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AWS Lake Formation vs Amazon EMR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EMR
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (3rd)
AWS Lake Formation
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon EMR is 4.5%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 7.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Quan Vu - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient data processing features and has good scalability
We need to have a data pipeline tool to ensure consistent data processing for the initial setup. We create a framework, read the code, and execute it in a data catalog. The size of the maintenance team depends on the project and the use cases. Usually, one backup team of four or five DevOps executives takes care of the backend and database. We need to separate our environments into production and development. We use GitHub for source control, Jenkins for the deployment pipeline, and a standard CI/CD tool to deploy code changes into production. We need to develop a deployment framework so developers only need to provide the code for their projects. The underlying engine then deploys the code, reads it, addresses the EMR filter, executes it, and completes the data processing.
Ramesh Raghavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized repository, offers various cataloging mechanisms for quick data retrieval but data governance capabilities could be better
There are a couple of areas for improvement with Lake Formation. One of the main challenges, especially when dealing with rich media content, like in MarTech (Marketing Technology) or ad agencies, is its versatility. Some clients feel that Lake Formation doesn’t meet their needs and they tend to prefer competitor products for those specific use cases. The second area for improvement is in data governance. Specifically, Lake Formation could enhance its capabilities in audit logs, real-time monitoring, and advanced data governance. This includes managing the entire data lineage—where the data originated, how it moves, and where it’s currently stored. The visibility of the data as it evolves is crucial, and that’s where more advanced governance capabilities would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is scalable."
"The solution helps us manage huge volumes of data."
"One of the valuable features about this solution is that it's managed services, so it's pretty stable, and scalable as much as you wish. It has all the necessary distributions. With some additional work, it's also possible to change to a Spark version with the latest version of EMR. It also has Hudi, so we are leveraging Apache Hudi on EMR for change data capture, so then it comes out-of-the-box in EMR."
"It has a variety of options and support systems."
"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."
"The ability to resize the cluster is what really makes it stand out over other Hadoop and big data solutions."
"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."
"It allows users to access the data through a web interface."
"The most important advantage in using AWS Lake Formation is its ability to connect the data lake to the other technologies in AWS. This is what I advise my clients."
"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."
"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."
"It is seamlessly integrated within the AWS ecosystem, making it straightforward to manage access patterns for AWS-native services."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"I can easily move data from cold storage to regular storage."
 

Cons

"As people are shifting from legacy solutions to other technologies, Amazon EMR needs to add more features that give more flexibility in managing user data."
"The legacy versions of the solution are not supported in the new versions."
"The solution can become expensive if you are not careful."
"There were times where they would release new versions and it seemed to end up breaking old versions, which is very strange."
"The product must add some of the latest technologies to provide more flexibility to the users."
"There is room for improvement in pricing."
"The initial setup was time-consuming."
"We don't have much control. If we have multiple users, if they want to scale up, the cost will go and increase and we don't know how we can restrict that price part."
"You need to have data experience to use the product."
"The solution could make improvements around orchestration and doing some automation stuff on AWS front automation. It would be useful if we could use automation to build images and use hardened images which are CIS compliant."
"It falls short when it comes to more granular access control, such as cell-level or row-level entitlements which is a significant drawback for organizations that require precise control over who can access specific rows of data."
"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"Lake Formation could enhance its capabilities in audit logs, real-time monitoring, and advanced data governance."
"In our experience what could be improved are not the support, performance or monitoring, but at a managerial level, the very expensive professional services of AWS. This could be an area of improvement for them. It's too expensive to acquire their support."
"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."
"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."
"The cost of Amazon EMR is very high."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."
"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."
"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."
"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."
"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EMR?
Amazon EMR is a good solution that can be used to manage big data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?
I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you...
What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?
The solution can become expensive if you are not careful.
What do you like most about AWS Lake Formation?
It is seamlessly integrated within the AWS ecosystem, making it straightforward to manage access patterns for AWS-native services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lake Formation?
The pricing really depends on the kind of contract you have with AWS and who is selling you the AWS services. There are many ways to consume AWS services. It depends on whether you have an enterpri...
What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?
Not everybody can use AWS Lake Formation. You need to have data experience to use the product.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yelp
bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon EMR and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.