Redshift offers lower costs for predictable, MPP workloads on AWS infrastructure, while Snowflake provides superior multi-cloud flexibility, ease of use, and better performance for ad-hoc queries with its unique architecture. Snowflake dominates in ease of deployment and cross-cloud capability, while Redshift wins on price for consistent, large-scale analytics.
Redshift vs Snowflake — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
AWS-native MPP data warehouse optimized for large-scale batch analytics and predictable workloads.
Enterprise cloud data warehouse with native multi-cloud support and broad BI ecosystem integration.
Architecture Model. Cloud Support. Estimated Annual Cost (1PB analysis). Setup Time to Production. Ad-hoc Query Performance. Concurrent User Support. Data Sharing Native Feature
Choose Redshift if you have predictable, massive analytics workloads on AWS and need to minimize cost per query—it excels at batch processing and can save 30-40% versus Snowflake for consistent usage. Choose Snowflake if you need multi-cloud deployment, rapid time-to-value, high concurrency, or mixed workload patterns (batch + ad-hoc); it's ideal for enterprises seeking flexibility and reduced DevOps overhead despite higher costs.
Amazon Redshift: 8000ms | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: $1.50-$5.00 | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Unlimited historical storage | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 95% (PostgreSQL-compatible) | Snowflake: 95% (full ANSI)
Amazon Redshift: 160-256 | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Petabyte scale | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 1-10 seconds | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Minutes to hours typical | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 2,000+ | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: AWS Proprietary Managed Service | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: AWS only | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Limited via Kinesis/S3 batch | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: $2,160-8,640 (dc2.large, 2-4 nodes) | Snowflake: N/A
Query Latency (1B row scan, 10 column aggregate)
Amazon Redshift: 500-2000ms | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Included in node cost | Snowflake: $23 (on-demand)
Amazon Redshift: 2 (minimum production) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 32 (base, expandable via Concurrency Scaling) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Batch (minutes to hours typical) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 20+ (native connectors) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Not open-source (proprietary) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: $0.50 (DC2.large) | Snowflake: $4.00-$6.00 (Medium warehouse)
Amazon Redshift: ~16 seconds | Snowflake: ~14 seconds
Amazon Redshift: 10-15 (requires cluster resize + restart) | Snowflake: ~1 (auto-scaling, no downtime)
Amazon Redshift: 1 (AWS only) | Snowflake: 3 (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Amazon Redshift: Up to 30% | Snowflake: Up to 20%
Amazon Redshift: 40-80 (distribution keys, sort keys, vacuum) | Snowflake: 4-8 (clustering hints optional)
Annual TCO (100TB storage, average usage)
Amazon Redshift: $200,000 | Snowflake: $260,000
Amazon Redshift: 40-60 hours | Snowflake: 10-15 hours
Amazon Redshift: 50 (standard) | Snowflake: Unlimited
Amazon Redshift: AWS only | Snowflake: AWS, Azure, GCP
Amazon Redshift: Coupled (scale together) | Snowflake: Independent scaling
Amazon Redshift: ~200 (limited) | Snowflake: 1,500+
Amazon Redshift: 70% | Snowflake: None (on-demand only)
Average Query Latency (1 Billion Row Scan)
Amazon Redshift: 10,000+ | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 99.99% | Snowflake: 99.99%
Amazon Redshift: 12+ (S3, Glue, Lambda, Athena, QuickSight, IAM, EventBridge, etc.) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 0.5-2 | Snowflake: Batch-based (bulk loading)
Amazon Redshift: 500ms-5000ms | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: $0.25-$0.50 | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 3-7 days | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 300-3600 seconds | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 6:1 to 15:1 | Snowflake: N/A
Maximum Concurrent Queries (Standard Node)
Amazon Redshift: Full PostgreSQL compatible (95%+ ANSI SQL) | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: Linear scaling with node count limits | Snowflake: N/A
Amazon Redshift: 21-28 days | Snowflake: 2-3 days
Amazon Redshift: 120-240 seconds | Snowflake: 3-5 seconds
Amazon Redshift: 50-100 typical | Snowflake: 500-1000+ elastic
Amazon Redshift: 10:1 average | Snowflake: 3-5:1 average
Amazon Redshift: No (requires replication) | Snowflake: Yes (zero-copy)
Amazon Redshift: Per-second (reserved/on-demand) | Snowflake: Per-second (1 credit minimum per query)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $2,000-$5,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1-3 days
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 10,000+
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Structured (Parquet, CSV, JSON)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Snowflake Marketplace (proprietary)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: SQL primarily
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $2-4 per credit
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 3 (AWS, Azure, GCP)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 20-30 minutes
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Limited by warehouse size
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1,000+ datasets
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Limited by warehouse size, manual tuning
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 22% YoY
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $200-500
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: AWS, Azure, GCP
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 2-4 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Native, cross-account/cross-cloud
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Complete separation
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Available (instant, free)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1-3 weeks
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 30 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $1,500
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 15 minutes
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 100,000 events/sec
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 90 days
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 4:1 to 8:1
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Consumption-based (compute + storage)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 3/10 (very easy)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: <5 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 30-120 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 0.3-0.5 weeks (1-2 days)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $120,000-180,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Up to 50+ PB (cloud limits)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: SQL, Python, Java, JavaScript, Scala
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1-2 years (SQL knowledge)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Yes (sub-second latency)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $240,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 8 (Parquet, CSV, JSON, ORC, AVRO, XML, PDF, Images)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Cloud-only (SaaS)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1,000-10,000ms
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: ~10,000 enterprises
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $10,000-1,000,000 (credits-based)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 3-15 (depends on data size)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Unlimited (petabyte-scale)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 3/10 (managed cloud service)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 2-5 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $120-240
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Limited (external integration required)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Structured (optimized for tables/CSV/JSON)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Unlimited (multi-cluster shared warehouse)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 5-10 minutes
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 32% of cloud data warehouse market
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 2.8x baseline (external ML tools required)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 0.1 weeks (24 hours)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 38 seconds
Starting Monthly Cost (10GB active data)
SQL Query Performance (TPC-DS Benchmark)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Cortex AI (basic)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: High (proprietary format)
Maximum Concurrent Queries Per Warehouse
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 8-128 (warehouse-dependent)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 2500ms
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 500,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: ANSI SQL compliant
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 5 (account creation)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 1 (virtual warehouse)
Query Performance (10TB TPC-DS benchmark)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 5 seconds
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $200,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Fully independent (separate pricing)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: ANSI SQL with advanced optimizations
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 90 days automatic
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 0.5 engineers
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 2,800 stars
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Industry leading (100% baseline)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 5-10 minutes (serverless)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 4/10 (limited native, requires integrations)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $2.00-$4.00 per credit
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 32% enterprise market share (2025)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Limited (structured tables primary)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Native (Secure Shares, production-ready)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 20-35 minutes (SQL based)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $4,000-8,000
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: $2-4 per credit (1 credit = compute + storage)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 100% (must ingest into Snowflake)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: Slower without ingestion; 5-10x slower on unoptimized data lake queries
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 30+ (Tableau, Power BI, Looker, Qlik, Sisense)
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: 90 days retention
Amazon Redshift: N/A | Snowflake: No (requires data copy into Snowflake)
How to choose between Amazon Redshift and Snowflake
Redshift vs Snowflake — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Redshift vs Snowflake. Contains 160 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Redshift vs Snowflake — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Redshift vs Snowflake.
Which is cheaper: Redshift or Snowflake?
Redshift is 25-40% cheaper for predictable, sustained workloads. For 1PB annual throughput, expect $180K-$240K (Redshift) vs $280K-$360K (Snowflake). However, Snowflake's elastic scaling can save money on variable/bursty workloads by avoiding over-provisioning. Redshift requires upfront cluster investment; Snowflake pays as you scale.
Can I use Snowflake if I'm committed to AWS only?
Yes, Snowflake runs on AWS and provides the same functionality. However, you lose the multi-cloud arbitrage advantage. If you're AWS-locked and have predictable workloads, Redshift is typically the better financial choice due to lower costs and tighter integration (VPC, IAM, S3).
How long does it take to get each system production-ready?
Snowflake: 2-3 days (create account, load data, run queries). Redshift: 3-4 weeks (provision cluster, configure security, optimize schema, tune performance). Snowflake's self-tuning architecture eliminates manual tuning; Redshift requires data engineers to design sort keys, distribution keys, and manage compression.
Which is better for real-time dashboards and ad-hoc queries?
Snowflake wins decisively. Its separated compute/storage with auto-scaling delivers sub-5-second responses. Redshift's pre-sized clusters introduce latency (2-4 minutes typical) and require scaling before handling ad-hoc surges. Snowflake handles 500-1000 concurrent users; Redshift handles 50-100 per cluster.
What about data sharing between teams/companies?
Snowflake has native zero-copy data sharing built-in—accounts can share databases without copies. Redshift requires manual replication, snapshots, or data export. For multi-tenant or partner data ecosystems, Snowflake's sharing feature saves weeks of engineering and eliminates sync issues.
How to Choose Between Amazon Redshift and Snowflake
Architecture Model: Amazon Redshift has Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) - dedicated clusters, while Snowflake has Shared compute and storage separation - auto-scaling.
Cloud Support: Amazon Redshift has AWS only, while Snowflake has AWS, Azure, GCP multi-cloud.
Consider: Estimated Annual Cost (1PB analysis)
Estimated Annual Cost (1PB analysis): Amazon Redshift has $180,000-$240,000, while Snowflake has $280,000-$360,000.
Setup Time to Production: Amazon Redshift has 3-4 weeks (cluster provisioning, tuning), while Snowflake has 2-3 days (minimal configuration).
Ad-hoc Query Performance: Amazon Redshift has Slower due to cluster pre-sizing requirements, while Snowflake has Faster with dynamic compute scaling.
Concurrent User Support: Amazon Redshift has 50-100 typical per cluster, while Snowflake has 500-1000+ with elastic scaling.
Data Sharing Native Feature: Amazon Redshift has Limited (requires replication), while Snowflake has Built-in zero-copy sharing.