Amazon Redshift Reviews

Name: Amazon Redshift
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 3.9 (70 reviews)

3.9 out of 5

70 reviews
86% willing to recommend

1,450 followers

What is Amazon Redshift?

Amazon Redshift is a fully administered, petabyte-scale cloud-based data warehouse service. Users are able to begin with a minimal amount of gigabytes of data and can easily scale up to a petabyte or more as needed. This will enable them to utilize their own data to develop new intuitions on how to improve business processes and client relations.

Get the Amazon Redshift Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Redshift, Azure Data Factory, Teradata and more!

Amazon Redshift is the #5 ranked solution in top Cloud Data Warehouse solutions. PeerSpot users give Amazon Redshift an average rating of 7.8 out of 10. Amazon Redshift is most commonly compared to Azure Data Factory: Amazon Redshift vs Azure Data Factory. Amazon Redshift is popular among the midsize enterprise segment, accounting for 65% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 62% of all views.

Helped 849,686 peers since 2012

Featured Amazon Redshift reviews

Ved Prakash Yadav

Senior Data Platform Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

In terms of improvement, I believe Amazon Redshift could work on reducing its costs, as they tend to increase significantly. Additionally, there are occasional issues with nodes going down, which can be problematic. We often encounter issues like someone dropping a column or changing the order of columns, which can cause synchronization problems when pushing data through our pipeline. It's a minor issue, but it can be annoying.

Read full review

Sriram-Natesan

Tech Lead at Impetus

Improvement in the immediate response and the process of getting into a call could be helpful. We have had to wait for at least twenty-four hours to get a call and then wait for a couple more hours for a solution. Improved connectivity to different BI tools and already published connectors for major tools in AWS could enhance the service.

Read full review

FNU AKSHANSH

Senior Data Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

The tool is the one place where the company’s data is stored. We use it extensively. Previously, we had data in multiple databases and structures. Since we started using Redshift, everything is in one place. We have multiple supporting layers and dashboards connected directly to Redshift. It helps and supports all the different businesses.

Read full review

Amazon Redshift mindshare

As of May 2025, the mindshare of Amazon Redshift in the Cloud Data Warehouse category stands at 7.4%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse

PeerResearch reports based on Amazon Redshift reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Cloud Data Warehouse	May 1, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	May 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake	May 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics	May 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Amazon Redshift vs Azure Data Factory	May 1, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Azure Data Factory	4.0	8.1%	92%	90 interviews Add to research
Teradata	4.1	8.7%	87%	76 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Amazon Redshift offers scalability, enabling the handling of petabytes of data with ease. Its columnar storage and Massively Parallel Processing deliver fast query performance. Users appreciate the flexibility to scale node size and the ability to process various file formats. The integration with AWS services is seamless, enhancing data management and analytics. Cost-effectiveness and easy setup are vital features, supporting diverse use cases and ensuring robust data security.

"I would rate Amazon Redshift a ten on a scale of one to ten."
"With the tools we have, Amazon Redshift has the features to query efficiently."
"Amazon Redshift's performance optimization and scalability are quite helpful, providing functionalities such as scaling up and down."

Room for Improvement

Amazon Redshift users express that snapshot restoration for large datasets and data loading processes are slow. Integration with AWS IAM for security and additional DML features would be beneficial. Real-time integration with services like RDS and DynamoDB is lacking. Users mention challenges in migrating from RDBMS due to data type discrepancies. Improvements could be made in query optimization, performance during updates, and scalability. Pricing and customer support also require attention.

"Pricing needs improvement as the solution is expensive."
"I rate their support seven out of ten. It's costly when you enable support. The price is high for technical support."
"Amazon Redshift does not work alone and requires integration with other AWS tools like S3 and Glue for a complete ecosystem."

ROI

Amazon Redshift's ROI varies among users. While some report that it pays for itself within a year, others face increasing costs needing optimization. Moving to a cloud-hosted data platform improves returns significantly. Users with large data sets find it worthwhile, while those with less data regard it as wasteful. Some experience enhanced sales with BI tools running on Redshift. Meanwhile, certain companies are still evaluating its impact as they gather necessary data.

Pricing

Amazon Redshift's pricing is impactful, particularly for enterprise buyers. Users note it as cost-effective for scaling and usage-based charging but expensive for smaller businesses. It's considered competitive in comparison to platforms like Snowflake, Oracle, or Microsoft Azure, though noted as higher in some cases. Cost considerations include licensing on a monthly or pay-per-go model. Pricing is transparent but requires management of nodes. Storage and data processing costs vary based on usage.

"It is an expensive product."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The product is quite expensive."

Popular Use Cases

Amazon Redshift is used for data warehousing and analytics, enabling querying, storing, and analyzing data from various sources. Many leverage it for building centralized data warehouses, integrating with tools like Tableau for reporting and forecasting. Organizations use it for business intelligence, machine learning, and connecting legacy systems. Amazon Redshift supports SQL ETL processes and data modeling and is integrated with AWS services such as S3 and Glue for seamless data operations.

Service and Support

Amazon Redshift support is perceived positively with some challenges. Users find technical support very responsive, but it requires payment. Direct customer service access is sometimes difficult, mainly done through the web UI. While available support options are praised for their expertise and professionalism, they vary depending on subscription levels. Users appreciate quick resolutions and effective documentation, although some report a need for shorter wait times and more frequent accessibility for technical assistance.

Deployment

Amazon Redshift's initial setup is generally simple and straightforward, often requiring minimal clicks or technical expertise. Many found the deployment quick, especially with AWS familiarity. While some faced challenges, particularly with security settings and integration, most appreciated the ease of creating clusters and schemas. Extensive AWS documentation aids those unfamiliar with Redshift. Organizations noted the importance of understanding AWS structure to efficiently handle deployment and maintain optimal performance.

Scalability

Amazon Redshift scales effectively, ideal for large organizations due to its cloud-based nature. It allows seamless node adjustments with minimal issues, handling increased data volumes well. Some users report challenges with larger configurations, and initial synchronization may require more time. Cost considerations and query management are essential for optimal performance. Users find it suits enterprises needing significant data processing capabilities, though some indicate room for improvement in scalability features.

Stability

Amazon Redshift stability varies. Many report no issues and rate it highly stable, with AWS providing quick support. Some encounter challenges with downtime and cluster scaling, citing occasional maintenance woes and resource issues when using many nodes. Reports also mention transparent workload management and reliability during prolonged use. Instances of data center monitoring and successful load balancing with auto-scaling are noted. Users appreciate consistent performance, but some prefer Snowflake for better workload visibility and management.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Amazon Redshift Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

62%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Healthcare Company

Insurance Company

University

Retailer

Transportation Company

Comms Service Provider

Real Estate/Law Firm

Energy/Utilities Company

Media Company

Legal Firm

Construction Company

Hospitality Company

Outsourcing Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Performing Arts

Compare Amazon Redshift with alternative products

Learn more about Amazon Redshift

Initially, users start to develop a data warehouse by initiating what is called an Amazon Redshift cluster or a set of nodes. Once the cluster has been provisioned, users can seamlessly upload data sets, and then begin to perform data analysis queries. Amazon Redshift delivers super-fast query performance, regardless of size, utilizing the exact SQL-based tools and BI applications that most users are already working with today.

The Amazon Redshift service performs all of the work of setting up, operating, and scaling a data warehouse. These tasks include provisioning capacity, monitoring and backing up the cluster, and applying patches and upgrades to the Amazon Redshift engine.

Amazon Redshift Functionalities

Amazon Redshift has many valuable key functionalities. Some of its most useful functionalities include:

Cluster administration: The Amazon Redshift cluster is a group of nodes that contains a leader node and one (or more) compute node(s). The compute nodes needed are dependent on the data size, amount of queries needed, and the query execution functionality desired.
Cluster snapshots: Snapshots are backups of a cluster from an exact point in time. Amazon Redshift offers two types of snapshots: manual and automated. Amazon will store these snapshots internally in the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) utilizing an SSL connection. Whenever a Snapshot restore is needed, Amazon Redshift will create a new cluster and will import data from the snapshot as directed.
Cluster access: Amazon Redshift provides several intuitive features to help define connectivity rules, encrypt data and connections, and control the overall access of your cluster.
IAM credentials and AWS accounts: The Amazon Redshift cluster is only accessible by the AWS account that created the cluster. This automatically secures the cluster and keeps it safe. Inside the AWS account, users access the AWS Identity and IAM protocol to create additional user accounts and manage permissions, granting specified users the desired access needed to control cluster performance.
Encryption: Users have the option to choose to encrypt the clusters for additional added security once the cluster is provisioned. When encryption is enabled, Amazon Redshift will store all the data in user-created tables in a secure encrypted format. To manage Amazon Redshift encryption keys, users will access AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS).

Reviews from Real Users

“Redshift's versioning and data security are the two most critical features. When migrating into the cloud, it's vital to secure the data. The encryption and security are there.” - Kundan A., Senior Consultant at Dynamic Elements AS

“With the cloud version whenever you want to deploy, you can scale up, and down, and it has a data warehousing capability. Redshift has many features. They have enriched and elaborate documentation that is helpful.”- Aishwarya K., Solution Architect at Capgemini