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Amazon Redshift vs Firestore

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Firestore logo

Firestore

Software

Flexible, scalable NoSQL cloud database from Firebase

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; Firestore the no-cost Spark plan caps Standard edition at 50,000 document reads, 20,000 writes and 20,000 deletes per day
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Firestore covers Document Model.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Firestore actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Firestore differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftFirestore
Pricing modelusage-basedfreemium
PlatformsWebWeb, Ios, Android, Flutter
Founded20122011

Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 Firestore

  • Document Model
  • Real-time Updates
  • Offline Support
  • ACID Transactions
  • Expressive Queries
  • Multi-region
  • Security Rules
  • Firebase Auth

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

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

Firestore

  • Storing structured application data with realtime listenersnot Amazon Redshift
  • Backing mobile and web apps with a serverless document databasenot Amazon Redshift
  • Building offline first apps that sync when connectivity returnsnot 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

Firestore

  • The no-cost Spark plan caps Standard edition at 50,000 document reads, 20,000 writes and 20,000 deletes per day
  • The Spark plan caps storage at 1 GiB and network egress at 10 GiB per month
  • Charging is per document read, so a query returning many documents bills for every one of them
  • Going beyond the free thresholds requires the pay as you go Blaze plan billed at Google Cloud rates with no fixed monthly ceiling

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

Firestore

Free
  • SparkFree
    • 1GB storage
    • 50K reads/day
    • 20K writes/day
  • BlazeFree
    • Pay as you go
    • Unlimited operations
    • Multi-region

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 Firestore if

  • You need document model.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android, Flutter.
  • You also want real-time updates.
Firestore review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Firestore better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Firestore at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Firestore?
Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Firestore at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Firestore run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Firestore runs on Web, Ios, Android, Flutter.
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 Firestore is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Firestore cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Firestore covers Document Model, Real-time Updates, Offline Support, ACID Transactions. 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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