vioscaleAI
Comparison

Amazon Redshift vs Databricks

No clear leader: Databricks (52.9) and Amazon Redshift (49.1) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Amazon Redshift full profile →Databricks full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Amazon Redshift49
Databricks53
Score
vioscaleAI score
Amazon Redshift49 / 100medium · 63%
Databricks53 / 100low · 47%
Pricing
Free tier
Amazon Redshift✗
Databricks✓
Model
Amazon Redshiftcommercial
Databricksfree
Price level
Amazon Redshiftunknown
Databricksfree
Transparent
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✗
Integrations
Count
Amazon Redshift7
Databricks14
Security
Certifications
Disclosure policy
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Fedramp
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks–
Gdpr
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks–
Hipaa
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks–
Pci
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks–
Trust center
Reliability
Status page
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Amazon Redshift7 items
Databricks6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for data warehouse software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
Amazon RedshiftManaged cloud
DatabricksManaged cloud
Architecture
Architecture
Amazon RedshiftSeparated storage/compute
DatabricksSeparated storage/compute
Compute model
Amazon RedshiftClusters
DatabricksServerless
Query
SQL dialect
Amazon RedshiftVendor-specific
DatabricksVendor-specific
Federation / lakehouse query-in-place
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks-
Interoperability
Table-format support
Amazon RedshiftIceberg, Parquet
DatabricksDelta, Iceberg
Scale
Concurrency scaling
Amazon RedshiftAutomatic
DatabricksAutomatic
Ingestion
Streaming ingest
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Data model
Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT)
Amazon RedshiftFunctional
DatabricksFirst-class
Analytics
ML / in-DB functions
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Sharing
Data sharing / marketplace
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Licensing
Licence class
Amazon RedshiftProprietary
DatabricksProprietary

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Amazon Redshift

A managed cloud data warehouse that combines traditional warehouse analytics with data lake query capabilities through a unified SQL engine, powered by AWS Graviton processors for high performance and cost efficiency.

Independently observed

Databricks

An integrated data and AI platform built on open formats that merges transactional reliability with analytics and machine learning capabilities, enabling organizations to manage data, models, and AI applications together without vendor lock-in.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Amazon Redshift

from $0.54/moHybridFree tier90-day trial

Provisioned from $0.543/hour on-demand or discounted reserved rates; Serverless from $1.50/hour per-second billing. Free $300 credit for 90 days on new Serverless accounts.

  • Provisioned On-Demand$0.54/hr
    • Flexible scaling
    • Pause and resume
    • Node type selection
    • Elastic Resize
  • Provisioned Reserved Instances-
    • Significant discounts over on-demand
    • Steady-state workloads
    • Cost predictability
  • Serverless$1.50 per hour
    • Automatic capacity scaling
    • No idle charges
    • Seconds-based billing
    • Automatic shutdown
  • Serverless Reservations-
    • Up to 45% savings on Serverless compute
    • Cross-account sharing
    • AWS payer account management
as of verify ↗

Databricks

from $0.07/moUsage-basedFree tier

Pay-as-you-go usage-based pricing from $0.069 / DBU or CU per second. Committed Use Contracts available for volume discounts. Free tier available.

  • Data EngineeringFrom $0.15 / DBU per second
    • Orchestrate data processing
    • Build streaming and batch pipelines
    • Ingest data from multiple sources
  • Data WarehousingFrom $0.22 / DBU per second
    • SQL analytics
    • BI reporting
    • Available in Classic and Serverless compute
  • Interactive WorkloadsFrom $0.40 / DBU per second
    • Data science workloads
    • Build custom applications
    • Security and governance
  • Operational DatabaseFrom $0.069 / CU per second
    • Postgres database
    • Data and feature serving
  • Artificial IntelligenceFrom $0.07 / DBU per second
    • GenAI applications
    • Model Serving
    • AI Functions
    • Model Training
  • GenieFree
    • Natural language Q&A
    • AI Coding Assistant
    • Enterprise Knowledge access
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓
Android
Amazon Redshift✗
Databricks✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Amazon Redshift✓
Databricks✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (1)
  • Apache Iceberg

Amazon Redshift

8 total - 7 not shared
  • Amazon S3
  • Amazon SageMaker
  • Amazon Bedrock
  • Apache Parquet
  • Streaming services
  • Operational databases
  • Amazon MSK
Independently observed

Databricks

22 total - 21 not shared
  • Teams
  • Slack
  • Confluence
  • Power Platform
  • Copilot Studio
  • Zerobus
  • Microsoft Power Platform
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Apache Spark
  • MLflow
  • Delta Lake
  • Unity Catalog
  • Lakeflow
  • Databricks SQL
  • Databricks Genie
  • Lakebase
  • dbt
  • Trino
  • LangChain
  • PyTorch
  • DSPy
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Amazon Redshift or Databricks: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.