Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute vs Exasol

Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute8.6Visit Exasol8.3Visit

Higher score Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute #6 in Data Warehouse Software 8.6/10 Paid ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Alibaba Cloud

vs

Exasol #9 in Data Warehouse Software 8.3/10 Free plan · 30-day trial Free planFree trial✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Exasol

• Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute fits best

  Serverless lakehouse and batch analytics

• Exasol fits best

  High-concurrency hybrid analytics teams

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature	Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute 8.6/10 Visit ↗	Exasol 8.3/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.6	8.3
Ranking	#6 in Data Warehouse Software	#9 in Data Warehouse Software
Best for	Serverless lakehouse and batch analytics	High-concurrency hybrid analytics teams
Pricing model	Paid	Free plan + paid
Starting price	$22/unit/mo	$25/GB/mo
Free plan	Not checked yet	✓ (best)
Free trial	—	30 days
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Self-hosted, Desktop
Platforms	Web	Web, macOS, Linux
Support	Live chat, Tickets, Docs	Email, Phone, Tickets, Community, Docs · 24/7
Integrations	14 integrations	14 integrations
Built for	Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute 4/4 · Exasol 4/4
Separate storage and compute	✓	✓
Data lake support	✓	✓
Streaming ingestion	✓	✓
In-database machine learning	✓	✓
Specs
Deployment model	Cloud	Hybrid
Pricing model	Hybrid	Hybrid
Our review
Pros	Separates storage and compute for independent scaling Supports SQL, Spark, MapReduce, Graph, and MaxFrame Queries OSS and Hadoop data without migration	High-concurrency in-memory massively parallel processing Separate storage and compute with cluster scaling Lakehouse, Kafka, BI, and in-database ML support
Cons	Storage and downloads are billed separately Lakehouse solution is listed as public preview Resource-based pricing requires compute usage management	Storage is priced separately from compute No open-source deployment option Pre-purchase pricing requires a sales quote
Our verdict	Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute is a fully managed, serverless cloud data warehouse for enterprise-scale warehousing, analytics, business intelligence, near-real-time processing, data lake analysis, and machine learning. It is aimed at teams that… Read the review →	Exasol is an in-memory, massively parallel analytics database for data warehousing, business intelligence, lakehouse acceleration, and AI/ML workloads. It is aimed at data teams, developers, and enterprises handling demanding analytical… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute — where it wins

  • Separates storage and compute for independent scaling
  • Supports SQL, Spark, MapReduce, Graph, and MaxFrame
  • Queries OSS and Hadoop data without migration

  Where it doesn't

  • Storage and downloads are billed separately
  • Lakehouse solution is listed as public preview
  • Resource-based pricing requires compute usage management

• Exasol — where it wins

  • High-concurrency in-memory massively parallel processing
  • Separate storage and compute with cluster scaling
  • Lakehouse, Kafka, BI, and in-database ML support

  Where it doesn't

  • Storage is priced separately from compute
  • No open-source deployment option
  • Pre-purchase pricing requires a sales quote

• Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute8.6/10 · Paid

  A serverless warehouse for flexible compute, lake queries, and multiple processing engines.

  Visit Alibaba CloudFull verdict →
• Exasol8.3/10 · Free plan · 30-day trial

  A hybrid MPP warehouse for demanding analytics, lakehouse queries, streaming, and in-database ML.

  Visit ExasolFull verdict →