Software · head to head
Knack vs Amazon Redshift
The short version
- Only Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Knack plans are priced by number of records and objects rather than users, ranging from $110 to $300 per month as data volume grows; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Knack and Amazon Redshift actually diverge.
| Attribute | Knack | Amazon Redshift |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | On request | Free |
| Pricing model | subscription | usage-based |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Founded | Unknown | 2012 |
Identical on both: platforms (Web), 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 Knack
Nothing recorded that Amazon Redshift does not also cover.
Only in Amazon Redshift
- Columnar Storage
- Massively Parallel
- Machine Learning
- AQUA Acceleration
- Data Sharing
- Federated Query
- Concurrency Scaling
- S3
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Knack
No use cases recorded yet. See the Knack review.
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot Knack
- Data warehousingnot Knack
- Real-time analyticsnot Knack
- Reportingnot Knack
- Machine learningnot Knack
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Knack
- Plans are priced by number of records and objects rather than users, ranging from $110 to $300 per month as data volume grows
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
Pricing, plan by plan
Knack
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the Knack review.
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
Which should you pick?
Choose Knack if
Nothing in the data separates Knack from Amazon Redshift on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Questions people ask
- Is Knack or Amazon Redshift better?
- Neither clearly leads. Knack starts at On request and Amazon Redshift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Knack or Amazon Redshift?
- Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Knack and Free for Amazon Redshift.
- Does Knack or Amazon Redshift 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. Knack starts at On request.
- What can Knack do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
- Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration.
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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