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Amazon Redshift vs Paylocity

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Paylocity logo

Paylocity

Software

HR and payroll solutions to drive employee engagement

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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; Paylocity the Internet Archive's capture of Paylocity's homepage on 3 January 2021 named a wide suite of modules, including Payroll, On Demand Payment, HR Edge, Recruiting, Performance Management, Compensation Management and a Learning Management System, all sold via 'Request a Demo' with no price figures published.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Paylocity covers Payroll.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Paylocity differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftPaylocity
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, Ios, Android
Founded20121997

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 Paylocity

  • Payroll
  • HR Management
  • Benefits Administration
  • Time and Labor
  • Talent Management
  • Employee Engagement
  • Slack
  • Microsoft Teams

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

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

Paylocity

No use cases recorded yet. See the Paylocity review.

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

Paylocity

  • The Internet Archive's capture of Paylocity's homepage on 3 January 2021 named a wide suite of modules, including Payroll, On Demand Payment, HR Edge, Recruiting, Performance Management, Compensation Management and a Learning Management System, all sold via 'Request a Demo' with no price figures published.

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

Paylocity

On request
  • Core Payroll$undefined/month
    • Payroll Processing
    • Tax Services
    • Direct Deposit
  • Complete HCM$undefined/month
    • All Core features
    • HR
    • Benefits

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 Paylocity if

  • You need payroll.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want hr management.
Paylocity review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Paylocity better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Paylocity at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Paylocity?
Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Redshift and On request for Paylocity.
Does Amazon Redshift or Paylocity run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Paylocity runs on Web, Ios, Android.
Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Paylocity 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 Paylocity is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Paylocity cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Paylocity covers Payroll, HR Management, Benefits Administration, Time and Labor. 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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