What's the Difference Between Amazon EMR and Amazon Redshift?
Compare Amazon EMR and Amazon Redshift side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.
Compare side-by-side
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Comparisons
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Amazon EMR
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Amazon Redshift
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Category
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Analytics, Big data processing |
Analytics, Data warehouse |
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Description
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Easily run big data frameworks |
Fast, simple, cost-effective data warehousing |
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Best for
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Key features
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Pricing model
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Pay per instance hour + EBS storage |
On-Demand, Reserved, or Serverless |
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Free tier
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No |
Yes |
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Expert take
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“EMR is the go-to for teams already invested in Spark, Hive, or Presto. EMR Serverless removes cluster sizing decisions entirely; you submit jobs and pay per vCPU-second. For teams that want SQL-only without Spark expertise, Athena or Redshift are simpler paths.” |
“Redshift is optimized for analytical workloads; it uses columnar storage and massively parallel processing to scan terabytes in seconds. Use it when your queries involve aggregations, joins across large tables, and complex calculations that power dashboards and reports.” |
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Product page
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When to use Amazon EMR or Amazon Redshift
Use Amazon EMR when:
- Big data processing
- Machine learning
- ETL
- Clickstream analysis
- Genomics
Use Amazon Redshift when:
- Data warehousing
- Business intelligence
- Log analysis
- Big data analytics
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