Database & Data Management · head to head
Amazon Redshift vs Census
Amazon Redshift
Database & Data Management
Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Census
Automation & Integration
The reverse ETL infrastructure for data activation
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Census census was folded into Fivetran Activations, per the vendor: "Previously, this was called a sync in Census", and its own pricing page redirects to Fivetran pricing rather than showing Census plans
- They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Census covers Reverse ETL.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Census actually diverge.
| Attribute | Amazon Redshift | Census |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web | Web, Api |
| Category | Database & Data Management | Automation & Integration |
| Founded | 2012 | 2020 |
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).
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 Census
- Reverse ETL
- Data syncing
- Transformation
- Real-time activation
- Error handling
- Monitoring
- Analytics
- 150+ destinations
Both cover
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot Census
- Data warehousingnot Census
- Real-time analyticsnot Census
- Reportingnot Census
- Machine learningnot Census
Census
- Syncing customer data from a warehouse into marketing and sales tools (reverse ETL)not Amazon Redshift
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
Census
- Census was folded into Fivetran Activations, per the vendor: "Previously, this was called a sync in Census", and its own pricing page redirects to Fivetran pricing rather than showing Census plans
- Free Fivetran Activations tier caps at 3,500 monthly active rows
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
Census
Free- FreeFree
- Basic syncing
- Limited destinations
- Pro$250/month
- Advanced syncing
- Email support
- Enterprise$1500/month
- Unlimited syncing
- Dedicated support
Which should you pick?
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Choose Census if
- You need reverse etl.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api.
- You also want data syncing.
Questions people ask
- Is Amazon Redshift or Census better?
- Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Census at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Census?
- Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Census at Free.
- Does Amazon Redshift or Census run on more platforms?
- Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Census runs on Web, Api.
- 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 Census is typically brought in for.
- What can Amazon Redshift do that Census cannot?
- Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Census covers Reverse ETL, Data syncing, Transformation, Real-time activation. Both handle 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.
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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- Census vs Cockroach Labs
- Census vs PostgreSQL
- Census vs Airtable
- Census vs Amazon Aurora
- Census vs Elasticsearch
- Census vs PlanetScale
- Census vs Azure SQL
- Census vs ClickHouse
- Census vs Couchbase
- Census vs DuckDB
- Census vs DynamoDB
- Census vs MariaDB
- Census vs Oracle Database
- Census vs Amazon RDS
- Census vs Apache Druid
- Census vs Cassandra
- Census vs CouchDB
- Census vs Firebolt
- Census vs Microsoft Power Automate
- Census vs n8n
- Census vs Zapier
- Census vs MuleSoft
- Census vs Parabola
- Census vs Zapier Plus
- Census vs Jitterbit
- Census vs mParticle
- Census vs Paragon
- Census vs RudderStack
- Census vs Workato
- Census vs Airbyte
- Census vs Automate.io
- Census vs Boomi
- Census vs Browser Use
- Census vs Browserbase
- Census vs Celigo
- Census vs CrewAI