Softwr

Software · head to head

Amazon Redshift vs Vagrant

Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vagrant logo

Vagrant

Software

Development environments made easy

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; Vagrant vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Vagrant covers Box management.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon Redshift and Vagrant differ
AttributeAmazon RedshiftVagrant
Pricing modelusage-basedopen-source
PlatformsWebLinux, Windows, Mac
Founded20122010

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Vagrant

  • Box management
  • Provider support
  • Multi-machine setups
  • Provisioners
  • Networking
  • Synced folders
  • Snapshots
  • Plugins

What people use each for

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

Amazon Redshift

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

Vagrant

  • Reproducible local development environments defined in a Vagrantfilenot Amazon Redshift
  • Provisioning identical VMs across VirtualBox, VMware and Hyper-V for a teamnot Amazon Redshift
  • Sandboxing multi-machine setups on a developer laptopnot 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

Vagrant

  • Vagrant 2.4.3 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 with IBM Corporation as licensor, not an OSI open source licence
  • The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Vagrant to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions of Vagrant
  • Each version converts to the MPL 2.0 Change License only four years after that version is first published
  • Uses that fall outside the Additional Use Grant require a separately negotiated licence from the licensor

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

Vagrant

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Development environment provisioning
    • Multiple providers
    • Provisioner support

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 Vagrant if

  • You need box management.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Mac.
  • You also want provider support.
Vagrant review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Redshift or Vagrant better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Vagrant at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Vagrant?
Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Vagrant at Free.
Does Amazon Redshift or Vagrant run on more platforms?
Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Vagrant runs on Linux, Windows, Mac.
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 Vagrant is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Redshift do that Vagrant cannot?
Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Vagrant covers Box management, Provider support, Multi-machine setups, Provisioners.

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
ShareXLinkedInRedditWhatsAppEmail

Related pages

More on Amazon Redshift

More on Vagrant

Keep looking

Other head to heads