Software · head to head
Amazon Redshift vs Vultr
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery; Vultr vultr Cloud Compute pricing as captured 31 December 2022 started at $5/month (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB storage, 1TB transfer), scaling to $10/month and $20/month with more vCPU/RAM/storage; bandwidth overage billed at $0.01 to $0.05 per GB depending on plan
- They diverge on capability: Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Vultr covers Cloud servers.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Amazon Redshift and Vultr actually diverge.
| Attribute | Amazon Redshift | Vultr |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web | Web, Api, Cli |
| Founded | 2012 | 2014 |
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (usage-based), 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 Vultr
- Cloud servers
- Bare metal servers
- Block storage
- Object storage
- Load balancers
- Kubernetes
- Firewalls
- Private networks
Both cover
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot Vultr
- Data warehousingnot Vultr
- Real-time analyticsnot Vultr
- Reportingnot Vultr
- Machine learningnot Vultr
Vultr
- High performance computingnot Amazon Redshift
- Game serversnot Amazon Redshift
- Streamingnot Amazon Redshift
- Database hostingnot Amazon Redshift
- Application serversnot 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
Vultr
- Vultr Cloud Compute pricing as captured 31 December 2022 started at $5/month (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB storage, 1TB transfer), scaling to $10/month and $20/month with more vCPU/RAM/storage; bandwidth overage billed at $0.01 to $0.05 per GB depending on 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
Vultr
Free- Cloud Compute$2.5/month
- 512MB RAM
- 10GB SSD
- 500GB bandwidth
- Bare Metal$32/month
- Dedicated hardware
- High performance
- Full root access
Which should you pick?
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Choose Vultr if
- You need cloud servers.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api, Cli.
- You also want bare metal servers.
Questions people ask
- Is Amazon Redshift or Vultr better?
- Neither clearly leads. Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Vultr at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Amazon Redshift or Vultr?
- Amazon Redshift starts at Free and Vultr at Free.
- Does Amazon Redshift or Vultr run on more platforms?
- Amazon Redshift runs on Web. Vultr runs on Web, Api, Cli.
- 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 Vultr is typically brought in for.
- What can Amazon Redshift do that Vultr cannot?
- Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Vultr covers Cloud servers, Bare metal servers, Block storage, Object storage. 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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