Amazon Athena vs Amazon Elasticsearch Service comparison

Amazon Athena and Amazon Elasticsearch Service are both solutions in the Search as a Service category. Amazon Athena is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.0, while Amazon Elasticsearch Service is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.7. Amazon Athena holds a 10.6% mindshare in SS, compared to Amazon Elasticsearch Service’s 8.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Amazon Athena users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon Elasticsearch Service users who would recommend it.

Amazon Athena

Read 5 Amazon Athena reviews

1,293 Views
1,081 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Amazon Elasticsearch Service

Read 6 Amazon Elasticsearch Service reviews

1,509 Views
1,287 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon Athena

Amazon Elasticsearch Service

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Amazon Elasticsearch Service and Amazon Athena are key players in cloud-based data management. Amazon Athena seems to have the upper hand due to its flexible and cost-effective SQL querying capabilities on Amazon S3 data.

Features: Amazon Elasticsearch Service offers full-text search capabilities, robust real-time analytics, and supports integrated dashboard visualizations. It enables efficient search and retrieval of event data with native JSON support. On the other hand, Amazon Athena provides partitioning of databases, flexible federated query support, and a metastore for cross-account data access. Athena's serverless architecture allows direct querying on data in S3, supporting various standard data formats without data movement.

Room for Improvement: Amazon Elasticsearch Service could improve in reducing its configuration complexity and optimization for small-scale solutions. Additionally, simplifying its integration and expanding its dashboarding capabilities might attract more users. For Amazon Athena, enhancing the dashboarding tool and improving compatibility with more on-prem products could be beneficial. Athena may also improve its initial setup processes to optimize user experience further. Adding more intuitive features for larger data manipulations could help the system.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon Elasticsearch Service simplifies deployment with managed clusters and automatic scalability but may involve more effort in configuration due to its complexity. Amazon Athena provides ease with its serverless architecture, requiring no infrastructure management and offers instant access to vast datasets. Customer service for both services is comparable; however, Athena's straightforward deployment appeals to teams with limited technical resources.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon Elasticsearch Service involves costs for cluster management and scaling, which could affect ROI for smaller use cases, though its features justify the investment for advanced search needs. Amazon Athena operates on a pay-per-query model, which can lead to significant cost savings for analytics, especially for infrequent queries or large datasets. This model is appealing to cost-conscious organizations due to potential high ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Athena vs. Amazon Elasticsearch Service Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Athena vs. Amazon Elasticsearch Service

March 2025

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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

7th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Amazon Elasticsearch Service

Ranking in Search as a Service

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Amazon Athena is 10.6%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Elasticsearch Service is 8.6%, down from 18.1% 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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Surjit Choudhury

Consultancy at Ebenezer International School

A solution beneficial for the streaming of data that needs to improve its configuration part

Not for all the projects I saw, but most of the projects were using Elasticsearch, which is very common. In my case, I have faced two scenarios with the solution. Other than that, generic solutions like SNS, SQS, and Lambda are some of the very generic tools we are using. Regarding what I would like to see improved in the solution, I would say that, basically, the configuration part is an area with a shortcoming. We have a DevOps person, so all these things are configured in the Terraform through the Terraform script we use. The DevOps team used to take care of it. To run the process or run the services and how to use the services are the parts for which we are using the solution. Some upgradation is required on the configuration side so that we can get to use it. In that case, I have to check on that area with the DevOps.

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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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The most valuable features of Amazon Elasticsearch are ease of use, native JSON, and efficiency. Additionally, handles many use cases and search grammar was useful."

"Regarding valuable features of the solution, we found with the process, which we have used in both cases where we used the solution that while you're seeing the streaming of data, you can analyze in the initial phase what sort of data you are streaming and whether it is valuable."

"The initial set up is very easy...We really appreciate Amazon!"

"It enables us to efficiently search and retrieve our event data, offering us a versatile approach to locate specific information within these logs."

"The stability of the product is good."

"In case there is a failure, Elastic manages everything well, and there no major downtime."

"They have the good documentation in the help text and that is the reason the Amazon is the perfect solution in the current market."

"It's a good log management platform. In terms of infrastructure management, it's good."

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

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

"I want to see a new feature in Amazon Elasticsearch Service that allows users to create default filters for filtered levels."

"Amazon Elasticsearch can improve the bullion in the near search and the ease of integration with Kibana. Additionally, there could be more flexibility in the configuration and documentation."

"The configuration should be more straightforward because we had to select a lot of things."

"I would say that, basically, the configuration part is an area with a shortcoming...Some upgradation is required on the configuration side so that we can get to use it."

"There is a problem with the database. Amazon only provides the hosting to run our applications bias, but there is no option to manage the database within the Elasticsearch product."

"One glaring issue was with our mapping configuration as the system accepted the data we posted, but after a few months, when we attempted complex queries, we realized the date formatting had become problematic."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."

"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."

"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."

"You only pay for what you use."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

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 Elasticsearch Service?

It enables us to efficiently search and retrieve our event data, offering us a versatile approach to locate specific information within these logs.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Elasticsearch Service?

The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say. Regarding the pricing part based on the use cases, we used to sometimes see or do some of the costing parts also in that case. Depar...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Elasticsearch Service?

One glaring issue was with our mapping configuration as the system accepted the data we posted, but after a few months, when we attempted complex queries, we realized the date formatting had become...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Search as a Service

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Search as a Service

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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 Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Elasticsearch Service is a managed service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale Elasticsearch clusters in the AWS Cloud.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

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

VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Athena vs. Amazon Elasticsearch Service

March 2025

Free Report: Amazon Athena vs. Amazon Elasticsearch Service

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