Software · head to head
Amazon Redshift vs Hive
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; Hive the free plan is capped at 200 MB of storage
- They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Hive covers Tasks.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Hive actually diverge.
| Attribute | Amazon Redshift | Hive |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | On request |
| Pricing model | usage-based | freemium |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Platforms | Web | Web, Ios, Android, Desktop |
| Founded | 2012 | 2015 |
Identical on both: 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 Hive
- Tasks
- Gantt view
- Kanban
- Time tracking
- Forms
- Slack
- Zoom
- Google Drive
Both cover
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot Hive
- Data warehousingnot Hive
- Real-time analyticsnot Hive
- Reportingnot Hive
- Machine learningnot Hive
Hive
- Project and task management with multiple project viewsnot Amazon Redshift
- Coordinating work, proofing and resourcing for teamsnot 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
Hive
- The free plan is capped at 200 MB of storage
- The Starter plan at $5 per user per month is limited to 10 projects
- Eight capabilities are sold as $5 per user add ons on the Teams plan, including CRM, timesheets, proofing, resourcing, advanced dashboards, external users and SSO
- Buying SSO plus a few of those add ons therefore costs more than the $12 base seat itself
- AI credits are metered monthly at 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 by plan
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
Hive
On request- FreeFree
- Basic features
- 10 users
- Teams$12/month
- Unlimited users
- Time tracking
- Automations
Which should you pick?
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Choose Hive if
- You need tasks.
- You work on Web, Ios, Android, Desktop.
- You also want gantt view.
Questions people ask
- Is Amazon Redshift or Hive better?
- Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Hive at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Hive?
- Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Redshift and On request for Hive.
- Does Amazon Redshift or Hive run on more platforms?
- Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Hive runs on Web, Ios, Android, Desktop.
- Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
- Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Hive 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 Hive is typically brought in for.
- What can Amazon Redshift do that Hive cannot?
- Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Hive covers Tasks, Gantt view, Kanban, Time tracking. 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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceAmazon 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.
SourceRelated pages
More on Amazon Redshift
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