What SPICE is
SPICE is QuickSight's in-memory columnar engine. A dataset imported into SPICE is queried from memory rather than from the source, which is much faster and takes load off the source system.
The alternative is direct query, which passes every request through to the source. Direct query stays current but is only as fast as the underlying database, and every reader interaction hits it.
Capacity
SPICE capacity is purchased per account and shown in Manage QuickSight → SPICE capacity.
Running out means refreshes fail — often quietly, leaving a dashboard showing stale data with no obvious warning. Worth monitoring rather than discovering.
The ways to use less: exclude unneeded fields, filter rows at dataset level, and aggregate before import rather than loading raw detail.
Refresh schedules
Set a schedule per dataset — hourly, daily, weekly, or on a custom cadence.
Match it to how often the data actually changes. An hourly refresh of a daily-loaded table is wasted capacity and wasted queries against the source.
Incremental refresh
For large datasets, incremental refresh processes only rows within a recent window based on a date column, rather than rebuilding everything.
Much faster, but it will not capture rows updated or deleted outside that window. The usual pattern is incremental frequently with a periodic full refresh.
It requires a date field suitable as the lookback boundary, and a SQL-based source.
SPICE or direct query
| Need | Choose |
|---|---|
| Fast dashboards, many readers | SPICE |
| Data must be current to the minute | Direct query |
| Source system under load | SPICE |
| Dataset larger than your capacity | Direct query, or aggregate first |