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Starburst Galaxy pros and cons

Vendor: Starburst
4.9 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Starburst on Trino and SQLMesh delivers a two to five times improvement in compute performance for data transformation.
Starburst Galaxy empowers smarter and faster decisions across the organization.
The query engine finishes most queries within 10 seconds, crucial for non-technical users.
It provides virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets of tens of gigabytes.
Starburst Galaxy unifies access to major data sources, eliminating complex ETL processes.

CONS

Cluster spin-up time is a persistent issue.
Cluster startup can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute.
AI leverage to improve usability of complicated data lakes is desired.
Cluster startup time typically ranges from 3 to 5 minutes.
Multi-tenancy could be improved to support multiple environments for SSO with different AWS accounts.
 

Starburst Galaxy Pros review quotes

reviewer2748021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
Aug 5, 2025
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.
Stephen-Howard - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Director, Technology at Spreetail
Aug 11, 2025
Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization.
reviewer2749434 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Data at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Aug 12, 2025
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.
Learn what your peers think about Starburst Galaxy. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2750067 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Analytics Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Aug 14, 2025
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.
reviewer2750055 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Solutions Officer
Aug 14, 2025
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 Cons review quotes

reviewer2748021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
Aug 5, 2025
The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time.
Stephen-Howard - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Director, Technology at Spreetail
Aug 11, 2025
Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute.
reviewer2749434 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Data at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Aug 12, 2025
I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore.
Learn what your peers think about Starburst Galaxy. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2750067 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Analytics Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Aug 14, 2025
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.
reviewer2750055 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Solutions Officer
Aug 14, 2025
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.