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GNAT Pro vs Trino

GNAT Pro logo

GNAT Pro

Developer Tools

Software development environments and toolchains for Ada, C/C++ and Rust

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Trino logo

Trino

Technology

A distributed SQL engine that queries data where it already lives, across object storage, warehouses and operational databases.

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Trino has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: GNAT Pro no pricing published on website; requires contacting AdaCore directly for quotes; Trino trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which GNAT Pro and Trino actually diverge.

Attributes where GNAT Pro and Trino differ
AttributeGNAT ProTrino
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteopen-source
Free tierNoYes
CategoryDeveloper ToolsTechnology

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 GNAT Pro

Nothing recorded that Trino does not also cover.

Only in Trino

  • Federated querying
  • Connector architecture
  • Predicate and aggregation pushdown
  • Massively parallel execution
  • Fault-tolerant execution
  • Resource groups
  • Iceberg and Delta table support
  • Standard client protocols

What people use each for

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

GNAT Pro

  • Building certified avionics software meeting DO-178B/C standardsnot Trino
  • Developing automotive embedded systems with ISO-26262 compliancenot Trino
  • Integrating Ada, C/C++, and Rust components in single codebasenot Trino
  • Managing software supply chain vulnerabilities and SBOMsnot Trino
  • Supporting long-lived software systems spanning decadesnot Trino

Trino

  • Ad hoc analysis that spans a data lake and one or more operational databases, without building an ingestion pipeline firstnot GNAT Pro
  • Serving a BI tool a single SQL endpoint over an estate that is actually several separate storage systemsnot GNAT Pro
  • Querying Iceberg or Delta tables on object storage interactively, as the compute layer of a lakehousenot GNAT Pro
  • Investigating whether a dataset is worth ingesting, by querying it in place before committing to a pipeline for itnot GNAT Pro

Where each one falls short

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

GNAT Pro

  • No pricing published on website; requires contacting AdaCore directly for quotes
  • Vendor indicates per-user, per-year subscription model but does not disclose specific costs

Trino

  • Trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
  • Federated queries pull data out of the systems they touch, so a join between a lake table and a production Postgres can put a full table scan onto an OLTP database that other applications depend on, and the person who wrote the query will not see the incident it causes.
  • Releases come roughly every one to two weeks with no community long-term support line, and deprecations arrive quickly, so you either dedicate someone to keeping current or you buy Starburst Enterprise for a supported long-term version.
  • It is memory-based and disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, so a query exceeding cluster memory fails outright rather than degrading; enabling fault-tolerant execution requires an external exchange store on object storage and makes queries measurably slower.
  • It is a query engine and not a warehouse: there is no built-in job scheduling, no incremental materialised view maintenance and no transformation framework, so producing curated tables still needs dbt or an equivalent layer that somebody has to own.
  • The 2020 fork split the ecosystem, so documentation, connectors, Stack Overflow answers and vendor material written before then describe PrestoDB, which is now a different project with different behaviour, and following the wrong one wastes real time.

Pricing, plan by plan

GNAT Pro

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the GNAT Pro review.

Trino

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Trino review.

Which should you pick?

Choose GNAT Pro if

Nothing in the data separates GNAT Pro from Trino on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.

GNAT Pro review

Choose Trino if

  • You need federated querying.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want connector architecture.
Trino review

Questions people ask

Is GNAT Pro or Trino better?
Neither clearly leads. GNAT Pro starts at On request and Trino at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, GNAT Pro or Trino?
Trino has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for GNAT Pro and Free for Trino.
Does GNAT Pro or Trino run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Trino for free?
Yes. Trino has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. GNAT Pro starts at On request.
What is GNAT Pro best used for?
GNAT Pro is most often used for building certified avionics software meeting do-178b/c standards, developing automotive embedded systems with iso-26262 compliance, integrating ada, c/c++, and rust components in single codebase, managing software supply chain vulnerabilities and sboms. Of those, building certified avionics software meeting do-178b/c standards and developing automotive embedded systems with iso-26262 compliance are not what Trino is typically brought in for.
What can GNAT Pro do that Trino cannot?
Trino covers Federated querying, Connector architecture, Predicate and aggregation pushdown, Massively parallel execution.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

GNAT Pro: How much does GNAT Pro cost?

GNAT Pro pricing is not published on the website. Customers must request a pricing quote by contacting AdaCore directly or speaking with a GNAT Pro expert.

Source
Trino: What is the difference between Trino and Presto?

They share an origin. The original creators left Meta and renamed their fork from PrestoSQL to Trino in December 2020; PrestoDB continues separately under the Linux Foundation. They have diverged in features, connectors and SQL behaviour, so material written for one may not apply to the other.

GNAT Pro: What is GNAT Pro licensing model?

GNAT Pro is sold on a per-user, per-year basis with no license locks. Customers can request pricing for their specific needs.

Source
Trino: Does Trino replace my data warehouse?

Not on its own. It is compute without storage, scheduling or transformation. Paired with Iceberg or Delta on object storage and something like dbt for modelling it can serve as a lakehouse; used alone it is a query layer over what you already have.

Trino: Why is my federated query slow?

Usually because a connector could not push a filter or aggregation down, so Trino is pulling whole tables across the network to join them itself. The fix is usually better source-side partitioning or statistics, or ingesting that source rather than federating it.

Trino: What happens when a query runs out of memory?

It fails. Disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, which checkpoints to an external exchange store such as S3 and lets long queries survive memory pressure and worker loss, at the cost of noticeably slower execution.

Trino: Is there commercial support?

Yes, from Starburst, which offers Starburst Enterprise with long-term supported releases and Starburst Galaxy as a managed service. The open source project itself has no long-term support line.

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