Amazon AWS CloudSearch vs Amazon Athena comparison

Amazon Athena and Amazon AWS CloudSearch are both solutions in the Search as a Service category. Amazon Athena is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.3, while Amazon AWS CloudSearch is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.7. Amazon Athena holds a 13.6% mindshare in SS, compared to Amazon AWS CloudSearch’s 10.0% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Amazon Athena users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Amazon AWS CloudSearch users who would recommend it.

Amazon Athena

Read 5 Amazon Athena reviews

1,546 Views
1,336 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Read 12 Amazon AWS CloudSearch reviews

1,285 Views
1,133 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Amazon Athena

Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon Athena and Amazon AWS CloudSearch based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Search as a Service solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon AWS CloudSearch vs. Amazon Athena Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon AWS CloudSearch vs. Amazon Athena

January 2025

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Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Athena

Ranking in Search as a Service

6th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Ranking in Search as a Service

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Amazon Athena is 13.6%, up from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon AWS CloudSearch is 10.0%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Search as a Service

Featured Reviews

Manilal Kasera

Senior Software Engineer at Tiger Analytics

A great AWS application that is easy to set up and simple to expand

If you compare it with Palantir, if you have some data and you want to quickly have a look at it, then that feature is not available in Amazon Cloud. We'd like it better if, for example, when you have some data, you can easily query it and you can easily read it at a glance. We'd like it to just be almost like a drag-and-drop situation. In Amazon Cloud, you actually have first to upload the data into S3. For that, you have to create a bucket. Now you have to create a Glue service, which will get you the schema. Then that schema would create basically a database and a table. After that, you have to go to Athena to query the data. It's a three-step process in Amazon Cloud. In Palantir, you just have to drag and drop.

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HarishMahanta

Sr PeopleSoft Consultant at People Tech

A reasonably priced solution that provides scalability, stability, reliability, and security

In terms of what needs improvement, I would say that it needs to keep its cost competitive in the market, especially in comparison to other clouds. Let's say we have various clouds in the market, like Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and AWS Cloud. However, security-wise, I don't think AWS is bad. It's good only, especially in comparison to Oracle Cloud, if you really use Oracle, while also considering the fact that PeopleSoft is an Oracle product. AWS is a separate cloud, and Oracle has its own cloud. If you are in a new PeopleSoft and Oracle and you are using a third-party cloud, it means it is not easy since we can't think it is easy. I mean, if you are using Oracle products and you are using Oracle Cloud, it will be easier for you. However, it has a cost in comparison to AWS. Oracle Cloud is too costly. According to region, we segregate because it depends on the organization's strength. Let's say your organization has 1,000 customers. In that case, on a daily basis, let's say one customer was released or discontinued using the product. Then, you have to remove the solution. However, if you use Oracle Cloud, that space will remain there. In the case of AWS, they will immediately cut down their space, meaning in terms of reuse ability, it will reduce the cost. In our case, AWS is the best in the market, actually. We have various clouds like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure Cloud, the features of which are very different. There are a lot of features in AWS Cloud since I am not in the market providing service on the products. I am just using that tool to access our clients' database and deliver our day-to-day service. I interact with the clients regarding their issues, whatever they are facing. There is this one kind of interface we use to access things because they are in AWS Cloud. If your customer is in Oracle Cloud, then there will be a different approach to accessing it. In our case, we can use AWS or Oracle, so it doesn't matter to us.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Amazon Athena is very stable. I never had any issues with it. The dashboarding tool is okay."

"It's easy to set up the product."

"The solution is very easy to use and integrations are very smooth."

"Athena has a really good UI and is very compatible with on-prem products."

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to partition your databases. I also like the federal query functionality, for cases when you have to query outside your S3 storage, or even completely outside of the AWS platform."

"AWS CloudSearch's best features are good performance under high CPU and memory use, and ease of deployment and scaling."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon AWS CloudSearch is its ability to receive data quickly. You can access your data easily in a short time."

"I've found the solution to be very scalable."

"It is remarkably efficient and beneficial."

"Document indexing, text-based search API, and Geospatial searches are all good features."

"It's the best solution for any company. It has a hosting ERP system for any task. AWS is stable. AWS is more flexible and its elastic concept is a new concept. AWS is also very secure. It has many layers of security, like hardware security and software security. This is a big issue."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"It will remain alive in the market. The solution will be stable in the market."

More Amazon AWS CloudSearch pros

Cons

"The solution should include a better API for query services."

"One improvement I can suggest is that Athena needs to work better with third-parties. For example, the process of querying a Microsoft SQL warehouse could be improved."

"I think it would be better if the product were more mature. It's still a young product compared to Power BI or Qlik. I find that development is a bit difficult, but it might be because I'm used to other tools. The dashboarding capabilities could be better. The reporting and statement generation could be better. I couldn't technically initiate picture-perfect reporting, for example, to send out statements every month for banking customers."

"If you compare it with Palantir, if you have some data and you want to quickly have a look at it, then that feature is not available in Amazon Cloud."

"You have to build out the metadata yourself because of the nature of the cloud."

"Amazon AWS CloudSearch is highly stable. However, the speed depends on your internet connection."

"I would say that it needs to keep its cost competitive in the market, especially in comparison to other clouds."

"The solution should improve the recovery aspects that it has on offer."

"We'd like to see more database features."

"Regarding the period of propagation on CDN servers, sometimes we update photos or files and we don't see the update instantly. We need to wait for sometime."

"The price of the solution can be expensive."

"AWS CloudSearch's documentation isn't very clear. Also, the on-premise version of the solution is less stable than the cloud version."

"Maybe they are common in Egypt, but you should make a request on Amazon to create a function to monitor CPU performance, memory, and files. It is very difficult in AWS. I would tell them it should be simple, just drag and drop. I think they could develop this option so we can drag and drop to monitor performance of the processor and memory."

More Amazon AWS CloudSearch cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am happy with what they are charging and how they charge it, especially because they charge you per query, and not per series."

"It doesn't cost much if you are already part of the AWS ecosystem."

"Athena is very inexpensive for being a cloud tool."

"The solution operates on a serverless model so you only pay for data that you consume."

"We chose AWS because of its cost and stability."

"I'm not sure how much we pay a year. It might be around $30,000 a year."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one point is cheap, and ten points are expensive, I rate the pricing as medium or reasonable."

"In comparison to IBM and Microsoft, the pricing is more favorable."

"There was no license needed to use this solution."

"Amazon AWS CloudSearch charging is based on how many resources you consume or and the solution is known to be a bit expensive."

"Our license costs around $4,000 per month."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Athena?

Athena has a really good UI and is very compatible with on-prem products.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Athena?

Athena is very inexpensive for being a cloud tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Athena?

You have to build out the metadata yourself because of the nature of the cloud.

See all answers

What do you like most about Amazon AWS CloudSearch?

It is remarkably efficient and beneficial.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon AWS CloudSearch?

In comparison to IBM and Microsoft, the pricing is more favorable. I would rate it eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon AWS CloudSearch?

A reboot should be enhanced. There are issues with the VBC collection.

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon Elasticsearch Service vs Amazon Athena

Compared 71% of the time

Elastic Search vs Amazon Athena

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon Kendra vs Amazon Athena

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon Athena Competitors

Algolia vs Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Compared 27% of the time

Solr vs Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Compared 20% of the time

Elastic Search vs Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon Kendra vs Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon Elasticsearch Service vs Amazon AWS CloudSearch

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon AWS CloudSearch Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Search as a Service

January 2025

Download Amazon Athena product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon AWS CloudSearch

January 2025

Download Amazon AWS CloudSearch product report

Learn More

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Overview

Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.

Amazon CloudSearch is a managed service in the AWS Cloud that makes it simple and cost-effective to set up, manage, and scale a search solution for your website or application.
Amazon CloudSearch supports 34 languages and popular search features such as highlighting, autocomplete, and geospatial search. With Amazon CloudSearch, you can quickly add rich search capabilities to your website or application. You don't need to become a search expert or worry about hardware provisioning, setup, and maintenance. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can create a search domain and upload the data that you want to make searchable, and Amazon CloudSearch will automatically provision the required resources and deploy a highly tuned search index.

You can easily change your search parameters, fine tune search relevance, and apply new settings at any time. As your volume of data and traffic fluctuates, Amazon CloudSearch seamlessly scales to meet your needs.

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday

SmugMug

Buyer's Guide

Amazon AWS CloudSearch vs. Amazon Athena

January 2025

Free Report: Amazon AWS CloudSearch vs. Amazon Athena

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We monitor all Search as a Service reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.