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Database & Data Management · head to head

Amazon Redshift vs Elastic Stack

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Database & Data Management

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Elastic Stack logo

Elastic Stack

Log Management

Search, Observability, and Security Solutions

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Elastic Stack self-managed deployment requires licensing based on node count and RAM usage
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Elastic Stack covers Full-text search.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Elastic Stack actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Elastic Stack differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftElastic Stack
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedsubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebCloud-hosted, Self-managed, Docker, Kubernetes (ECK)
CategoryDatabase & Data ManagementLog Management
Founded20122011

Identical on both: 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 Elastic Stack

  • Full-text search
  • Log analytics
  • Security monitoring
  • Alerting
  • API
  • Webhooks
  • REST
  • Api support

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

  • Business intelligencenot Elastic Stack
  • Data warehousingnot Elastic Stack
  • Real-time analyticsnot Elastic Stack
  • Reportingnot Elastic Stack
  • Machine learningnot Elastic Stack

Elastic Stack

  • Distributed search and analytics engine for production-scale workloadsnot Amazon Redshift
  • Full-text search and vector search with approximate nearest neighbour supportnot Amazon Redshift
  • Security event tracking with field-level and document-level access controlnot Amazon Redshift
  • Machine learning capabilities including anomaly detection and forecastingnot 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

Elastic Stack

  • Self-managed deployment requires licensing based on node count and RAM usage
  • Serverless option has pending features including traffic filtering and bring-your-own-key encryption
  • Hosted deployment requires custom resource configuration for cluster management
  • Pricing models differ significantly across Hosted, Serverless, and Self-managed options

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

Elastic Stack

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Elastic Stack review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon Redshift if

  • You need columnar storage.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want massively parallel.
Amazon Redshift review

Choose Elastic Stack if

  • You need full-text search.
  • You work on Cloud-hosted, Self-managed, Docker, Kubernetes (ECK).
  • You also want log analytics.
Elastic Stack review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Elastic Stack better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Elastic Stack at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Elastic Stack?
Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Redshift and On request for Elastic Stack.
Does Amazon Redshift or Elastic Stack run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Elastic Stack runs on Cloud-hosted, Self-managed, Docker, Kubernetes (ECK).
Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Elastic Stack starts at On request.
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 Elastic Stack is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Elastic Stack cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Elastic Stack covers Full-text search, Log analytics, Security monitoring, Alerting. 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.

Source
Amazon 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.

Source
Amazon 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.

Source
Amazon 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.

Source
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