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reviewer1752741 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
MSP
Jan 10, 2022
Has improved the performance of queries
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is easy."
  • "The solution has four maintenance windows so, when it comes to stability, I think it would be better to decrease their number."

What is our primary use case?

We are using the latest version of Amazon Redshift, although I cannot state which one. It is actually updated automatically, which prevents us from tracking it.

We use Amazon Redshift as our data warehouse solution. We use it for collecting and analyzing our data. We store our data for analytics in the solution.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has improved the performance of our queries.

What is most valuable?

We like that the solution is a scalable, column-store database. We are completely talking about an analytic database.

What needs improvement?

I cannot state which features of the solution are in need of improvement, since those which we make use of have not changed.

The solution has four maintenance windows so, when it comes to stability, I think it would be better to decrease their number.

I rate the solution as an eight out of ten because it is not 100 percent, as there is much service-related maintenance required. It would be nice to see support for the usual LTP features, such as those involving traditional processing.

Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
February 2026
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has four maintenance windows so, when it comes to stability, I think it would be better to decrease their number.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

We use the solution extensively, as part of our daily work.

The decision to increase our usage would depend on our business needs.

How are customer service and support?

I cannot comment on technical support, as I have never had contact with them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to going with Amazon Redshift, I used Azure Data Warehouse and Google BigQuery.

The decision to go with Amazon Redshift was reached by the CTO, so that, in respect of the data warehouse, the entire environment is set up in Amazon.

I feel Amazon to be better than the other solutions we worked with.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. Just one or two clicks are needed to set up the solution.

What about the implementation team?

We did not make use of a consultant or integrator.

Not much staff is required to maintain the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am not aware of the licensing terms.

What other advice do I have?

I am just the user and we make use of the solution.

The solution is deployed solely on the cloud.

I believe there are around 20 people making use of the solution in our environment.

While the solution is not appropriate for every case in which usage must be evaluated, it can be used for sure.

I rate Amazon Redshift as an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Oct 10, 2021
Integration with Excel is useful and has excellent performance
Pros and Cons
  • "Redshift's Excel features are handy. Redshift spectrum allows you to directly query the data on an Excel sheet. Now, SQL Server also allows this, but Redshift has many more features."
  • "Amazon should provide more cloud-native tools that can integrate with Redshift like Microsoft's development tools for Azure."

What is most valuable?

Redshift's Excel features are handy. Redshift spectrum allows you to directly query the data on an Excel sheet. Now, SQL Server also allows this, but Redshift has many more features.

What needs improvement?

Amazon should provide more cloud-native tools that can integrate with Redshift like Microsoft's development tools for Azure. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've only used Redshift a couple of times to do a proof of concept.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Redshift has had some scaling issues, but Redshift's performance overall is excellent. 

How are customer service and support?

We haven't encountered many challenges so far.

How was the initial setup?

Redshift setup is easy. It's not an issue. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Redshift nine out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing Redshift, I would recommend focusing on the use case. It's a warehouse database, not a transactional system, so they need to plan their workload before migrating to Redshift.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon Redshift
February 2026
Learn what your peers think about Amazon Redshift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer937020 - PeerSpot reviewer
Financial Performance Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jul 14, 2021
Stable and easy to migrate to the could but data uploading could be faster
Pros and Cons
  • "Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers."
  • "The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster."

What is our primary use case?

Our data warehouse is Redshift now.

What is most valuable?

Overall, I'm satisfied with the solution so far, and, from an accounting perspective, it works well for my tasks and duties. 

The product is very stable. 

Changing from local servers to the cloud is very easy. It's so nice not to have to worry about physical servers. 

What needs improvement?

We need more AWS applications. They have some solutions from Amazon that can manage performance, however, we will need something that can also manage financial reporting, visualization, and analytics - instead of having to go to other solutions like Tableau or Power BI. If they can offer comparable options, we'd like to be able to choose all AWS solutions instead of other platforms. 

The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster.

It could be more efficient during tasks such as data refreshing or uploading. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about a year or so. It hasn't been too long just yet.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. It's better than OWC, as a technology. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

How are customer service and technical support?

I cannot speak to how helpful technical support is as this is not my area of expertise here. I'm not directly connected with AWS. That said, it is my understanding that they are doing a pretty good job with our own technical team and they have been helpful.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used ODBC before to maintain our tables. Oracle ODBC was used as a server, as a data warehouse environment.

Changing to Redshift was a big change for us. However, after a while, we get used to it and it is okay now as it's coming together under a bigger picture of a framework, as a bigger framework. We are going to keep everything in the cloud and moving to AWS and we will put everything there and manage it as a framework going forward.

How was the initial setup?

I'm not using it day in, day out and I did not handle the initial setup. There is a team involved with that side of the product. I'm using it for the closing of the accounting cycle every month. I don't handle implementation tasks. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I cannot speak to the pricing. I don't handle billing or payments. 

What other advice do I have?

We're customers and end-users.

While I cannot speak to the exact version number, my understanding is that we are using the most up-to-date version of the solution. 

I'd advise those considering the solution to go for AWS products. They are the best. You will have more synergy between your software. It's nice not having multi-software working on the technology itself. If you can, use as many genuine Amazon products as possible and integrate them together. 

Overall, I would rate the product at a seven out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1463265 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
May 19, 2021
Great modeling capabilities and very user friendly SQL editor and connectors
Pros and Cons
  • "Has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors."
  • "Improvement could be made in the area of streaming data."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of this product is as a data warehouse. We are partners with Amazon. 

What is most valuable?

Amazon Redshift has a very user-friendly SQL editor and it's very easy to use the connectors. The product provides a lot of options to connect to different sources and the modeling capabilities are also good. As a fully managed data warehouse solution, the two important aspects are the connectors and how well we can use SQL for data modeling. In both cases, this is an efficient product.

What needs improvement?

Improvement could be made in the area of streaming data. The capability can definitely be improved. There are other products like Kinesis which is a separate service we use for streaming data ingestion. Whatever features are missing in Redshift, they have separate sources but if there were the feasibility to ingest real-time streaming data directly into RedShift, that would be very useful. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for the past year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is 100% stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. This is backend technology and end users are not aware they are using it. We probably have four or five users in the company. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is good, they're very responsive. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple because it's a fully managed service and not much is required from the user's end.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing is paid on a monthly basis, and I think the pricing is acceptable. They also have a pay-per-go model which is on a per user basis. 

What other advice do I have?

If a company is already using Amazon Cloud or they're looking for a cloud solution, Amazon is one of the oldest and most reliable cloud service providers and Redshift is a no-brainer for data warehouse needs.

I rate this product a nine out of 10. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
DBA at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Mar 11, 2021
Costs less than Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Azure solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "Amazon Redshift is very fast. It has really good response times. It's very user-friendly."
  • "There is some missing functionality and sometimes it's so difficult to work in. We need to convert these functionalities using VACUUM inside Amazon Redshift and then it causes some complexity."

What is most valuable?

Amazon Redshift is very fast. It has really good response times. It's very user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

Redshift is a multi-tier engine that works like a calculator. There is some missing functionality and sometimes it's so difficult to work in. We need to convert these functionalities using VACUUM inside Amazon Redshift and then it causes some complexity. Sometimes I'd like for them to support some special features or some special installations because we need automatic populations. I would like to see more programming outside of the cloud. I would like to see more functionalities under JSON files. the only functionality that they have now with JSON is reports. I would also like to see other data sources like MongoDB.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Amazon Redshift for three years. I use the latest version because it is on Amazon's public cloud.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The management of the dates for what we can deliver to it, it's always specific to the form that's defined to Amazon Redshift.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have used their technical support only a few times. Before talking to support I usually try to troubleshoot things myself and I'm usually able to resolve any issues. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In the past year, we have used Azure, but the committee has chosen Amazon Redshift because it is better than Azure for our company needs. We have grown around Amazon Redshift and other AWS solutions.

How was the initial setup?

Amazon Redshift is not as straightforward as other AWS tools but it is not that difficult.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Amazon Redshift costs less than Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Azure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I started using Amazon Redshift because I started working for this company that was working with both Azure and Amazon. The company eventually moved all to Amazon. I wasn't sure why they didn't continue to use Azure. My experience was more with Microsoft technology so I prefer Azure. But, there are some interesting features in Amazon Redshift that works better. I have also used Oracle Cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Amazon Redshift as it is part of the AWS platform and they are the biggest in the world.

I would give Amazon Redshift a rating of eight on a scale of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
CEO at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Real User
Oct 22, 2020
Good support and provides on-the-fly analytics capabilities, but it needs to be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature that we find most useful is the ability to do analytics on the fly."
  • "In our experiments, the handling of unstructured data was not very smooth."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider and Amazon Redshift is one of the products that we implement for our clients. We are working with a few customers that have it implemented right now.

What is most valuable?

The feature that we find most useful is the ability to do analytics on the fly. It's the most important because it gives us the ability to provide solutions to multiple customers.

What needs improvement?

We have had some challenges with respect to considering some of the high-end availability architecture for production. We don't find many issues now, but initially, we had some challenges.

This is an older product, so when it comes to usability, it requires a technical person to work with it. It requires a specialist and a good business case to work on it. It has to be a little more user-friendly than what it is today.

In our experiments, the handling of unstructured data was not very smooth.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Redshift for the last year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is fairly stable and works reasonably well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We tested the scalability to 10 or 15 terabytes and we didn't have an issue with it. I'm not sure what the limit is.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is very good and they have helped us to move forward with this product. We also had a lot of good support from the community, as well.

How was the initial setup?

It is not complex for a specialist because it is fairly well documented and systematic.

The specialists required by this product are what you will find in most enterprises. However, in a smaller organization, you might have to engage multiple parties with separate expertise to set it up correctly. For example, you will require somebody with experience in database migration to the cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

At the moment, pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it depends on the size of the company. If it's a fairly large enterprise that has a defined budget then they may not have too much of an issue with the pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have also tried Cosmos DB and Azure for our customers, but they were not chosen after the PoC. Azure and AWS have different database offerings and we experimented with both, but the customer ended up in production and we stayed with that.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is implementing Redshift is to ensure that the requirements include having technical people on board to continuously work on getting the results you want. Because it's not that user-friendly, there is a need for a technical resource in the company.

Also, I would suggest watching out for scalability beyond what we have tested. If there is a need for scaling then it should be tested, although it depends on the use case.

If Redshift had a proper interface then I would score it higher.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
PeerSpot user
Cloud & Data - practice leader at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Jul 21, 2020
Quick to deploy, easy to use, and performs well, but ingesting data in realtime should be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the cost-benefit ratio, meaning that it is as easy to use as it is powerful and well-performing."
  • "There are too many limitations with respect to concurrency."

What is our primary use case?

We are a service provider and we currently have five clients with active IT implementations that use Amazon Redshift. We also use it ourselves.

My clients primarily use this product for data analytics. They are mostly working with big data and using the machine learning functionality.

What is most valuable?

I like the cost-benefit ratio, meaning that it is as easy to use as it is powerful and well-performing. There are only three parameters that you need to understand, which are the distribution key, the sort key, and the compression method or encoding method. Once you understand these, you can tune the performance.

What needs improvement?

I would like a better way to ingest data in realtime because there is a bit too much latency.

There are too many limitations with respect to concurrency. It is now possible to auto-scale it, although that is still slow.

It could offer smaller nodes with decoupling of storage and processing because for the moment, the only nodes available to work that way are huge, and for large companies.

For how long have I used the solution?

My first implementation of Redshift was three and a half years ago, in 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not had many issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability can be a problem if you don't write your database queries correctly. For example, if you write a cartesian product in Redshift then you may end up consuming all of the resources. However, it does have features like workload management to prevent this from happening.

Our clients are mid-sized to very large companies.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have been in touch with Amazon technical support and they are very good. They are efficient and resolve problems quickly. They know what they're doing and they're very professional.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also used Snowflake and its methods for ingesting real-time data are faster. It also offers a bit more functionality and a bit more flexibility. It's a bit easier to maintain and faster to scale, but more expensive as well.

To me, the big drawback with Snowflake is that the data is not stored in your AWS or Azure subscription, or AWS account. They store the data in their own account that they manage for you, which might be a problem for some companies in terms of compliance and legal requirements.

Azure Synapse and Google BigQuery are also competing solutions.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is very straightforward and it usually takes a couple of minutes. This is one of the reasons I like it.

As long as a person understands the AWS landscape, they can deploy it on their own. Otherwise, without realizing it, they might for example deploy a Redshift cluster that is not properly secure. Similarly, it could cost a lot of money if they don't know what they're doing. You don't need a very in-depth technical expertise, but you do need to understand how AWS works.

What about the implementation team?

I have a team that provides maintenance for our customers. It is spread between France and Belgium and I have 25 people who report to me, with another 20 who I work with indirectly.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost of Redshift ranges from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands of dollars a month, according to the resources that you're going to use, the number of nodes, and the type of nodes.

My customers have implementations that cost about $500 a month for a very small one. I also have a customer with a monthly invoice of about $25,000 USD.

What other advice do I have?

With the most recent update, we should now be able to decouple storage from processes.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Redshift is to make sure that they are using it for what it is made to do. It's an analytical database, so it's not meant to process transactional data. It's the perfect tool if you use it for the right purpose.

Overall, it is a very stable and robust product. That said, there is still plenty of potential for improvement.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Chief Executive Officer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Real User
Jun 23, 2020
Scales according to our needs, which saves a lot in terms of upfront costs
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the scalability, as it grows according to our needs."
  • "The OLAP slide and dice features need to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are a digital transformation services company, and we are using Amazon Redshift for one of our clients. They are a logistics company that has transportation and other needs.

Their first requirement is for financial reporting, where we pull financial data from their many ERP systems and can provide a corporate-level view.

There is also an operations standpoint, where they are looking for operational insights. For this, we again pull different information from their ERPs, bring it into Redshift, and then model it in such a way that they will be able to see a consolidated view in terms of operational success across lines of business.

How has it helped my organization?

I've been working with data warehouses for a long time and it has always been the case that we had to invest quite a bit on infrastructure, upfront. We are used to dealing with Teradata, and the cost of setting up the data center and getting the appropriate licenses was a big deal. Now, we are able to spin up some clusters and then start using it, allowing us to incrementally pay as we expand.

This has become a big shift in how we spend because there is no capital cost upfront. Moreover, this works with startups as well as with enterprise, and they provide an equal footing. This means that even the advanced capabilities and insights that are available with a data warehouse are no longer limited to the larger clients. Even a startup can use these features, immediately.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the scalability, as it grows according to our needs.

The part that I like best is that you only pay for what you are using.

What needs improvement?

The OLAP slide and dice features need to be improved. For example, if a business wants to bring in a general ledger from an ERP, they want to slice and dice the data. What we have found is that they have a lot of formulas that are used to calculate metrics, so what we do is use SQL Server Analysis Services. The question then becomes one of adopting a single vendor and transitioning to Azure. If Redshift had similar capabilities then it would be very good.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Amazon Redshift for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is awesome. We have been using it for quite a while and haven't faced any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. You can start at a very low scale and just keep expanding as required. It is the type of product that fits organizations of all sizes.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have contacted support on several occasions. With our most recent customer, they are pretty large and we were directly in touch with the regional account manager, who is the head of database analytics for India. This person was directly involved in our calls and helped with the evaluation, so the support has been pretty good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have worked with Teradata and more recently, have been working with Azure SQL Warehouse. Teradata is an on-premises solution and the upfront costs are high. Comparing Azure SQL Warehouse and Amazon Redshift, in terms of features I think that they are pretty much on par.

The SQL Data Warehouse does have better OLAP capabilities, and they also offer a level of serverless capability where they have split the compute and the storage. This means that they can operate at a lower cost in the development environment.

Many of our clients have begun to adopt Power BI, and once they start using it, they tend to lean towards Azure and the Azure SQL Data Warehouse. The fact that Power BI is free, makes quite an impact.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, once you get used to it. There is a lot of documentation available.

What about the implementation team?

We handle the implementation and deployment of Redshift for our clients.

What other advice do I have?

I am interested in seeing a split between compute and storage, which is something that they are currently working on. We plan to start leveraging it at some point in the future.

In summary, I think that Amazon Redshift is a very good data warehouse and we really like it a lot.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon Redshift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.