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Amazon Redshift vs Grafana Loki

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Grafana Loki logo

Grafana Loki

Software

Log Aggregation for Grafana Stack

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; Grafana Loki grafana Cloud Logs Pro plan includes only 30-day retention; retention beyond 30 days requires Enterprise plan with minimum $25,000 annual commitment
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Grafana Loki covers Log aggregation.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Grafana Loki actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Grafana Loki differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftGrafana Loki
Pricing modelusage-basedfreemium
PlatformsWebSelf-hosted (open source), Managed (Grafana Cloud Logs), Enterprise (self-managed with support)
Founded20122014

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 Grafana Loki

  • Log aggregation
  • Label-based indexing
  • LogQL language
  • Cost-effective
  • 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 Grafana Loki
  • Data warehousingnot Grafana Loki
  • Real-time analyticsnot Grafana Loki
  • Reportingnot Grafana Loki
  • Machine learningnot Grafana Loki

Grafana Loki

  • Cost-sensitive organisations deploying Kubernetes and Prometheus ecosystemsnot Amazon Redshift
  • Teams needing index-free log aggregation for high-volume environmentsnot 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

Grafana Loki

  • Grafana Cloud Logs Pro plan includes only 30-day retention; retention beyond 30 days requires Enterprise plan with minimum $25,000 annual commitment
  • Open-source version requires self-hosting all infrastructure including storage and scaling

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

Grafana Loki

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Grafana Loki 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 Grafana Loki if

  • You need log aggregation.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Self-hosted (open source), Managed (Grafana Cloud Logs), Enterprise (self-managed with support).
  • You also want label-based indexing.
Grafana Loki review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Grafana Loki better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Grafana Loki at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Grafana Loki?
Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Grafana Loki at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Grafana Loki run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Grafana Loki runs on Self-hosted (open source), Managed (Grafana Cloud Logs), Enterprise (self-managed with support).
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 Grafana Loki is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Grafana Loki cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Grafana Loki covers Log aggregation, Label-based indexing, LogQL language, Cost-effective. 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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