Software · head to head
RavenDB vs Amazon Redshift
The short version
- Each has a real cost: RavenDB the free Developer licence bars commercial use and expires every 6 months, requiring renewal; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
- They diverge on capability: RavenDB covers ACID Transactions, Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which RavenDB and Amazon Redshift actually diverge.
| Attribute | RavenDB | Amazon Redshift |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | usage-based |
| Platforms | Linux, Windows, Mac, Docker, Web | Web |
| Founded | 2010 | 2012 |
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 RavenDB
- ACID Transactions
- Auto-indexing
- Full-text Search
- Graph Queries
- Distributed Counters
- Time Series
- Document Compression
- .NET
Only in Amazon Redshift
- Columnar Storage
- Massively Parallel
- Machine Learning
- AQUA Acceleration
- Data Sharing
- Federated Query
- Concurrency Scaling
- S3
Both cover
- Web support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
RavenDB
- Running a distributed document database with ACID transactionsnot Amazon Redshift
- Self hosting a multi node database cluster on your own hardwarenot Amazon Redshift
- Replicating operational data out to analytics systems through ETLnot Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift
- Business intelligencenot RavenDB
- Data warehousingnot RavenDB
- Real-time analyticsnot RavenDB
- Reportingnot RavenDB
- Machine learningnot RavenDB
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
RavenDB
- The free Developer licence bars commercial use and expires every 6 months, requiring renewal
- The free Community licence caps a customer at 60 cores and forces you to stay on the latest major version
- The Professional licence is limited to a single database, a 5 node cluster, 40 cores and 240 GB RAM
- Sharding across nodes, ETL to OLAP, Elasticsearch and Kafka, and data archival are Enterprise only
- Enterprise and AI licence pricing is contact us only with no published rate
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
RavenDB
Free- CommunityFree
- 3 cores
- 6GB RAM
- Community support
- Professional$499/year
- Production use
- Professional support
- Advanced features
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 RavenDB if
- You need acid transactions.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Windows, Mac, Docker, Web.
- You also want auto-indexing.
Choose Amazon Redshift if
- You need columnar storage.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want massively parallel.
Questions people ask
- Is RavenDB or Amazon Redshift better?
- Neither clearly leads. RavenDB starts at Free and Amazon Redshift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, RavenDB or Amazon Redshift?
- RavenDB starts at Free and Amazon Redshift at Free.
- Does RavenDB or Amazon Redshift run on more platforms?
- RavenDB runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Docker, Web. Amazon Redshift runs on Web.
- Can I use RavenDB for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is RavenDB best used for?
- RavenDB is most often used for running a distributed document database with acid transactions, self hosting a multi node database cluster on your own hardware, replicating operational data out to analytics systems through etl. Of those, running a distributed document database with acid transactions and self hosting a multi node database cluster on your own hardware are not what Amazon Redshift is typically brought in for.
- What can RavenDB do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
- RavenDB covers ACID Transactions, Auto-indexing, Full-text Search, Graph Queries. Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. 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.
Source