Google BigQuery vs Amazon Athena

Google BigQuery9.3Visit Amazon Athena8.9Visit

Higher score Google BigQuery #1 in Query Engine Software 9.3/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 4 features Try Google BigQuery

vs

Amazon Athena #4 in Query Engine Software 8.9/10 Paid ✓ 0 of 4 features Visit Amazon Athena

• Google BigQuery fits best

  Broad, low-friction cloud analytics

• Amazon Athena fits best

  S3-centric serverless SQL

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Side by side

Feature	Google BigQuery 9.3/10 Visit ↗	Amazon Athena 8.9/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.3	8.9
Ranking	#1 in Query Engine Software	#4 in Query Engine Software
Best for	Broad, low-friction cloud analytics	S3-centric serverless SQL
Pricing model	Free	Paid
Starting price	Free	$0.30/unit usage-based
Free plan	✓ (best)	—
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud
Platforms	Web	Web
Support	Docs, Live chat, Phone, Tickets, Community	Docs
Integrations	10 integrations	30+ integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Google BigQuery 0/4 · Amazon Athena 0/4
Federated queries	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Heterogeneous sources	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Result caching	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Streaming sources	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Deployment	Not checked yet	Cloud
SQL support	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Source connectors	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Serverless SQL with storage and compute that scale independently Federated queries, streaming ingestion, and data lake support Built-in ML, governance, vector search, and generative AI functions	Queries Amazon S3 data with standard SQL without managing infrastructure Supports federated queries across relational, non-relational, and custom sources Includes Glue Catalog, JDBC/ODBC, Spark, and workgroup cost controls
Cons	Usage-based pricing can vary by query, storage, region, and operation Capacity-based editions add planning beyond the free tier Cloud-only deployment may not suit teams seeking local infrastructure	SQL queries are billed by data scanned rather than fixed user plans Advanced governance depends on AWS services such as Lake Formation Its broad AWS ecosystem may be more than narrow SQL use cases need
Our verdict	Google BigQuery is a fully managed, serverless cloud data warehouse for organizations that need to store, query, and analyze large datasets. It is designed for data engineering, business intelligence, data science, real-time analytics, and… Read the review →	Amazon Athena is a cloud-based, serverless query service for analysts, data engineers, developers, and organizations that need interactive analytics without managing query infrastructure. It uses standard SQL to query data stored in Amazon… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Google BigQuery — where it wins

  • Serverless SQL with storage and compute that scale independently
  • Federated queries, streaming ingestion, and data lake support
  • Built-in ML, governance, vector search, and generative AI functions

  Where it doesn't

  • Usage-based pricing can vary by query, storage, region, and operation
  • Capacity-based editions add planning beyond the free tier
  • Cloud-only deployment may not suit teams seeking local infrastructure

• Amazon Athena — where it wins

  • Queries Amazon S3 data with standard SQL without managing infrastructure
  • Supports federated queries across relational, non-relational, and custom sources
  • Includes Glue Catalog, JDBC/ODBC, Spark, and workgroup cost controls

  Where it doesn't

  • SQL queries are billed by data scanned rather than fixed user plans
  • Advanced governance depends on AWS services such as Lake Formation
  • Its broad AWS ecosystem may be more than narrow SQL use cases need

• Google BigQuery9.3/10 · Free plan

  A broad, serverless query engine with flexible pricing and extensive analytics capabilities.

  Try Google BigQueryFull verdict →
• Amazon Athena8.9/10 · Paid

  A usage-priced serverless SQL engine for querying S3 and connected data sources.

  Visit Amazon AthenaFull verdict →