Apache Kylin vs Exasol
Apache Kylin
kylin.apache.org
Exasol
exasol.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache Kylin | Exasol |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $3.30/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 18 |
| Spec score · OLAP Software | 8.6 (#6) | 9.1 (#2) |
| Spec score · Analytics Databases | 8.5 (#6) | 9.2 (#1) |
| Spec score · OLAP Databases | 8.5 (#6) | 9.1 (#2) |
| Spec score · Analytical Data Store Software | 8.5 (#6) | 9.1 (#3) |
| Spec score · Big Data Analytics Software | 8.5 (#8) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Deployment | Kylin provides a web UI and can be deployed with query, job, or all server modes. | Exasol lists on-premises, hybrid, and fully managed SaaS deployment options; on-premises environments can include air-gapped setups. |
| Founded | 2014 | 2000 |
| Product | Apache Kylin is an open source OLAP engine for big data analytics, designed for sub-second queries on trillions of records. | Exasol describes itself as a sovereign analytics database for high-concurrency AI and analytics workloads. |
| Support | The project directs users to its user mailing list and Apache Kylin JIRA for questions and issues. | Exasol’s support page lists 24/7 incident troubleshooting and monitoring, plus performance analysis, maintenance, and planning assistance. |
Plans
Exasol
- XS$3.30 a month
- S$6.60 a month
- M$13.20 a month
- L$26.40 a month
- XL$52.80 a month
- 2XL$105.60 a month
- 3XL$158.40 a month
- Storage$25 a month
- Exasol Community EditionFree
- Exasol PersonalFree
In their own words
Apache Kylin
Apache Kylin is an open-source OLAP engine for data analytics, designed for large-scale workloads with many concurrent users. Its pre-calculation approach is intended to support sub-second SQL queries. Kylin 5 can build models from SQL text, suggest index changes using query history, and use Apache Gluten as a native compute engine; the product overview describes a 2–4× improvement compared with vanilla Spark. For mixed data workloads, it supports Kafka streaming sources and fusion models for batch and streaming analysis, as well as internal tables for flexible queries and lakehouse scenarios. Teams can connect Tableau, Power BI, or Excel. A web UI supports table management, model design, job execution, and configuration. Deployment offers query, job, or all server modes. Kylin runs on Linux and uses Spark with Yarn or Standalone mode. Data storage can use HDFS or S3-compatible systems, while MySQL or PostgreSQL can hold metadata. The project is free under Apache License v2, with source and binary packages available. APIs use Basic Authentication; HTTPS is supported in Kylin 5 but disabled by default.
Exasol
Exasol is a database for analytics and high-concurrency AI workloads, available in cloud, on-premises, hybrid, and fully managed SaaS deployments. The company says teams can analyze billions of rows in seconds and that automatic self-indexing helps tune performance. SaaS includes five databases, multi-cluster support, basic UDF support, advanced in-database analytics, and data virtualization. Teams can scale vertically or add clusters with dedicated compute for work such as data ingest or machine learning. The 30-day SaaS trial includes $200 of usage and requires no credit card. Pay-as-you-go compute is billed hourly; XS is $3.30 a month and S is $6.60 a month, while storage is listed separately at $25 a month. Free options include Exasol Personal, licensed for a single user and up to two connected data sources, and Community Edition, limited to 200GB of data. Exasol lists integrations including Airbyte, Alation, Amazon QuickSight, Apache Airflow, and Apache Superset. Its documentation covers multiple authentication methods and TLS encryption for database connections; encryption at rest must be configured on the supplied file systems and devices.