BigQuery (Google Cloud): Serverless, pay-per-query pricing. No cluster management. Excellent for ad-hoc analytics. Nested/repeated fields handle semi-structured data well.
Redshift (AWS): Cluster-based, more traditional. Cheaper for steady, predictable workloads. Redshift Serverless now offers on-demand option. Strong AWS ecosystem integration.
When to choose:
- Snowflake: Multi-cloud, data sharing needs
- Databricks: ML workloads, Spark users
- BigQuery: Google Cloud shop, variable workloads
- Redshift: AWS native, cost-sensitive steady loads