Apache Hive vs. Amazon Redshift

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Hive
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Apache Hive is database/data warehouse software that supports data querying and analysis of large datasets stored in the Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) and other compatible systems, and is distributed under an open source license.N/A
Amazon Redshift
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Redshift is a hosted data warehouse solution, from Amazon Web Services.
$0.24
per GB per month
Pricing
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Redshift Managed Storage
$0.24
per GB per month
Current Generation
$0.25 - $13.04
per hour
Previous Generation
$0.25 - $4.08
per hour
Redshift Spectrum
$5.00
per terabyte of data scanned
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Considered Both Products
Apache Hive
Chose Apache Hive
Due to effective queries resolved time and the performance and user-friendly framework compared to other products.
Chose Apache Hive
  • Faster response time and also can handle complex analytical queries
  • Can able to write custom function using python and hive
  • Able to connect using hadoop components and also using R
Chose Apache Hive
I wasn't part of the evaluation process for Apache Hive. This was already implemented when I joined the company. I have worked with other big data plaftforms and I personally thinks most of them are quite comporable to one another. It really depends on what the company is going …
Amazon Redshift
Chose Amazon Redshift
Prezi is using AWS so Amazon Redshift was the obvious choice. It is fast, scalable and easy to use. Supplemented with Spark and Hive I'm completely satisfied using Redhsift. Sometimes I miss commands I used earlier on MS and Oracle SQL and the lack of procedural features is …
Chose Amazon Redshift

Than Vertica: Redshift is cheaper and AWS integrated (which was a plus because the whole company was on AWS).

Than BigQuery: Redshift has a standard SQL interface, though recently I heard good things about BigQuery and would try it out again.

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Small Businesses
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.6 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub
Score 9.0 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exadata
Score 8.2 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(35 ratings)
8.0
(37 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(7 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache HiveAmazon Redshift
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
Software work execution is on a large scale, it is good to use for new projects or organizational changes, data lineage mapping has always been dubious but this one has had good results. You can store and synchronize data from different departments, the storage process can be manual but it is best automated.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
If the number of connections is expected to be low, but the amounts of data are large or projected to grow it is a good solutions especially if there is previous exposure to PostgreSQL. Speaking of Postgres, Redshift is based on several versions old releases of PostgreSQL so the developers would not be able to take advantage of some of the newer SQL language features. The queries need some fine-tuning still, indexing is not provided, but playing with sorting keys becomes necessary. Lastly, there is no notion of the Primary Key in Redshift so the business must be prepared to explain why duplication occurred (must be vigilant for)
Read full review
Pros
Apache
  • Apache Hive allows use to write expressive solutions to complex problems thanks to its SQL-like syntax.
  • Relatively easy to set up and start using.
  • Very little ramp-up to start using the actual product, documentation is very thorough, there is an active community, and the code base is constantly being improved.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • [Amazon] Redshift has Distribution Keys. If you correctly define them on your tables, it improves Query performance. For instance, we can define Mapping/Meta-data tables with Distribution-All Key, so that it gets replicated across all the nodes, for fast joins and fast query results.
  • [Amazon] Redshift has Sort Keys. If you correctly define them on your tables along with above Distribution Keys, it further improves your Query performance. It also has Composite Sort Keys and Interleaved Sort Keys, to support various use cases
  • [Amazon] Redshift is forked out of PostgreSQL DB, and then AWS added "MPP" (Massively Parallel Processing) and "Column Oriented" concepts to it, to make it a powerful data store.
  • [Amazon] Redshift has "Analyze" operation that could be performed on tables, which will update the stats of the table in leader node. This is sort of a ledger about which data is stored in which node and which partition with in a node. Up to date stats improves Query performance.
Read full review
Cons
Apache
  • Some queries, particularly complex joins, are still quite slow and can take hours
  • Previous jobs and queries are not stored sometimes
  • Switching to Impala can sometimes be time-consuming (i.e. the system hangs, or is slow to respond).
  • Sometimes, directories and tables don't load properly which causes confusion
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • We've experienced some problems with hanging queries on Redshift Spectrum/external tables. We've had to roll back to and old version of Redshift while we wait for AWS to provide a patch.
  • Redshift's dialect is most similar to that of PostgreSQL 8. It lacks many modern features and data types.
  • Constraints are not enforced. We must rely on other means to verify the integrity of transformed tables.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apache
Since I do not know the second data warehouse solution that integrate with HDFS as well as Hive.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Usability
Apache
Hive is a very good big data analysis and ad-hoc query platform, which supports scaling also. The BI processes can be easily integrated with Hadoop via the Hive. It can deal with a much larger data set that traditional RDBMS can not. It is a "must-have" component of the big data domain.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
Just very happy with the product, it fits our needs perfectly. Amazon pioneered the cloud and we have had a positive experience using RedShift. Really cool to be able to see your data housed and to be able to query and perform administrative tasks with ease.
Read full review
Support Rating
Apache
Apache Hive is a FOSS project and its open source. We need not definitely comment on anything about the support of open source and its developer community. But, it has got tremendous developer support, awesome documentation. I would justify the fact that much support can be gathered from the community backup.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
The support was great and helped us in a timely fashion. We did use a lot of online forums as well, but the official documentation was an ongoing one, and it did take more time for us to look through it. We would have probably chosen a competitor product had it not been for the great support
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Apache
Besides Hive, I have used Google BigQuery, which is costly but have very high computation speed. Amazon Redshift is the another product, I used in my recent organisation. Both Redshift and BigQuery are managed solution whereas Hive needs to be managed
Read full review
Amazon AWS
Than Vertica: Redshift is cheaper and AWS integrated (which was a plus because the whole company was on AWS).
Than BigQuery: Redshift has a standard SQL interface, though recently I heard good things about BigQuery and would try it out again.
Than Hive: Hive is great if you are in the PB+ range, but latencies tend to be much slower than Redshift and it is not suited for ad-hoc applications.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Apache
No answers on this topic
Amazon AWS
Redshift is relatively cheaper tool but since the pricing is dynamic, there is always a risk of exceeding the cost. Since most of our team is using it as self serve and there is no continuous tracking by a dedicated team, it really needs time & effort on analyst's side to know how much it is going to cost.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apache
  • Apache hive is secured and scalable solution that helps in increasing the overall organization productivity.
  • Apache hive can handle and process large amount of data in a sufficient time manner.
  • It simplifies writing SQL queries, hence helping the organization as most companies use SQL for all query jobs.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • Our company is moving to the AWS infrastructure, and in this context moving the warehouse environments to Redshift sounds logical regardless of the cost.
  • Development organizations have to operate in the Dev/Ops mode where they build and support their apps at the same time.
  • Hard to estimate the overall ROI of moving to Redshift from my position. However, running Redshift seems to be inexpensive compared to all the licensing and hardware costs we had on our RDBMS platform before Redshift.
Read full review
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