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Amazon Redshift vs Presto

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Databases

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Presto logo

Presto

Databases

The Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork

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; Presto the original creators and most of the active contributor base left for Trino in 2020, so Presto has the smaller community, fewer connectors and slower feature delivery of the two branches.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Presto covers Federated querying.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Presto differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftPresto
Pricing modelusage-basedOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes
Founded2012Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

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 Presto

  • Federated querying
  • In-memory execution
  • Open table format support
  • Presto C++ workers
  • ANSI SQL
  • Pluggable connectors

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

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

Presto

  • An existing PrestoDB estate that needs continued upgrades rather than a migration to Trinonot Amazon Redshift
  • A team buying IBM watsonx.data, where Presto is the underlying query enginenot Amazon Redshift
  • Joining a Hive or Iceberg lake to an operational PostgreSQL database in one query without an ETL stepnot Amazon Redshift
  • Very large scale interactive SQL where the Meta-tested branch is a specific requirementnot 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

Presto

  • The original creators and most of the active contributor base left for Trino in 2020, so Presto has the smaller community, fewer connectors and slower feature delivery of the two branches.
  • Documentation, tutorials and Stack Overflow answers for the two projects are frequently mixed up, and a solution written for Trino often does not apply, which costs real debugging time.
  • It is a query engine with no storage of its own, so query performance is dictated by your file layout, partitioning and statistics, and a badly organised lake makes Presto look slow.
  • Memory-bound execution means a single large join can fail the whole query rather than spilling gracefully, and tuning cluster memory settings is a persistent operational chore.
  • Commercial support has consolidated into IBM since the Ahana acquisition, so the independent vendor market that once existed around Presto is largely gone.

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

Presto

Free
  • PrestoFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Presto Foundation governance under the Linux Foundation
    • No node or query limits

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 Presto if

  • You need federated querying.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want in-memory execution.
Presto review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Presto better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Presto at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Presto?
Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Presto at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Presto run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Presto runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
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 Presto is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Presto cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Presto covers Federated querying, In-memory execution, Open table format support, Presto C++ workers.

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
Presto: Is this Presto or Trino?

This is PrestoDB, the branch that stayed at Facebook and moved to the Linux Foundation. Trino is the 2020 fork by the original creators.

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
Presto: Which should I choose for a new project?

Trino, in most cases. It has the larger community, more connectors and more commercial options.

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
Presto: Who maintains Presto now?

Principally Meta, Uber and IBM, which acquired the Presto vendor Ahana in 2023.

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
Presto: Is it still actively released?

Yes, releases continue on a regular cadence under the Presto Foundation.

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