Firebolt Reviews & Product Details

We use Firebolt to power our Business Intelligence and Analytics module in our enterprise SaaS app. With our main transactional database being Postgres, and Firebolt being Postgres-API compatible, it was very easy to write the ELT process for the transactional data in our main database to the data warehouse in Firebolt.

Our developers are also able to write Firebolt queries with ease, and the aggregate indexes have been extremely helpful at ensuring very fast performance given our reports group on many columns at once.

Firebolt is also able to handle a very consistent "trickle ingestion" workflow which is unusual for this kind of use case but the main challenge that we faced when benchmarking other solutions. This way, we're able to ensure data in the data warehouse is never stale and all reports are pulling from the latest. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only thing our team has asked for is for Firebolt to expose live charts on the dashboard to monitor engines CPU, Memory, Query count and other basic statistics, however there are queries that can be run to see this information and this has been an acceptable workaround for now. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

**UPDATED: I wanted to update this review to reflect current thoughts especially after migration to the newer platform. Speeds have been markedly improved over the already fast engines that we had been used to. Engines are now multi-purpose. The .Net SDK has been improved dramatically. Support through our platform migration was top notch. Basically all of the great things about Firebolt have been doubled down and made greater.

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Original review:

There are so many things but for starters, it's just how fast we are able to serve up query results to applications and end users regardless of the data set size. Hugely complicated queries run like lightning fast, so much so that we've pivoted from using Firebolt just for reporting and analytics to also including it in our internal tooling for our business. Things we simply couldn't pull off otherwise without a massive scaling of our infrastructure.

The cost is simply unmatched for the levels of feature and performance. We're a small company with big ambitions but cost is still a paramount consideration. We have flexibility in controlling our costs and scaling as we see fit, which is great.

I've found that my team has generally found the syntax to be pretty easy to pick up, it shares a lot of commonality with other SQL flavors we're familiar with. And even when it stumps us, the documentation is pretty robust (unlike many software vendors we use) and their support staff has been top-notch. They even share a channel in our Slack where we get quick answers to many of our questions. Firebolt goes so far as to proactively watch our query performance patterns and shares that with me and will help us fix them.

Simply put, I work WITH Firebolt to solve our problems and limitations instead of working AROUND them like we have to with some other vendors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

UPDATED: Specifically, my top dislike listed here has been rectified in the new platform. Engines handle both reads and ingestion/data modification. This has allowed simplification of our code base that interacts with Firebolt as well as reduction of service interruptions.

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Original review:

The segregation of ingestion (or "general purpose") engines from read-only "analytics" engines is great from a granular control mechanism, especially as it pertains to cost. However that often requires bouncing of the read-only engine that services our applications to reflect changes made by the ingestion engine, causing a several minute outage. There are ways around it but this is often the case for us at this time.

Additionally, it would be great if there was a way to have stored queries accessible via the API access. Currently the query has to be passed to the API meaning that even where the same query could be used in our code, that is being duplicated and would necessitate an application deployment to make alterations. Compare that to a stored function/procedure model in our sql transaction engine and this is not ideal for a small shop that moves this quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Fantastic Customer Support, Helping us through out engineering changes and architecture. Observing improvements in the performance every new release. Getting started with Firebolt is very quick. Implementation of Firebolt was simple and quick.We were able to integrate Firebolt for our daily usage. it is used every day for our Analytics. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Still undergoing maturity as new features are added everyday Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It has great speed and performance. It allows me to handle large datasets and complex queries in a fraction of the time. It also offers a flexible pricing model, which allows me to pay only for the compute resources I actually use. This is very cost-effective for me as I have variable workloads and don't want to pay for unused capacity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have been using firebolt for quite some time and till now I have enjoyed using it and its interface. As of now I dont think that there is something in Firebolt that I dont like about. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is a cloud data warehouse that offers high performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency, which are some of the most important features that I typically look for in a data warehousing solution.

Its unique architecture is built around the use of low-cost storage options, which help me save money on storage costs compared to traditional data warehousing solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Firebolt is a relatively new technology, so it does not have the same level of community support or third-party integrations as some more established data warehousing solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- It has an intuitive UI

- Its functions are clear and really easy to use.

- It has a cool API to send requests when using code

- It has customizables engines to adjust them to your budget. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- You need to restart an engine to reflect changes made in another engine instantly. Otherwise, you need to wait up to 20 minutes to see your actions reflected.

- Currently, it doesn't allow updates on rows of tables. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how fast it is to run queries and retrieve data using Firebolt. It is really good and our performance increase exponentially when we moved our data from on premise to Firebolt. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Right now the integration works very well. But I think it would be really good if we are able to seemlessly integrate with many services out of the box with minimal adjustment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The exceptional indexing technology, designed with a focus on security and equipped with data encryption capabilities, delivers outstanding performance. Furthermore, it provides a cost-effective solution that caters to businesses of all scales. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The distinct architecture and querying language of Firebolt may necessitate users to acquire new skills and modify their workflows, which could impede the adoption process and act as an obstacle to some organizations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It boasts exceptional speed and performance, delivering high-quality results at an affordable cost. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate and operate, even for those with limited technical experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The steep learning curve is one major dislike about firebolt. Although its indexing technology enables fast querying of data, the platform may face challenges with complex queries. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Firebolt makes it easy to index and query semi-structured JSON data, as well as import database snapshots, which allows us to aggregate data from many sources to answer questions, generate reports, and explore data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Firebolt could do a better job of explaining the underlying error when querying data from an external data source. When a service error occurs, Firebolt could pass through more information to help identify the source of problems, for example, when network errors or permissions errors arise. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.