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Amazon Redshift vs SQL Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.0
Some entities quickly achieved cost savings and ROI, while others face challenges with optimization and evaluating benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
SQL Server provides strong ROI with cost-effective pricing, essential features, and efficiency in analytical tasks, ideal for small applications.
We earned back our investment in Amazon Redshift within the first year.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SQL Server is the most cost-effective with good human resource availability to manage it.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
With Standard edition, they have saved a ton of money and they are really happy about that.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon Redshift support is efficient yet costly, praised for documentation, but phone contact and complex issue resolution face delays.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft's SQL Server support is generally helpful, though some users experience delays and desire improvements in speed and clarity.
Whenever we need support, if there is an issue accessing stored data due to regional data center problems, the Amazon team is very helpful and provides optimal solutions quickly.
Analyst at Cepstrum(EEE Students Society), IIT Guwahati
Documentation that allows anyone with prior knowledge of Redshift or SQL to resolve technical issues.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It's costly when you enable support.
Senior Analyst at ESRI INDIA
I give their technical support a rating of ten out of ten.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
There was a time when Microsoft support provided very crisp answers, but over time, they have diluted their support to third parties, leading to a drop in support quality.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When we created support tickets, the experience was very positive.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Amazon Redshift is highly scalable with flexible cluster adjustments, despite some challenges at larger scales and heavy loads.
Sentiment score
7.0
SQL Server scales well but faces challenges with very large databases and seeks improvements for competitive scalability, especially in cloud.
The scalability part needs improvement as the sizing requires trial and error.
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
We have successfully increased our storage space, which was a smooth process without server crashes before or after scaling.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The server where we installed it has grown from 64 gigabytes in RAM to 256 gigabytes, demonstrating significant scalability capabilities.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
Most of the time, they simply add another node in the availability group.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
I can scale both horizontally and vertically without challenges.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Opinions on Amazon Redshift's stability vary, with some praising reliability and others noting issues in large clusters or maintenance.
Sentiment score
7.6
SQL Server is praised for stability and reliability despite occasional configuration challenges and rare performance issues.
Amazon Redshift is a stable product, and I would rate it nine or ten out of ten for stability.
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
There was an issue with memory-optimized tables, but it was resolved in 2025, allowing you to remove that file group, which was not possible before.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
All applications supporting SQL Server in my experience work very well across various industries including telecom, finance, banking, ad, entertainment, and workforce management.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SQL Server is absolutely stable.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Redshift users face challenges with performance, integration, cost, and features, preferring improved solutions like Snowflake's offerings.
SQL Server users seek better integration, improved performance, security, simpler licensing, enhanced user interface, and increased automation.
They should bring the entire ETL data management process into Amazon Redshift.
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
Integration with AI could be a good improvement.
Analyst at Cepstrum(EEE Students Society), IIT Guwahati
Integration with AI features could elevate its capabilities and popularity.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements.
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
I would appreciate using Microsoft Pro as it can integrate with Excel or, with a simple query, consume information from the database using Microsoft Excel.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
When we consider the price for replication in another site, the pricing becomes prohibitive.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Redshift offers mid-to-high pricing, seen as reasonable due to its scalability and potential cost-effectiveness compared to competitors.
SQL Server pricing is competitive yet costly for enterprises, with users seeking more flexible, cloud-like pricing models.
The cost of technical support is high.
Senior Analyst at ESRI INDIA
It's a pretty good price and reasonable for the product quality.
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
The pricing of Amazon Redshift is expensive.
Co-Founder, Director at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Cost savings on human resources for Windows plus SQL Server versus other solutions.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I think the pricing is high, but I am not sure how much our organization is paying, as I am not part of the management team.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Redshift offers scalability, fast queries, AWS integration, flexibility, security, cost-effectiveness, easy setup, and compatibility for complex data management.
SQL Server excels in high availability, security, user interface, integration, performance, scalability, data processing tools, and customer support.
Amazon Redshift's performance optimization and scalability are quite helpful, providing functionalities such as scaling up and down.
Data Analytics, Ai & Automation Lead at a venture capital & private equity firm with 10,001+ employees
Scalability is also a strong point; I can scale it however I want without any limitations.
Co-Founder, Director at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
The specific features of Amazon Redshift that are beneficial for handling large data sets include fast retrieval due to cloud services and scalability, which allows us to retrieve data quickly.
Analyst at Cepstrum(EEE Students Society), IIT Guwahati
Always On HADR functionality is one of the features that I use on a daily basis and one of my most used features, saving me lots of time, especially since previously I had to build a SQL cluster and Windows clusters that had many dependencies on shared infrastructure, but now with Always On, it is too stable with easy management and almost zero maintenance, which SQL Server handles itself.
Manager - Production Database Administration at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I have been working with SQL Server for a long time, and it works well for me as I am using it in different applications, such as web applications, Windows applications, or the data warehouse reporting.
Infrastructure Coordinator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability.
Subdirector of Support for Production at Servicios Electrónicos Globales -Oficial
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Redshift
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (7th), Cloud Data Warehouse (8th)
SQL Server
Ranking in Database Management Systems (DBMS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Database Management Systems (DBMS) category, the mindshare of Amazon Redshift is 4.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQL Server is 12.9%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Database Management Systems (DBMS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SQL Server12.9%
Amazon Redshift4.1%
Other83.0%
Database Management Systems (DBMS)
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Optimized restaurant analytics has driven faster insights and streamlined daily reporting
Amazon Redshift offers massive parallel processing capability, allowing it to handle millions of records, along with integration with other AWS features such as S3 and QuickSight. The column-level storage supports high performance and easy data retrieval compared to other tools. The integration with S3 has helped my team immensely since S3 is our starting source, and the direct integration with Amazon Redshift simplifies the transformation and loading process. Columnar storage has benefited our performance significantly, allowing us to extract specific rows from tables with years of data much faster than other tools with row-level storage. Amazon Redshift has positively impacted our organization by significantly improving query performance and speed. Features such as easy integration with S3 allow us to process millions of records efficiently, ultimately saving us nearly one hour per day for our project.
Peter Larsson - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Warehouse Lead at Resurs Bank AB (publ.)
Ledger and seamless integrations have strengthened trusted analytics and unified workloads
SQL Server's high availability and disaster recovery features work for supporting mission-critical applications, but there is much more to wish for. These features are not quite ready yet, although they do function. However, they could be significantly better. High availability and disaster recovery features should be improved in the next releases. I have noticed that everything could be improved or enhanced in the future, particularly temporal tables and window functions. Sometimes, I believe Microsoft releases features to stay ahead of competitors, but they do not make them feature-rich or feature-complete. They release something to be ahead of leaders and then seem to forget to maintain and upgrade them. I want Microsoft to pay more attention and be more mindful about the things they implement. It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements. You must continue to build on features rather than forgetting about them.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
37%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business119
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise119
 

Questions from the Community

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Redshift?
My experience with pricing and setup cost is satisfactory, as we have been loyal clients of Amazon since the beginning of our organization. However, I am not aware of the exact costs associated wit...
What needs improvement with Amazon Redshift?
Amazon Redshift could improve by enhancing its UI to be more user-friendly for non-technical users and by offering better cost management, as similar tools tend to be less expensive. Additionally, ...
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Liberty Mutual Insurance, 4Cite Marketing, BrandVerity, DNA Plc, Sirocco Systems, Gainsight, Blue 449
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Redshift vs. SQL Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.