query
- Concurrency Scaling
- S3
Only in Buildkite
Nothing recorded that Amazon Redshift does not also cover.
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot Buildkite
- Data warehousingnot Buildkite
- Real-time analyticsnot Buildkite
- Reportingnot Buildkite
- Machine learningnot Buildkite
Buildkite
No use cases recorded yet. See the Buildkite review.
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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
Buildkite
- Free plan caps at 5 users and 10 concurrent jobs, with 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes per month and 30 day build retention
- Pro plan is $30 per active user per month, capped at 50 users, with only 10 of the up to 250 concurrent agents included before extra usage
- Enterprise plan enforces a 30 user minimum even though pricing itself is custom
- Hosted compute beyond included minutes is metered at $0.004 per vCPU minute on Linux and $0.02 per vCPU minute on Mac
Pricing, plan by plan
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
Buildkite
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the Buildkite review.
Which should you pick?
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Questions people ask
- Is Amazon Redshift or Buildkite better?
- Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Buildkite at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Buildkite?
- Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Buildkite at Free.
- Does Amazon Redshift or Buildkite run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Amazon Redshift best used for?
- Amazon Redshift is most often used for business intelligence, data warehousing, real-time analytics, reporting. Of those, business intelligence and data warehousing are not what Buildkite is typically brought in for.
- What can Amazon Redshift do that Buildkite cannot?
- Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration.
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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceRelated pages
More on Amazon Redshift
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