Amazon Redshift

Petabyte-scale data warehouse on AWS

Business Intelligence ETL & Data Pipelines Data Warehouses

4.4(16 across the web)

What is Amazon Redshift?

Amazon Redshift is a business intelligence tool. Amazon Redshift is AWS's fully managed, petabyte-scale cloud data warehouse. It uses columnar storage and massively parallel processing (MPP) to deliver fast query performance on large datasets. Redshift integrates deeply with the AWS ecosystem including S3, Kinesis, and SageMaker. Amazon Redshift is paid-only, with most plans including a trial period. Buyers most often compare Amazon Redshift against Snowflake, Google Cloud, Azure Synapse.

TL;DR - Amazon Redshift

AWS cloud data warehouse
Petabyte-scale analytics
Serverless or provisioned options

Pricing: Paid only

Best for: Enterprises & pros

4.4/5 across review platforms

Pros & Cons

Pros

Deep AWS integration
Mature and proven
Serverless option
Cost-effective for AWS users
Strong SQL support

Cons

AWS lock-in
Complex pricing
Cluster management (provisioned)
Slower than newer alternatives

Ratings Across the Web

4.4(16 reviews)

Capterra16 reviews

4.4/5

Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more

Key Features

Columnar storageMassively parallel processingRedshift ServerlessML integration (SageMaker)Spectrum (query S3)Concurrency scalingAutomatic backupsEncryption

Pricing Plans

Free Trial

Free

2 months free

750 DC2.Large hours/month
Try before you buy
Full features

Provisioned

$0.25/hour

DC2.Large node

Dedicated clusters
Reserved pricing available
Full control

Serverless

Variable

Pay per RPU-hour

Auto-scaling
No cluster management
Pay for usage only

View full pricing

About Amazon Redshift

LCLouis CorneloupUpdated Apr 29, 2026

Amazon Redshift is AWS's fully managed, petabyte-scale cloud data warehouse. It uses columnar storage and massively parallel processing (MPP) to deliver fast query performance on large datasets. Redshift integrates deeply with the AWS ecosystem including S3, Kinesis, and SageMaker. The service offers both provisioned clusters and serverless options, making it accessible for various workloads. Redshift is one of the most popular data warehouses, competing with Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks.

How we evaluate tools →Source: aws.amazon.com

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Best Amazon Redshift Alternatives

Top alternatives based on features, pricing, and user needs.

View full list →

SnowflakePaid

Cloud data platform

Google CloudPaid

Enterprise cloud with AI/ML strengths and BigQuery

Azure SynapsePaid

Analytics service combining data warehousing and big data

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Amazon Redshift FAQ

How does Redshift compare to Snowflake?

Snowflake has better separation of storage/compute and easier scaling. Redshift has deeper AWS integration and is often cheaper for AWS-heavy workloads. Snowflake is cloud-agnostic; Redshift is AWS-only.

What is Redshift Serverless?

Redshift Serverless automatically provisions and scales capacity based on your workload. You pay only for the compute you use, measured in Redshift Processing Units (RPUs). Good for variable or unpredictable workloads.

Is Redshift expensive?

Redshift can be cost-effective, especially with reserved instances. Serverless pricing is based on usage. Costs vary widely based on cluster size and usage patterns - start small and scale.

Source: aws.amazon.com