Combining organizational data seamlessly with reduced operational costs while creating integrated dashboards
What is our primary use case?
I use Starburst Galaxy to connect to many Amazon S3 and RDS data sources, exposing that data for query and analysis by data engineering teams, as well as executive stakeholders in the organization.
I also use the product to serve many Tableau dashboards used by different teams within the organization.
How has it helped my organization?
I am able to combine data from across the organization to create integrated dashboards that are difficult to construct otherwise.
The on-demand nature of Starburst Galaxy has greatly reduced the computation and operational costs to achieve this compared to other open source tools I have used in the past. With Starburst Galaxy, the data is ready and available 24/7.
What is most valuable?
Starburst Warp Speed has helped me reduce overall operating expenses compared to standard query performance.
I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams. I have found the cluster management to be extremely useful. I am able to create clusters configured for various workloads and then turn each one on as needed and let it turn itself off when idle.
This has enabled a number of new use cases. I am able to run much larger jobs than in the past without blocking small concurrent tasks. All of my processes are now running on a cluster that is right-sized instead of trying to manage my own infrastructure by scaling up or down numerous times throughout the day. I am also able to segment costs by product, which I was not able to do in the past.
What needs improvement?
I am able to connect Starburst Galaxy to other tools such as Tableau using the connector, but I would like to see better support for spinning up a cold Starburst Galaxy cluster via Tableau, as it currently just times out.
I would like the Starburst connector in Tableau to have the capability to hold the connection open while Starburst Galaxy starts up.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Starburst Galaxy for 1.5 years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used Starburst Enterprise on premise in Amazon Web Services.
I switched to Starburst Galaxy to take advantage of automatic feature upgrades as well as shifting infrastructure costs to Starburst's cloud environment, which operates data workloads more efficiently than the Starburst Enterprise on premise solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing for Starburst Galaxy is competitive compared to running my own workloads using open source alternatives.
I recommend you consider the total cost of ownership when deciding whether Starburst Galaxy is a good fit for your organization.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I compared Starburst Galaxy to Starburst Enterprise and decided to make the switch to their cloud offering.
What other advice do I have?
This product is worth your time to investigate and evaluate.
I highly recommend Starburst Galaxy to any organization with a need to work with data at scale in the cloud, even in a multi-cloud environment.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Now we can work much more efficiently with data
What do you like best about the product?
Starburst has the speed of serving complex queries. I’ve found that it optimizes query execution whether the data is in multiple systems. And it helped reduce the hassle of asking people for data and querying it manually, which had skewed to a massive part of our time. Having the ability to take complex join queries, without worrying about movement of data has really elevated our workflow to be able to see more analysis instead of thinking about logistics.
What do you dislike about the product?
To be fair, Starburst is a very full featured product and pretty intuitive but some things are not so intuitive as I’d like them to be so troubleshooting can be more difficult. Moreover, when it comes to distributed query engines, those teams that are new to them will need some time to really get a whole picture of all the choices here offered. Occasionally, on a problem, I get so lost in the docs and have to dig it that we can’t work. This could certainly be made clearer and more accessible.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
By using Starburst we have removed the problems or fragmented data across many platforms as we can query everything through a single interface. By cutting down on the manual release of data from separate systems, we’ve saved ourselves a lot of time, and workflow has been streamlined with the data made easier to access. It’s also allowed us to work better with data, through more efficient use of data to work faster on the whole company and faster to make decisions on data.
Our team finally gains access to all data in one place
What do you like best about the product?
The best thing about Starburst is how it manages such complicated data environments. It lets us query data in multiple system data, AWS and google cloud without having to worry about integration issues. It’s also fast, and that worked even with large amounts of data, which is the performance, and the results. Making our data access just much easier and indispensable for our analytics team.
What do you dislike about the product?
For some reason, the initial setup for Starburst is the main downside I’ve found to it. It’s strong, but a lot of configuration is needed when combining with other data sources. Assuring that everything is attached and working in concert can take some time. Furthermore, there are some issues with dealing with bring complex queries, which can cause a performance hiccup when trying to pull all the data from multiple sources at once.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Starburst has changed the game for us, out of data relevant to us now comes automatically and effortlessly. Instead of dunns between platforms to get to all the information we need we no longer waste time switching between platforms. All that is now accessible in the area of one place, and makes data analysis faster and more efficient. Moreover it’s helped with teamwork and fasten made making decisions suitably.
More than meets the requirement
What do you like best about the product?
Really appreciate the quick turnaround time for resolving any issues.
What do you dislike about the product?
The pricing is much on the higher side. Plus when it comes to renewal the annual escalation is high.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We have huge data of user activities playing different types of games on our various versions of app on android, iOs etc. Through distributed processing, Starburst has been able to provide optimal performance even with immensely high data volumes.
Fantastic product from the creators of Trino!
What do you like best about the product?
Starburst was one of the first to offer Fault Tolerant Mode(FTE) with Trino and it enabled us to execute larger queries without any time limit as imposed by other similar query engines like Athena.
Starburst SSO integration and SCIM capabilities along with the IAM integration with AWS was very well implemented. RBAC and ABAC capabilities are also robust.
Starburst support team has also been very responsive so far.
What do you dislike about the product?
Telemetry capabilities are still far from robust. CPU based autoscaling had a lot of issues, but has greatly improved recently. Lack of integration with alerting tools like slack or pagerduty is very limiting and making users to spend time integrating custom plugins. There is also no current feature to warn users if certain queries are blocking the cluster resources or some automatic termination of such queries.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Enabling Data Scientists and DataEngineers to run Large analytical workloads and ad-hoc querying.
Unified Access to Data
What do you like best about the product?
Starburst provides a single point of access to multiple disparate data sources including data lakes, cloud storage, relational databases, and NoSQL systems. This significantly simplifies the analytics process by allowing users to query data in-place, eliminating the need for complex ETL pipelines.
The Security and Governance features are great which helps in auditing etc.
1. Unified Access to Distributed Data
Starburst provides seamless connectivity to a wide range of data sources—relational databases, data lakes, cloud storage, and more—allowing analysts and data scientists to query across silos using standard SQL.
2. High Performance & Scalability
Built on Trino’s distributed SQL engine, Starburst offers fast query performance at scale. Features like cost-based optimization, dynamic filtering, and query caching significantly enhance performance for large datasets.
3. Enterprise-Ready Security & Governance
Starburst integrates with authentication systems and supports fine-grained access control via tools like Apache Ranger, making it a secure option for highly regulated environments.
4. Flexible Deployment
Supports hybrid, multi-cloud, and on-prem deployments. With Starburst Galaxy, the fully managed SaaS offering, users can get started quickly without infrastructure overhead.
5. Broad Ecosystem Support
It integrates with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and connects with popular BI and data tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and dbt.
What do you dislike about the product?
While Starburst is a strong platform, there are a few areas that could be enhanced:
1. Catalog Creation and Management
Setting up catalogs, especially at scale, can be complex and sometimes unintuitive. Improvements to the user experience, automation, and management of catalogs—particularly in large, dynamic environments—would greatly benefit data engineering teams.
2. Learning Curve for New Users
Though SQL-based, the platform requires understanding of distributed query execution, connector configurations, and performance tuning. Organizations may need to invest in training or initial consulting support.
3. Monitoring and Troubleshooting
While Starburst provides basic query monitoring tools, more advanced observability features (e.g., deeper lineage tracking, proactive performance insights) could further simplify troubleshooting and operational efficiency.
4. Cost Management in Cloud Environments
Given the platform’s power, it’s easy to incur high compute costs when querying large datasets across multiple cloud sources. Resource management policies need to be carefully implemented.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Data Silos
Starburst allows querying data in place, eliminating the need for traditional ETL pipelines that move data into a centralized repository. This reduces latency and complexity.
Performance Bottlenecks in Distributed Queries
Leveraging Trino’s high-performance distributed SQL engine, Starburst enables interactive and scalable analytics over large and diverse datasets.
Lack of Unified Access Across Cloud and On-Prem
With Starburst, we can connect to multiple data sources (across AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem DBs) through a single SQL interface, simplifying analytics and reducing tool sprawl.
Data Governance and Security Challenges
Starburst supports fine-grained access control, auditability, and role-based permissions—essential for compliance and enterprise data governance.
Tool Fragmentation and Analyst Productivity
Analysts and data scientists can use standard BI tools like Tableau, Power BI, or even Jupyter with Starburst to access all relevant data without switching contexts or learning new interfaces.
Reliable way to retrieve and work with data efficiently
What do you like best about the product?
Probably the biggest standout from Starburst is that it decreases our dependency on operator data retrieval. We no longer have to extract and put things together from separate locations because it is accessible in a structured format. It has substantially reduced redundant work and made sure that our team dedicates its time to meaningful analysis rather than an excess on data preparation. This has helped us structure our decision making a lot more and has made it more efficient.
What do you dislike about the product?
Starburst is powerful, but some advanced query functions are as complex as you would expect for something that involves moving notoriously complex data. Not all team memebrs are comfortable with some features sometimes which sometimes causes to hindrance as we wait for someone who is more experienced. The documentation could also be clearer, most especially when trying to identify a particular scenario. Because of this lack of clarity, some processes have been slower than they should be.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Starburst has saved a huge amount of time that we used to spend performing data preparation. This means we’re duplexing our limited time concentrating more on applying insights rather than piecing together information from a number of sources. It has proved a great advantage when working on cross functional projects as everyone has the same copy of the information to be able to work on. It has allowed us to work better with less of the usual bottlenecks.
Our team doesn't panic before data analysis anymore
What do you like best about the product?
One of the highlights of the Starburst architecture is its data lakehouse architecture. This enables us to query data between different formats and locations without any issues. This has been a lifesaver for our data analysts so that they can have faster access to and analysis of data. The cost based optimization feature is also good since it helps us manage and optimize query costs. Moreover, it is easy to integrate with different data sources for the purpose of data consolidation from different platforms, offering a single view.
What do you dislike about the product?
Setting up Starburst is a bit challenging, especially for those who are new to data lakehouse concepts. Although the documentation is comprehensive, the huge beginner friendliness. In addition, it may take a while to learn the curve of optimizing queries, and you can certainly need some trial and error to achieve the best performance.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Starburst provides the solution to siloed data and slow query. Our data had been scattered across different platforms beforehand, and was not easy to get a holistic view of before using it. With Starburst, we can now query many formats and locations, offering a single, full view. This has greatly contributed to having better data analysis and making decisions. To give an example, previously, with hours, we used to run complex queries across different data sources. But now in minutes, we can run such queries.
Our team's stress levels have dropped since we started using Starburst
What do you like best about the product?
Starburst’s query engine is very powerful. This allows me to do such complex queries on mutiply data sources without lifting a finger. This is a game changer for my work with my data analysis tasks. It is impressive that the software handles large datasets efficiently. For my work, I can process and analyze lots of data but will never get a lag. Furthermore, the user friendly interface of the website makes it easy for the user to navigate and use even if one is not so tech savvy. Top notch with regards to integration capabilities as well.
What do you dislike about the product?
Starburst can handle robustly, but for beginners, it is steep learning curve. On this matter, the documentation is very complete, but for new users it can be quite overwhelming. It is also a bit confusing in pricing structure as different tiers come with different access to the features. A standard price model would be really good. Finally, the customer service is too slow to respond. Sometimes I had to wait for a longer time than I was expecting to receive help.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It was a difficult, time consuming and frustrating process to analyze large datasets before the advent of Starburst. To achieve this, I had to use a lot of tools and manual processes, that were slow and error prone. However, with Starburst, I can run complex queries and analyze data from other sources in the same place. It has made a huge difference to process my work. To give an example, before I used to export data from various sources and later, for analysis, I had to manually combine them.
Starburst works really well.
What do you like best about the product?
Great help, answers all questions, and responds quickly to first requests. Great product that meets practically all of our demands. Delivery was of good quality and extremely accurate. It needs to improve in a few areas, but nothing that discredits or leaves much to be desired.
What do you dislike about the product?
We sometimes experienced delays in the ticket loop. Should make some aspects toggleable to increase flexibility. FTE, multi-tenant, and displaying query history on the console with statistics would be ideal.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
When we made starburst available to all corporate members, it transformed the way they saw data. We no longer have delays in delivering information because Trino can connect to numerous databases/datastores by design.
