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HR & Recruiting · head to head

Breathe HR vs Firebolt

Breathe HR logo

Breathe HR

HR & Recruiting

Simple HR software for SMEs

From
£13/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Firebolt logo

Firebolt

Database & Data Management

Sub-second analytics at cloud data warehouse scale

From
$1.84/hour
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Breathe HR pricing is banded by headcount, starting at £24 per month for 1 to 10 people, £44 per month for 11 to 20 and £99 per month for 21 to 50; Firebolt compute billed per second on Arm-based processors; small instances still incur measurable costs during idle periods despite auto-stop
  • They diverge on capability: Breathe HR covers Employee Database, Firebolt covers Sub-second Queries.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Breathe HR and Firebolt actually diverge.

Attributes where Breathe HR and Firebolt differ
AttributeBreathe HRFirebolt
Starting price£13/month$1.84/hour
Pricing modelsubscriptionusage-based
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidCloud (AWS, GCP, Azure preview), Docker, Kubernetes
CategoryHR & RecruitingDatabase & Data Management
Founded20122019

Identical on both: free tier (No), 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 Breathe HR

  • Employee Database
  • Absence Management
  • Document Storage
  • HR Reporting
  • Performance Management
  • Training
  • Slack
  • Google Workspace

Only in Firebolt

  • Sub-second Queries
  • Sparse Indexes
  • Data Pruning
  • Decoupled Storage/Compute
  • SQL Support
  • Semi-structured Data
  • Workload Isolation
  • Airflow

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

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

Breathe HR

  • Holiday, absence and sickness tracking for a UK small businessnot Firebolt
  • Storing HR documents, contracts and e-signaturesnot Firebolt
  • Performance reviews and onboarding workflows for small teamsnot Firebolt

Firebolt

  • Data analytics teams running gigabyte-to-petabyte datasets with sub-second query requirementsnot Breathe HR
  • Real-time business intelligence platforms requiring ACID transactions and snapshot isolationnot Breathe HR
  • Applications needing vector search on analytical data for similarity queriesnot Breathe HR

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Breathe HR

  • Pricing is banded by headcount, starting at £24 per month for 1 to 10 people, £44 per month for 11 to 20 and £99 per month for 21 to 50
  • Plans are capped by band up to 151 to 200 people, so it is not sold to organisations above that range on the published ladder
  • The free trial is 14 days
  • Health and safety, e-learning and other modules are sold as add-ons on top of the core HR plan
  • Pricing is quoted in pounds and the product is marketed to UK SMEs

Firebolt

  • Compute billed per second on Arm-based processors; small instances still incur measurable costs during idle periods despite auto-stop
  • Storage pass-through charged at $0.0264/GB monthly on compressed data; uncompressed storage could exceed this
  • Azure deployment currently in Preview status; production recommendations unclear
  • Vector indexes limited to float arrays; other data types require alternative indexing strategies
  • Free tier credits ($200) limited; no perpetual free tier for production use

Pricing, plan by plan

Breathe HR

£13/month
  • Core$13/month
    • Employee Database
    • Absence Management
    • Documents
  • People Management$18/month
    • All Core features
    • Performance
    • Goals

Firebolt

$1.84/hour

No published plan breakdown. See the Firebolt review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Breathe HR if

  • You need employee database.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want absence management.
Breathe HR review

Choose Firebolt if

  • You need sub-second queries.
  • You work on Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure preview), Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want sparse indexes.
Firebolt review

Questions people ask

Is Breathe HR or Firebolt better?
Neither clearly leads. Breathe HR starts at £13/month and Firebolt at $1.84/hour, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Breathe HR or Firebolt?
Breathe HR starts at £13/month and Firebolt at $1.84/hour.
Does Breathe HR or Firebolt run on more platforms?
Breathe HR runs on Web, Ios, Android. Firebolt runs on Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure preview), Docker, Kubernetes.
What is Breathe HR best used for?
Breathe HR is most often used for holiday, absence and sickness tracking for a uk small business, storing hr documents, contracts and e-signatures, performance reviews and onboarding workflows for small teams. Of those, holiday, absence and sickness tracking for a uk small business and storing hr documents, contracts and e-signatures are not what Firebolt is typically brought in for.
What can Breathe HR do that Firebolt cannot?
Breathe HR covers Employee Database, Absence Management, Document Storage, HR Reporting. Firebolt covers Sub-second Queries, Sparse Indexes, Data Pruning, Decoupled Storage/Compute. Both handle Web support.
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