Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift: A broad AWS-native warehouse with flexible deployments, but no free plan. Ranked #2 of 27 in Data Warehouse Software by our editors (9.2/10); pricing: Paid; best for AWS-centric analytics teams.
At a glance
- Editor score9.2 / 10
- PricingPaid
- Best forAWS-centric analytics teams
- Free planNo
- Paid from$0.54/unit usage-based
- Pricing modelHybrid
- Facts checked20 Sep 2026
Where it wins
- Provisioned and serverless deployment options
- Queries Amazon S3 data lakes and supports streaming ingestion
- Native SQL-based machine learning with Redshift ML
Where it doesn't
- No free plan
- Serverless is priced at $1.50 per hour
- Managed storage is billed separately for some provisioned nodes
Our verdict on Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift is a fully managed cloud data warehouse for analyzing large datasets with SQL. It supports data teams, analysts, developers, and organizations running business intelligence, data lake, real-time analytics, and predictive modeling workloads. Its fit is strongest for teams already working across AWS services and needing a warehouse that can support both structured analytics and broader data workflows.
The published plans offer two deployment models. Provisioned starts at $0.543 per hour for cluster capacity, with on-demand hourly billing; managed storage is billed separately for RG and RA3 nodes. Serverless costs $1.50 per hour, automatically scales compute capacity, bills RPU-hours on a per-second basis, and has no separate charges for concurrency scaling or Redshift Spectrum. There is no free plan, so buyers should match the deployment model and workload pattern to their expected usage. Redshift also connects with Amazon S3, Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon MSK, Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, SageMaker, EMR, AWS Glue, QuickSight, Bedrock, Apache Spark, Tableau, Power BI, and dbt.
Its breadth is a central strength. Redshift can query Amazon S3 data lakes, ingest streaming data, connect to AWS databases through zero-ETL integrations, share data across Redshift warehouses, and provide programmatic SQL access through the Data API. Redshift ML supports creating, training, and deploying models with SQL, while concurrency scaling addresses concurrent queries and users. Choose Redshift when AWS integration, multiple deployment options, and combined warehouse, lake, streaming, and machine-learning workflows matter. Consider a narrower alternative if you need a free plan or do not need this level of AWS and analytics-service integration.
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Amazon Redshift pricing
All 2 Amazon Redshift plans and prices →
Amazon Redshift fact sheet
| Free plan | No |
|---|---|
| Paid from | $0.54/unit usage-based |
| Deployment model | Cloud |
| Pricing model | Hybrid |
| Separate storage and compute | Yes |
| Data lake support | Yes |
| Streaming ingestion | Yes |
| In-database machine learning | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud |
| Platforms | Web |
| Compliance & security | SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SSO/SAML, 2FA |
| Support | Email, Live chat, Phone, Tickets, Docs |
| Built for | Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise (editorial estimate) |
| Integrations | 15 integrations: Amazon S3, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka, Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB … See all → |
| Pricing | Paid (source) |
| Website | aws.amazon.com |
| Facts checked | 20 Sep 2026 |
Amazon Redshift integrations
Amazon Redshift lists 15 integrations on its own site.
- Amazon S3
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
- Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka
- Amazon Aurora
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon SageMaker
- Amazon EMR
- AWS Glue
- Amazon QuickSight
- Amazon Bedrock
- Apache Spark
- Tableau
- Microsoft Power BI
- dbt
See all Amazon Redshift integrations →
Alternatives to Amazon Redshift
- Google BigQueryA broad serverless warehouse with flexible analytics, lake, streaming, governance, and ML capabilities.9.4
- Oracle Autonomous Data WarehouseA broad Oracle warehouse for teams that want automation, analytics, and a free starting tier.9.0
- Databricks SQL WarehouseA governed SQL warehouse for teams combining lakehouse data, BI, and elastic compute.8.9
See all Amazon Redshift alternatives →
Amazon Redshift vs the competition
- Amazon Redshift vs Google BigQuery
- Amazon Redshift vs Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse
- Amazon Redshift vs Databricks SQL Warehouse
- Amazon Redshift vs Azure Synapse Analytics
- Amazon Redshift vs Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute
- Amazon Redshift vs Alibaba Cloud AnalyticDB
Compare Amazon Redshift with any tool side by side →
Also Ranked In
Amazon Redshift is ranked in 10 of our directories; the 6 strongest besides Data Warehouse Software.
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Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
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