Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon EMR vs Amazon Redshift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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 EMR
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (3rd)
Amazon Redshift
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon EMR is 4.3%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Redshift is 7.8%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Prashant  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless data integration enhances reporting efficiency and an easy setup
Amazon EMR has multiple connectors that can connect to various data sources. The service charges are based on processing only, depending on the resources used, which can help save money. It is easy to integrate with other services for storage, allowing data to be shifted to cheaper storage based on usage.
Ved Prakash Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Works as a data warehouse system and collects data from different sources
In terms of improvement, I believe Amazon Redshift could work on reducing its costs, as they tend to increase significantly. Additionally, there are occasional issues with nodes going down, which can be problematic. We often encounter issues like someone dropping a column or changing the order of columns, which can cause synchronization problems when pushing data through our pipeline. It's a minor issue, but it can be annoying.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."
"Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data."
"The solution helps us manage huge volumes of data."
"It has a variety of options and support systems."
"One of the valuable features about this solution is that it's managed services, so it's pretty stable, and scalable as much as you wish. It has all the necessary distributions. With some additional work, it's also possible to change to a Spark version with the latest version of EMR. It also has Hudi, so we are leveraging Apache Hudi on EMR for change data capture, so then it comes out-of-the-box in EMR."
"We are using applications, such as Splunk, Livy, Hadoop, and Spark. We are using all of these applications in Amazon EMR and they're helping us a lot."
"Amazon EMR's most valuable features are processing speed and data storage capacity."
"Amazon EMR has multiple connectors that can connect to various data sources."
"The main benefit is that our portal for end users is running in AWS, so we can easily connect it to other AWS services."
"I have primarily used the Redshift Spectrum feature and found it 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."
"Redshift Spectrum is the most valuable feature."
"If the analyst knows SQL, which is comfortable and easy to use to go between all of these tool stacks, I think it's reliable. It's a secure and reliable data warehouse."
"I found the Amazon Redshift computing services easy. I found the computing instances the most incredible in the solution."
"The product offers good support for the data lake."
"The solution's flexibility is its most valuable feature. It's also easy to scale and has relatively painless pricing."
 

Cons

"Amazon EMR can improve by adding some features, such as megastore services and HiveServer2. Additionally, the user interface could be better, similar to what Apache service provides, cross-platform services."
"The product must add some of the latest technologies to provide more flexibility to the users."
"Spark jobs take longer on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences."
"Modules and strategies should be better handled and notified early in advance."
"The dashboard management could be better. Right now, it's lacking a bit."
"The problem for us is it starts very slow."
"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"The legacy versions of the solution are not supported in the new versions."
"We recently moved from the DC2 cluster to the RA3 cluster, which is a different node type and we are finding some issues with the RA3 cluster regarding connection and processing. There is room for improvement in this area. We are in talks with AWS regarding the connection issues."
"I would like to improve the pricing and the simplicity of using this solution."
"In the next release, a pivot function would be a big help. It could save a lot of time creating a query or process to handle operations."
"For people who struggle with IAM or role-based management, the setup isn't easy."
"If you require a highly scalable solution, I would not recommend Amazon Redshift."
"Should be made available across zones, like other Multi-AZ solutions."
"Infinite storage is available in Snowflake and is not available in Redshift."
"The refreshment rate of data reaching Redshift from other sources should be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."
"You don't need to pay for licensing on a yearly or monthly basis, you only pay for what you use, in terms of underlying instances."
"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."
"In comparison to the price of similar solutions, Redshift's cost is the lowest."
"One of my customers went with Google Big Query over Redshift because it was significantly cheaper for their project."
"I have heard complaints about the solution’s pricing, and thus I rate it as a five."
"Amazon Redshift is an expensive solution. Larger organizations can afford this solution, but smaller businesses would struggle to afford it."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a seven."
"It's around $200 US dollars. There are some data transfer costs but it's minimal, around $20."
"The best part about this solution is the cost."
"BI is sold to our customer base as a part of the initial sales bundle. A customer may elect to opt for a white labeled site for an up-charge."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Educational Organization
63%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EMR?
Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?
The cost of Amazon EMR is a little bit expensive, especially considering the support package, which includes a gold package.
What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?
Spark jobs take longer on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences. This aspect could be improved to make them more efficient.
How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Amazon Redshift?
The tool's most valuable feature is its parallel processing capability. It can handle massive amounts of data, even when pushing hundreds of terabytes, and its scaling capabilities are good.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yelp
Liberty Mutual Insurance, 4Cite Marketing, BrandVerity, DNA Plc, Sirocco Systems, Gainsight, Blue 449
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EMR vs. Amazon Redshift and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.