Is Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud better?

Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Hetzner Cloud at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud?

Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Hetzner Cloud at Free.

Does Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud run on more platforms?

Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Hetzner Cloud runs on Web, Api, Cli.

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 Hetzner Cloud is typically brought in for.

What can Amazon Redshift do that Hetzner Cloud cannot?

Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Hetzner Cloud covers Cloud servers, Block storage, Object storage, Load balancers. Both handle Web support.

Database & Data Management · head to head

Amazon Redshift vs Hetzner Cloud

Amazon Redshift

Database & Data Management

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Hetzner Cloud

Cloud & Infrastructure

Affordable cloud servers in Europe

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Hetzner Cloud cost-Optimized plans are shown as currently unavailable
They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Hetzner Cloud covers Cloud servers.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Hetzner Cloud actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Hetzner Cloud differ
Attribute	Amazon Redshift	Hetzner Cloud
Platforms	Web	Web, Api, Cli
Category	Database & Data Management	Cloud & Infrastructure
Founded	2012	1997

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 Hetzner Cloud

Cloud servers
Block storage
Object storage
Load balancers
Networks
Firewalls
Floating IPs
Backups

Both cover

Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

Business intelligencenot Hetzner Cloud
Data warehousingnot Hetzner Cloud
Real-time analyticsnot Hetzner Cloud
Reportingnot Hetzner Cloud
Machine learningnot Hetzner Cloud

Hetzner Cloud

Low-cost virtual servers for development and testingnot Amazon Redshift
European hosting with data held in Germany or Finlandnot Amazon Redshift
Workloads with heavy egress, where included traffic mattersnot Amazon Redshift
Self-hosting applications away from the hyperscalersnot 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

Hetzner Cloud

Cost-Optimized plans are shown as currently unavailable
The shared-resource tiers are positioned for variable usage and development rather than sustained production workloads
Regions are limited to Germany, Finland, the United States and Singapore, so latency to other markets is a real constraint
The uptime guarantee is 99.9 percent, below what the large hyperscalers offer on comparable services
Support is 24/7 by email, without a phone channel

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

Hetzner Cloud

Free

CX11$3.29/month
- 1 vCPU
- 1GB RAM
- 25GB SSD
CX21$6.59/month
- 2 vCPU
- 4GB RAM
- 40GB SSD

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 Hetzner Cloud if

You need cloud servers.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Api, Cli.
You also want block storage.

Hetzner Cloud review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud better?: Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Hetzner Cloud at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud?: Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Hetzner Cloud at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Hetzner Cloud run on more platforms?: Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Hetzner Cloud runs on Web, Api, Cli.
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 Hetzner Cloud is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Hetzner Cloud cannot?: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Hetzner Cloud covers Cloud servers, Block storage, Object storage, Load balancers. 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

Amazon Redshift vs Hetzner Cloud

Amazon Redshift

Hetzner Cloud

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Amazon Redshift

Only in Hetzner Cloud

Both cover

What people use each for

Amazon Redshift

Hetzner Cloud

Where each one falls short

Amazon Redshift

Hetzner Cloud

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon Redshift

Hetzner Cloud

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon Redshift if

Choose Hetzner Cloud if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Amazon Redshift

More on Hetzner Cloud

Keep looking

Other head to heads