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Amazon SageMaker vs Starburst Galaxy 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon SageMaker
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
AI Development Platforms (4th)
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
6th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Amazon SageMaker is 3.4%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon SageMaker3.4%
Starburst Galaxy1.5%
Other95.1%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

NeerajPokala - PeerSpot reviewer
Machine Learning Engineer at Macquarie Group
Automation has transformed document review and reduces manual effort in financial workflows
There will be many features in Amazon SageMaker itself, but we don't know whether the feature is there or not, particularly the documentation part. Whatever the new releases will be, they will not post very fast. It is very easy to deploy Amazon SageMaker. The documentation is also very good. It is good because we are able to collaborate with our notebooks. At a time we can develop simultaneously and work on different use cases in the same notebook itself.
NK
Advisory Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies
Unified data querying has accelerated petabyte-scale analytics and simplified dashboard delivery
Starburst Galaxy offers me several best features, which include very fast querying results, automatic indexing of data for long tables, a cost-based optimizer which reduces the time to query large tables, and an agentic feature that lets me talk to my data.I find myself relying most on querying from different databases as well as automatic indexing in my day-to-day work, as I am a data science architect who needs to get the queries in a very short period of time. Starburst Galaxy serves the best purpose for me because if my SLAs are not met with my customers, they will raise a case, and I have tried many other tools, but Starburst Galaxy fits the best. Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization since we were struggling with Denodo and Dremio, which had their own features but were not helpful in querying large amounts of data, especially semi-structured or unstructured data. Starburst Galaxy addresses this with many YAML files and manifest files for automated maintenance, and it helps reduce the small file problem in different HDFS systems. Additionally, Starburst Galaxy has an MCP server that connects to various agentic pipelines, reducing the time to market for data consumption.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've had no problems with SageMaker's stability."
"The tool has made client management easier where patients need to upload their health records and we can use the tool to understand details on treatment date, amount, etc."
"Allows you to create API endpoints."
"The solution is easy to scale...The documentation and online community support have been sufficient for us so far."
"The tangible benefits we have observed from using Amazon SageMaker include improved time to insight and generally the common stack that is easier to support over time."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon SageMaker for me is the model deployment service."
"The feature I found most valuable is the data catalog, as it assists with the lineage of data through the preparation pipeline."
"The most valuable features in Amazon SageMaker are its AutoML, feature store, and automated hyperparameter tuning capabilities."
"The most fundamental feature is the query engine, which is much faster than any of the competitors; Starburst is able to finish most queries within 10 seconds, which is especially important for many non-technical employees."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"Starburst Galaxy serves as our primary SQL-based data processing engine, a strategic decision driven by its seamless integration with our AWS cloud infrastructure and its ability to deliver high performance with low-latency responses."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
"Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to rethink the strategy for data and architect data differently; instead of having multiple data marts and siloed data marts, we have a unified vision, and that is how it is changing."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
 

Cons

"The pricing for the Notebook endpoints is a bit high, but generally reasonable."
"The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of SageMaker and AWS, in general, need improvement as they are not intuitive and require substantial time to learn how to use specific services."
"I would recommend having more walkthrough videos and articles beyond AWS Skill Builder."
"One area where Amazon SageMaker could improve is its pricing. The high costs can drive companies to explore other cloud options. Additionally, while generally good, the updates sometimes come with bugs, and the documentation could be much better. More examples and clearer guidance would be helpful."
"The solution needs to be cheaper since it now charges per document for extraction."
"SageMaker would be improved with the addition of reporting services."
"Amazon SageMaker could improve in the area of hyperparameter tuning by offering more automated suggestions and tips during the tuning process."
"The platform could be more accessible to users with basic coding skills, making it more intuitive and easier for beginners to use comfortably."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace."
"Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose."
"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."
"I think there are areas of improvement with respect to AI adaptability, and also in general, the amount of connectors working with other tools are areas where it can be expanded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, customers pay about $300,000 USD per month."
"You don't pay for Sagemaker. You only pay for the compute instances in your storage."
"The support costs are 10% of the Amazon fees and it comes by default."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The solution is relatively cheaper."
"The pricing could be better, especially for querying. The per-query model feels expensive."
"Databricks solution is less costly than Amazon SageMaker."
"I rate the pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price, and ten is the highest price. The solution is priced reasonably. There is no additional cost to be paid in excess of the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon SageMaker?
If you manage it effectively, their pricing is reasonable. It's similar to anything in the cloud; if you don't manage it properly, it can be expensive, but if you do, it's fine.
What needs improvement with Amazon SageMaker?
It takes some work. We need to refer to the documentation. The documentation is good regarding what other providers we are able to connect with. Out of five, I can say 3.5.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose. We rely on third-party tools for ingesti...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
My main use case for Starburst Galaxy is querying petabytes of data across vast data sources, and I use a federated query engine to join data sources from different databases and then join them usi...
 

Also Known As

AWS SageMaker, SageMaker
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DigitalGlobe, Thomson Reuters Center for AI and Cognitive Computing, Hotels.com, GE Healthcare, Tinder, Intuit
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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon SageMaker vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.