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Amazon Redshift vs Elasticsearch Service

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Elasticsearch Service logo

Elasticsearch Service

Software

Managed Elasticsearch Cloud Service

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Elasticsearch Service the 99.95 percent monthly uptime SLA applies only to the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Elasticsearch Service covers Full-text search.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Elasticsearch Service actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Elasticsearch Service differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftElasticsearch Service
PlatformsWebWeb, Api
Founded20122011

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), free tier (Yes), 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 Elasticsearch Service

  • Full-text search
  • Scalability
  • High availability
  • Security
  • 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 Elasticsearch Service
  • Data warehousingnot Elasticsearch Service
  • Real-time analyticsnot Elasticsearch Service
  • Reportingnot Elasticsearch Service
  • Machine learningnot Elasticsearch Service

Elasticsearch Service

  • Managed Elasticsearch without running the clusternot Amazon Redshift
  • Log and observability data storage and searchnot Amazon Redshift
  • Full-text search behind an applicationnot Amazon Redshift
  • Deployments needing a specific cloud region across AWS, Azure or GCPnot 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

Elasticsearch Service

  • The 99.95 percent monthly uptime SLA applies only to the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers
  • Serverless does not yet support traffic filtering, cross-project search or bring-your-own-key encryption
  • Serverless runs on AWS, GCP and Azure only, against 60 regions for the hosted option
  • Per-unit prices are not published; hosted is resource-based and serverless usage-based

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

Elasticsearch Service

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Full-text search
    • Scalability
    • High availability

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 Elasticsearch Service if

  • You need full-text search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Api.
  • You also want scalability.
Elasticsearch Service review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Elasticsearch Service better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Elasticsearch Service at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Elasticsearch Service?
Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Elasticsearch Service at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Elasticsearch Service run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Elasticsearch Service 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 Elasticsearch Service is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Elasticsearch Service cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Elasticsearch Service covers Full-text search, Scalability, High availability, Security. 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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Related pages

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