EXASOL
Big data analytics software
Data warehouse solutions
Database software
Big data software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
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What is EXASOL
EXASOL is an in-memory, massively parallel processing (MPP) analytical database used as a data warehouse for high-performance SQL analytics. It targets data engineering and analytics teams that need to run complex queries and concurrent workloads on large datasets for BI, reporting, and advanced analytics. The platform is available for on-premises and cloud deployments and emphasizes columnar storage, compression, and parallel execution to accelerate analytic queries.
High-performance MPP SQL engine
EXASOL is designed for analytical SQL workloads using an MPP architecture that parallelizes query execution across nodes. Its in-memory processing and columnar storage are suited to complex aggregations and joins common in enterprise analytics. This makes it a fit when teams prioritize low-latency query response and high concurrency for BI-style workloads.
Flexible deployment options
EXASOL supports deployment in customer-managed environments as well as in cloud infrastructure, which can help organizations align with data residency and operational requirements. This flexibility is useful for hybrid architectures where some data remains on-premises while other sources move to cloud platforms. It also enables teams to standardize on one analytical database across multiple environments.
Extensibility for advanced analytics
EXASOL provides mechanisms to extend SQL analytics with user-defined functions and integrations that support data science and specialized processing. This helps teams operationalize custom logic close to the data rather than exporting large datasets to external tools for every step. It can reduce data movement for certain analytical workflows and support repeatable, governed transformations.
Not a full analytics suite
EXASOL is primarily a database/data warehouse engine rather than an end-to-end analytics platform. Organizations typically still need separate tools for data preparation, orchestration, semantic modeling, and visualization. Compared with integrated platforms in the space, this can increase the number of components to procure and operate.
Operational complexity at scale
Running an MPP database can require specialized skills for sizing, workload management, and performance tuning, especially in self-managed deployments. Capacity planning for memory-heavy workloads and concurrency can be non-trivial. Teams without dedicated database engineering resources may face a steeper operational learning curve.
Ecosystem and managed-service depth varies
Depending on the deployment model, organizations may not get the same breadth of fully managed services, native integrations, and built-in governance features that some cloud-native offerings provide. This can shift responsibility to the customer for monitoring, upgrades, security hardening, and integration work. The practical impact depends on existing tooling and the chosen hosting approach.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (SaaS hourly tiers) with pre-purchase / contact-sales options for larger or enterprise deployments.
Free tier/trial: 30-day SaaS trial with $200 of free usage (no credit card required); Exasol Community Edition (free, on-premises, up to 200 GB raw data); Exasol Personal (free for personal use, BYOC on AWS).
Example costs (Exasol SaaS hourly tiers):
- XS – $3/hr (8 vCPUs, 64 GB)
- S – $6/hr (16 vCPUs, 128 GB)
- M – $12/hr (32 vCPUs, 256 GB)
- L – $24/hr (64 vCPUs, 512 GB)
- XL – $48/hr (128 vCPUs, 1024 GB)
- 2XL – $96/hr (256 vCPUs, 2048 GB)
- 3XL – $144/hr (384 vCPUs, 3072 GB)
Additional costs:
- Storage: $25 / TB / month
- Data transfer: AWS same region $0; AWS different region $25 / TB; Out of AWS $90 / TB
Other pricing notes:
- Pre-purchase / enterprise pricing: available on request via sales (contact form). (Exasol SaaS page links to Pre-purchase Pricing / contact sales.)
- Licensing: PAYG license model described for cloud deployments; BYOL deprecated for Exasol 7.1 cloud deployments (docs).
Seller details
Exasol AG
Nuremberg, Germany
2000
Public
https://www.exasol.com/
https://x.com/exasol
https://www.linkedin.com/company/exasol/
