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Amazon EMR vs Vertica 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
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (3rd)
Vertica
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon EMR is 3.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vertica is 5.6%, up from 5.2% 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.
T Venkatesh - PeerSpot reviewer
Processes query faster through multiple systems simultaneously, but it could support different data types
We use the solution for various tasks, including preparing data marts and generating offers. It helps extract data based on rules from the policy team and provides insights to enhance business operations. We also analyze transactions to target customers and improve business performance The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."
"Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data."
"When we grade big jobs from on-prem to the cloud, we do it in EMR with Spark."
"Amazon EMR's most valuable features are processing speed and data storage capacity."
"The ability to resize the cluster is what really makes it stand out over other Hadoop and big data solutions."
"The solution is scalable."
"It has a variety of options and support systems."
"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."
"Eighty percent of the ETL operations have improved since implementing this solution."
"Its projections and encoding are excellent tools for tuning large volumes."
"Any novice user can tune vertical queries with minimal training (or no training at all)."
"Vertica is a columnar database, this support our developments in analytics, advanced analytics, and ETL process with large sets of data."
"Vertica is a columnar database where the query performance is extremely fast and it can be used for real-time integrations for API and other applications. The solution requires zero maintenance which is helpful."
"The performance is very good and the aggregate records are fast."
"Vertica's most outstanding features are the compression rates achieved and the speed of access of high volume data."
"The most valuable feature is Vertica's performance and the ease of using the database."
 

Cons

"Amazon EMR is continuously improving, but maybe something like CI/CD out-of-the-box or integration with Prometheus Grafana."
"The most complicated thing is configuring to the cluster and ensure it's running correctly."
"The product's features for storing data in static clusters could be better."
"We don't have much control. If we have multiple users, if they want to scale up, the cost will go and increase and we don't know how we can restrict that price part."
"There were times where they would release new versions and it seemed to end up breaking old versions, which is very strange."
"The initial setup was time-consuming."
"As people are shifting from legacy solutions to other technologies, Amazon EMR needs to add more features that give more flexibility in managing user data."
"The dashboard management could be better. Right now, it's lacking a bit."
"In a future release, we would like to have artificial intelligence capabilities like neural networks. Customers are demanding this type of analytics."
"It's hard to make it slow for a small data volume. For large volumes, it's hard to make it work. It's also hard to make it faster, and to make it scale."
"We faced some challenges when trying to use the temporary tables feature."
"Suboptimal projection design causes queries to not scale linearly."
"Limitations in group by projections is where I would like to see an improvement."
"Vertica can improve automation and documentation. Additionally, the solution can be simplified."
"In our company, we have faced difficulties in scaling the solution for certain use cases."
"The biggest problem is the cost of cloud deployment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."
"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."
"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"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."
"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."
"The cost of Amazon EMR is very high."
"The price of the solution is 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."
"The pricing for this solution is very reasonable compared to other vendors."
"The price of Vertica is less expensive than some competitors, such as Teradata."
"It's an expensive product"
"It's difficult today to compete with open-source solutions. In these areas, there is a lot of competition and the price of this solution is a bit pricy."
"The first TB is free and you can use all the Vertica features. After 1TB you have to pay for licensing. The product is worth it, but be aware of this condition, and plan. The compression ratio is explained in the documentation."
"Work with a vendor, if possible, and take advantage of more aggressive discounts at mid-fiscal year (April) and fiscal year-end (October).​"
"Read the fine print carefully."
"The pricing could improve, it is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

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.
What do you like most about Vertica?
Vertica is easy to use and provides really high performance, stability, and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vertica?
The solution is relatively cost-effective. Pricing and licensing are reasonable compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with Vertica?
The product could improve by adding support for a wider variety of data types and enhancing features to better compete with other databases.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce
Micro Focus Vertica, HPE Vertica, HPE Vertica on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yelp
Cerner, Game Show Network Game, Guess by Marciano, Supercell, Etsy, Nascar, Empirix, adMarketplace, and Cardlytics.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EMR vs. Vertica and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.