Amazon Redshift vs Firebolt
Amazon Redshift
aws.amazon.com
Firebolt
firebolt.ioSide by side
| Figure | Amazon Redshift | Firebolt |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.54/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Cloud Analytics Solutions | 8.3 (#6) | 8.2 (#7) |
| Spec score · Data Warehouse Software | 8.2 (#6) | 8.0 (#8) |
| Spec score · OLAP Software | 8.3 (#8) | 7.9 (#18) |
| Spec score · Columnar Databases | 8.3 (#7) | 7.9 (#13) |
| Spec score · OLAP Databases | 8.2 (#8) | 7.9 (#14) |
| Spec score · Analytical Data Store Software | 8.2 (#8) | 7.9 (#14) |
| Spec score · Analytics Databases | 8.3 (#9) | 8.0 (#13) |
| Spec score · Analytics Data | 8.3 (#9) | 8.0 (#15) |
| Deployment | It offers provisioned and serverless deployment options. | It runs as a single binary on a laptop or as a cluster of hundreds of nodes in your own cloud. |
| Security | Redshift supports encryption in transit and at rest, row- and column-level access controls, and dynamic data masking. | Firebolt lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, HIPAA support, GDPR alignment, MFA, RBAC, and encryption in transit and at rest. |
Plans
Amazon Redshift
- Provisioned$0.54 a month
- Serverless$1.50 a month
- Provisioned on-demand$0.54 a month
- Redshift Serverless on-demand$1.50 a month
In their own words
Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift is a cloud data warehouse for SQL analytics across data warehouses and data lakes. It offers provisioned and serverless deployments, with options AWS says can scale to petabytes and support thousands of concurrent users. Redshift runs read-only SQL queries on Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi, and Delta Lake tables, plus open file formats in Amazon S3. Zero-ETL integrations connect with Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and enterprise applications. Streaming ingestion connects with Amazon Kinesis Data Streams and Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka. Listed integrations include QuickSight, Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Alteryx, Jupyter Notebook, Informatica, dbt, MicroStrategy, and Looker. The Data API supports AWS SDK languages including Python, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, and C++. Security includes encryption, row- and column-level controls, and dynamic masking. It is paid, has no free plan, offers a free trial, and starts at $0.54 per month for Provisioned or $1.50 per month for Serverless.
Firebolt
Firebolt is an open-source analytical database for engineers, with Postgres-compatible SQL and options for self-managed or managed deployment. It can run as a single binary on a laptop or scale to a cluster of hundreds of nodes in a customer’s cloud. Firebolt is designed for sub-second query latency and high-concurrency analytics, and supports Apache Iceberg and DuckLake using open storage standards. Deployment choices include a single binary, Helm chart, Kubernetes Operator, and managed service. Firebolt Core is free forever for self-hosted use, with no usage limits; it cannot be used to build a hosted SaaS that competes with Firebolt’s managed service. Managed compute is billed per second, with scale-to-zero, automatic start and stop, and autoscaling. Object storage is pass-through at $0.0264 / GB·mo, and the managed service includes $200 free credits. AI capabilities include query and embedding functions, vector search, an MCP Server, and a preview agent. Self-managed availability includes AWS and GCP, with Azure in preview; the managed service is currently AWS-only.