Amazon Redshift vs Firebolt

Amazon Redshift9.2Visit Firebolt8.4Visit

Higher score Amazon Redshift #2 in Columnar Databases 9.2/10 Paid ✓ 0 of 3 features Try Amazon Redshift

vs

Firebolt #8 in Columnar Databases 8.4/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 3 features Visit Firebolt

• Amazon Redshift fits best

  AWS-centered enterprise analytics

• Firebolt fits best

  Lakehouse analytics with streaming and AI

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Side by side

Feature	Amazon Redshift 9.2/10 Visit ↗	Firebolt 8.4/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.2	8.4
Ranking	#2 in Columnar Databases	#8 in Columnar Databases
Best for	AWS-centered enterprise analytics	Lakehouse analytics with streaming and AI
Pricing model	Paid	Free plan + paid
Starting price	$0.54/unit usage-based	$0.92/unit usage-based
Free plan	—	✓ (best)
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Self-hosted, Desktop
Platforms	Web	Web, Linux
Support	Email, Live chat, Phone, Tickets, Docs	Email, Community, Docs
Compliance	SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SSO/SAML, 2FA	SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, SSO/SAML, 2FA
Integrations	15 integrations	11 integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Amazon Redshift 0/3 · Firebolt 0/3
Managed service	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Object storage support	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Streaming ingestion	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Deployment model	Cloud	Hybrid
Supported data formats	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Included storage	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Provisioned and serverless deployments with separate storage scaling Queries Amazon S3 data lakes and ingests streams from AWS services Redshift ML supports model creation, training, and deployment with SQL	Queries Apache Iceberg and other data-lake files directly Exactly-once Kafka ingestion supports streaming workloads Vector search and SQL-based AI functions support AI applications
Cons	No free plan is available Serverless pricing starts at $1.5 per hour Managed storage is billed separately for RG and RA3 provisioned nodes	Managed pricing is usage-based rather than a flat monthly tier The displayed $0.92/hour compute rate excludes storage Self-hosted deployment requires managing the deployment environment
Our verdict	Amazon Redshift is a fully managed cloud data warehouse for analyzing large datasets with SQL. It is aimed at data teams, analysts, developers, and organizations running business intelligence, data lake, real-time analytics, and predictive… Read the review →	Firebolt is an open-source analytical database for engineers building real-time analytics, AI applications, and ELT workflows. It supports PostgreSQL-compatible SQL and can run as a single binary on a laptop or as a distributed cloud… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Amazon Redshift — where it wins

  • Provisioned and serverless deployments with separate storage scaling
  • Queries Amazon S3 data lakes and ingests streams from AWS services
  • Redshift ML supports model creation, training, and deployment with SQL

  Where it doesn't

  • No free plan is available
  • Serverless pricing starts at $1.5 per hour
  • Managed storage is billed separately for RG and RA3 provisioned nodes

• Firebolt — where it wins

  • Queries Apache Iceberg and other data-lake files directly
  • Exactly-once Kafka ingestion supports streaming workloads
  • Vector search and SQL-based AI functions support AI applications

  Where it doesn't

  • Managed pricing is usage-based rather than a flat monthly tier
  • The displayed $0.92/hour compute rate excludes storage
  • Self-hosted deployment requires managing the deployment environment

• Amazon Redshift9.2/10 · Paid

  A flexible AWS warehouse for analytics, data lakes, streaming, and SQL-based ML.

  Try Amazon RedshiftFull verdict →
• Firebolt8.4/10 · Free plan

  A flexible columnar database for teams combining lakehouse analytics, streaming, and AI.

  Visit FireboltFull verdict →