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Dremio vs Starburst Galaxy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

Dremio
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (8th)
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Dremio is 2.2%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.4%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Starburst Galaxy1.4%
Dremio2.2%
Other96.4%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Corrr Moray - PeerSpot reviewer
SR BI developer at BRQ Digital Solutions
Has simplified complex data integration workflows and supported consistent reporting across multiple sources
We also have a close relationship with the team that does the Dremio maintenance for the database, like upgrading the versions and they know about some specific problems we had in the past, such as a memory leak. We had a memory leak on some versions, which sometimes stopped the service. Since we are using Dremio installed like a server, not a SaaS solution, many times we need to stop and restart the service to clear all the cache and all that, and this is the thing I should add. I see that many times the new versions of Dremio have not fixed old bugs, and in some new versions, old problems that were previously fixed come back again, so I think the upgrade part could use improvement. I remember using some features in the past, like pivot tables, which proved to be really difficult, but I know this is a fault also for other vendors. Pivoting, transposing, and unpivoting are often not so good. CTEs also many times prove to be not so good, so I think these two main items could be improved significantly if they standardize them.
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

"The native error interface has been most valuable."
"Overall, you can rate it as eight out of ten."
"Dremio has positively impacted my organization by helping us create a single source of truth, a singular data warehouse where we can have access to all of the data sets."
"Dremio allows querying the files I have on my block storage or object storage."
"The most valuable feature of Dremio is it can sit on top of any other data storage, such as Amazon S3, Azure Data Factory, SGFS, or Hive. The memory competition is good. If you are running any kind of materialized view, you'd be running in memory."
"Dremio has positively impacted my organization as nowadays we are connected to multiple databases from multiple environments, multiple APIs, and applications, and Dremio organizes everything in an amazing way for me."
"Dremio enables you to manage changes more effectively than any other data warehouse platform. There are two things that come into play. One is data lineage. If you are looking at data in Dremio, you may want to know the source and what happened to it along the way or how it may have been transformed in the data pipeline to get to the point where you're consuming it."
"We primarily use Dremio to create a data framework and a data queue."
"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."
"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."
"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."
"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 has significantly improved our data architecture flexibility and performance management by solving cross-database query challenges and enabling us to utilize iceberg tables externally across our entire data ecosystem."
"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
 

Cons

"They have an automated tool for building SQL queries, so you don't need to know SQL. That interface works, but it could be more efficient in terms of the SQL generated from those things. It's going through some growing pains. There is so much value in tools like these for people with no SQL experience. Over time, Dermio will make these capabilities more accessible to users who aren't database people."
"Dremio could be improved by making it easier for data cataloging, especially when working with open table formats, as you have to choose a data format and then go into it."
"Dremio takes a long time to execute large queries or the executing of correlated queries or nested queries."
"Many developers and programmers, when they are starting to work in this specific field or area, are much more used to SQL Server, the Microsoft way of querying, and Dremio has some features that are different when we are talking about the syntax of coding, so I would improve that."
"We had a memory leak on some versions, which sometimes stopped the service."
"Dremio doesn't support the Delta connector. Dremio writes the IT support for Delta, but the support isn't great. There is definitely room for improvement."
"I cannot use the recursive common table expression (CTE) in Dremio because the support page says it's currently unsupported."
"They need to have multiple connectors."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Right now the cluster costs approximately $200,000 per month and is based on the volume of data we have."
"Dremio is less costly competitively to Snowflake or any other tool."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dremio?
I don't have information about pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dremio, so I am not entitled to discuss it.
What needs improvement with Dremio?
I wouldn't say there is anything Dremio can be improved on. If I could change something, I would say many developers and programmers, when they are starting to work in this specific field or area, ...
What is your primary use case for Dremio?
I have been using Dremio for a year and a half. My main use case for Dremio is that I am able to access multiple databases and I can easily and quickly connect Dremio with my dashboards. In my rece...
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?
One way Starburst Galaxy can be improved is through AI enablement. I have not seen how the user interface is going to function or how users can interact with the data products on Starburst Galaxy u...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
My main use case for Starburst Galaxy is to use it as a data federation tool, collect data from various data sources, and have a unified view of the data. A quick specific example of how I use Star...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Dremio AWS - BYOL
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UBS, TransUnion, Quantium, Daimler, OVH
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dremio vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.