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Amazon Redshift vs Sigma Computing

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Databases

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sigma Computing logo

Sigma Computing

Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet-style analytics that queries a cloud data warehouse directly with no extract layer

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; Sigma Computing every user interaction is a live warehouse query, so compute costs rise with adoption and land on the warehouse invoice rather than the BI line item, which routinely surprises the team that approved the purchase.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Sigma Computing covers Spreadsheet interface over SQL.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Sigma Computing actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Sigma Computing differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftSigma Computing
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedquote
Free tierYesNo
CategoryDatabasesSpreadsheets
Founded2012Unknown

Identical on both: platforms (Web), 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 Sigma Computing

  • Spreadsheet interface over SQL
  • No extract layer
  • Input tables and write-back
  • Workbooks
  • Embedded analytics
  • Version control and dbt awareness

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

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

Sigma Computing

  • A finance or operations team that lives in spreadsheets and needs warehouse-scale data without exporting CSVsnot Amazon Redshift
  • An organisation that has consolidated on Snowflake or Databricks and wants one governed access layer rather than several desktop toolsnot Amazon Redshift
  • Planning and scenario work where users need to type assumptions back into governed tables rather than into a local filenot Amazon Redshift
  • Embedding customer-facing analytics into a product where each tenant must only see their own rowsnot 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

Sigma Computing

  • Every user interaction is a live warehouse query, so compute costs rise with adoption and land on the warehouse invoice rather than the BI line item, which routinely surprises the team that approved the purchase.
  • It cannot work without a supported cloud data warehouse, so an organisation running analytics on an on-premises database or a plain application database has nothing to connect to.
  • Pricing is not published and seats are differentiated by capability, so budgeting requires a sales cycle and a headcount forecast before you can compare it with a tool you could simply buy.
  • Performance is only as good as the warehouse behind it, which means slow or badly modelled tables surface as a slow interface and the fix is a data engineering project, not a Sigma setting.
  • Statistical and scientific visualisation is limited compared with dedicated tools, so anything beyond standard business charting has to be done elsewhere and brought back in.

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

Sigma Computing

On request
  • Sigma Computing$undefined/year
    • Quoted per organisation
    • Seat types are differentiated by whether a user views, explores or authors
    • Warehouse compute is billed separately by your cloud data warehouse vendor

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 Sigma Computing if

  • You need spreadsheet interface over sql.
  • You also want no extract layer.
Sigma Computing review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Sigma Computing better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Sigma Computing at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Sigma Computing?
Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Redshift and On request for Sigma Computing.
Does Amazon Redshift or Sigma Computing run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sigma Computing 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 Sigma Computing is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Sigma Computing cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Sigma Computing covers Spreadsheet interface over SQL, No extract layer, Input tables and write-back, Workbooks.

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
Sigma Computing: Does Sigma store a copy of my data?

No. Queries are executed on your warehouse and results are returned for display, which is why there is no extract refresh to manage.

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
Sigma Computing: What does it actually cost?

The vendor does not publish prices. Expect an annual contract priced by seat type, plus a warehouse compute increase you should model separately.

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
Sigma Computing: Can business users break the warehouse?

They can run expensive queries. Warehouse sizing, query limits and materialised tables are the controls, and they need configuring before a wide rollout.

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
Sigma Computing: Is it a replacement for a modelling layer like dbt?

No. Sigma works best on top of modelled tables and is usually deployed alongside dbt rather than instead of it.

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