Data
AI
The Stack Underneath
Last updated: October 21, 2026
Which analytics platform should you use? Compare eight setups across AWS, Snowflake, Databricks, Google, Microsoft and ClickHouse. Set your data size, team skills, priorities and compliance needs to get a ranked recommendation, architecture, monthly cost, and ETL and BI picks.
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Each bar is compute + storage + ETL + BI for the inputs above. Change any unit price below and every figure updates. Prices are list rates (mostly US regions) checked in October 2026; Mumbai rates are often a little higher.
Bar length uses a square-root scale so small bills stay visible next to large ones.
| Platform | Compute | Storage | ETL | BI | Total $ | Total ₹ | ETL / BI used |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BigQuery | $0.0 | $0.0 | $0.0 | $0.0 | $0.0 | ₹0 | Custom script / Looker Studio |
| PostgreSQL + Metabase | $12 | $0.0 | $0.0 | $0.0 | $12 | ₹1,056 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| S3 + Athena | $1.0 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $12 | $13 | ₹1,146 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| ClickHouse Cloud | $30 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $12 | $42 | ₹3,717 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| Redshift Serverless | $54 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $12 | $66 | ₹5,808 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| Snowflake | $72 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $12 | $84 | ₹7,392 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| Databricks | $101 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $12 | $113 | ₹9,927 | Custom script / Metabase OSS |
| Microsoft Fabric | $263 | $0.00 | $0.0 | $154 | $417 | ₹36,696 | Custom script / Power BI Pro |
Estimated from freshness and users: 1.2 h/day. Drag to override.
Share of the data each query reads. Parquet, partitions and summary tables keep this low.
Rough or unverified rates are marked “≈”. Fivetran and Airbyte Cloud billing is usage-based and hard to predict; check their calculators with your real row counts.
The warehouse is only one part of the bill. With small data, the BI licences are often the biggest line.
| Tool | Pricing | Est. for you | Best for | Effort | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom scriptpick | Free | $0.0/mo | One source database, simple daily copy | Low to set up, you maintain it | No retries or monitoring unless you add them |
| Airbyte OSS | Free software + a server (~8 GB RAM) | $44/mo | Several sources on a budget | Medium: run and upgrade it yourself | Needs a bigger server than the database itself |
| Airbyte Cloud | From ≈$10–20/mo, then usage credits | $20/mo | Several sources, no servers to run | Low | Usage-based bill grows with rows synced |
| Fivetran | Free under 500k changed rows/mo; then per row + $5/connection | $0.0/mo | Many sources, zero maintenance | Very low | Gets expensive fast at millions of changed rows |
| Tool | Pricing | Est. for you | Best for | Works well with | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metabase OSS | Free + server | $12/mo | Lowest cost, unlimited users | PostgreSQL, Athena, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, ClickHouse | You host it; SAML and audit need a paid plan |
| Metabase Starter | $100/mo for 5 users + $6/user | $136/mo | Metabase without hosting | Same as Metabase | Per-user cost adds up beyond ~50 users |
| Power BI Pro | $14/user/mo | $154/mo | Microsoft 365 companies, Excel users | Fabric, SQL Server, Snowflake, Databricks | Every viewer needs a licence (below Fabric F64) |
| QuickSight | $24/author + $3/reader per month | $54/mo | AWS shops with many viewers | Athena, Redshift, RDS | Less flexible than Metabase or Power BI |
| Looker Studiopick | Free | $0.0/mo | Google users, simple dashboards | BigQuery, Google Sheets | Weak for non-Google sources; limited sharing controls |
| Looker Studio Pro | $9/user/mo | $99/mo | Google teams needing admin controls | BigQuery | Still Google-centric |
Business data usually includes customer names, phone numbers, addresses, tax IDs and payment details. Copying it into an analytics system creates a second place that must be secured.
| Platform | India region | Sign-in / SSO | Row & column control | Audit logs | Own encryption keys | Private network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL + Metabase | Any host; Lightsail Mumbai | Google & LDAP sign-in free; SAML on paid Metabase | PostgreSQL roles + row-level security; Metabase sandboxing on Pro | pgaudit; Metabase usage logs on Pro | Disk/backup encryption you set up | Your firewall or VPN |
| S3 + Athena | Mumbai (ap-south-1) | IAM Identity Center | Lake Formation row & column filters | CloudTrail | KMS keys | VPC endpoints |
| Redshift Serverless | Mumbai (ap-south-1) | IAM Identity Center | Role-based access, row-level security, dynamic masking | CloudTrail + audit logging | KMS keys | VPC |
| Snowflake | AWS Mumbai (GA) | SAML SSO | Masking & row access policies (Enterprise+) | Access History (Enterprise+) | Tri-Secret Secure (Business Critical) | PrivateLink (Business Critical) |
| Databricks | AWS Mumbai (ap-south-1) | SSO on all tiers | Unity Catalog row filters & column masks | System audit logs | Customer-managed keys (Enterprise) | PrivateLink (Enterprise) |
| BigQuery | Mumbai & Delhi | Google / SAML via Cloud Identity | Column-level security, data masking, row-level security | Cloud Audit Logs | CMEK | VPC Service Controls |
| Microsoft Fabric | Central India (check) | Entra ID | Row & object-level security in models; OneLake security | Purview audit | Customer-managed keys (check) | Private links |
| ClickHouse Cloud | AWS Mumbai (ap-south-1) | SAML SSO (higher tiers) | Role-based access & row policies | Audit logs | CMEK (Enterprise) | PrivateLink (Enterprise) |
Many of these features depend on the edition or tier you buy (for example Snowflake Enterprise or Business Critical, Databricks Enterprise, ClickHouse Enterprise). Confirm with the vendor before relying on one.
This is a summary, not legal advice. Check the final rules with your legal advisor, especially for retention periods and cross-border transfers.
Skip for many sources, TBs of data, or strict audit needs without extra work.
Skip if dashboards query raw data constantly without summary tables; scans add up.
Skip for tiny data: the 4 RPU minimum bills at least 60 s per query.
Skip for tiny data with frequent refreshes. Each wake-up bills at least a minute.
Skip for plain reporting on small data. Highest cost and effort here.
Skip if you're deep in AWS or Azure; moving data across clouds adds cost.
Skip for small data on a tight budget; F2 capacity bills all month unless paused.
Skip if you need heavy joins across many normalised business tables.
| Platform | Pricing model | Sweet spot | Maintenance | Skills | ML / AI | Lock-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL + Metabase | Flat server price | Up to ~1 crore rows | Medium | Linux, SQL | Basic | Very low |
| S3 + Athena | Per TB scanned | Lakh to 100s of crore rows, light use | Low–medium | SQL, AWS basics | Via SageMaker | Low (open files) |
| Redshift Serverless | Per RPU-hour (serverless) | 1 – 100s of crore rows | Low | SQL | Redshift ML | Medium |
| Snowflake | Per-second credits + storage | Crores to billions of rows | Very low | SQL | Snowpark, Cortex | Medium |
| Databricks | DBUs (+ VMs on classic) | Billions of rows, TBs, ML | Medium–high | Python, Spark, SQL | Best in class | Medium (open Delta format) |
| BigQuery | Per TiB scanned, or slots | Lakh to billions of rows | Very low | SQL | BigQuery ML, Vertex AI | Medium–high |
| Microsoft Fabric | Capacity per hour + storage | Crores of rows, Microsoft shops | Low | SQL, Power BI | Notebooks, Azure ML | High |
| ClickHouse Cloud | Compute unit-hours + storage | Crores to 1000s of crore rows | Low | SQL | Limited | Low (open source) |
Keep reports in standard SQL so moving up a step means changing the database connection, not rebuilding dashboards. Scores are a guide built on common rules of thumb, not a benchmark.
Choosing a data warehouse is rarely about raw features. The right analytics platform depends on how much data you have, how fast it grows, how many people read dashboards, which cloud you already pay for and what your team can run. This picker scores PostgreSQL + Metabase, Amazon S3 + Athena, Redshift Serverless, Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Fabric and ClickHouse Cloud against those inputs, then ranks them on the priorities you weight.
Every recommendation comes with a monthly cost estimate that covers the whole stack: warehouse compute, storage, the ETL tool that syncs your data and the BI tool your team uses for dashboards. For deeper, single-platform estimates, try the Snowflake cost calculator, the Databricks cost calculator or the Snowflake vs Databricks advisor.
Everything you need to know about choosing a data warehouse or analytics platform.
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