AWS Lake Formation vs BigQuery comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.1, while Google is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 4.4% mindshare in CDW, compared to Google’s 7.7% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Google users who would recommend it.

AWS Lake Formation

Read 21 AWS Lake Formation reviews

1,793 Views
1,506 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

BigQuery

Read 43 BigQuery reviews

3,546 Views
2,872 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

BigQuery

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

AWS Lake Formation and BigQuery are competing in the cloud services market, particularly in data management and analytics. BigQuery stands out with its superior feature set, offering robust analytics capabilities, while AWS Lake Formation emphasizes strong data governance and security.

Features: AWS Lake Formation focuses on data lake creation, security, governance, and simplifies access rights management. BigQuery offers high-speed SQL analytics, real-time querying, and machine learning integration. The distinction is in AWS's strong governance compared to BigQuery's advanced analytical capabilities.

Room for Improvement: AWS Lake Formation could enhance real-time analytics and improve its machine learning features. It might also benefit from simplified ETL job setups. BigQuery could lower costs for extensive use cases, refine data governance tools, and offer better integration with non-Google services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Lake Formation is well-integrated with the AWS ecosystem, offering seamless service integration and extensive support. BigQuery’s serverless architecture allows for quick deployment with minimal configuration. While AWS offers personalized customer service, BigQuery provides extensive documentation and online resources.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Lake Formation is cost-effective with flexible pricing models based on storage needs, potentially offering lower initial setup costs. BigQuery uses pay-as-you-go billing for queries, which might be costlier in high-use scenarios but efficient for variable workloads. AWS provides ROI through efficient data management, while BigQuery offers ROI via enhanced analytical capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. BigQuery Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. BigQuery

April 2026

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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

AWS Lake Formation

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

BigQuery

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 4.4%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BigQuery is 7.7%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
BigQuery	7.7%
AWS Lake Formation	4.4%
Other	87.9%

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Ciro Baldim Guerra

Sr Analytics Engineer at Itau Unibanco S.A.

Has improved data governance by enabling clear ownership and structured access across teams

In my company, Itaú, we don't utilize all AWS offerings due to rigorous security measures. We operate approximately six to eight months behind other available services. I'm uncertain if gaps exist because of this limitation, though the system functions effectively for us. AWS Lake Formation offers column-level access control for databases, but we haven't implemented this feature either because it hasn't been approved by our compliance, governance, or security areas. In our current setup, everyone from my business unit uses the same consumer account. When access is requested for a table, everyone using that business unit account receives access. This could present a security concern, though it benefits new team members who automatically receive all necessary access permissions. However, I struggle to identify specific improvements needed in AWS Lake Formation.

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Luís Silva

Chief Technical Lead at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Handles large data sets efficiently and offers flexible data management capabilities

The features I find most valuable in this solution are the ability to run and handle large data sets in a very efficient way with multiple types of data, relational as SQL data. It is kind of difficult to explain, but structured data and the ability to handle large data sets are key features. The data integration capabilities in BigQuery were, in fact, an issue at the beginning. There are two types of integrations. As long as integration is within Google, it is pretty simple. When you start to try to connect external clients to that data, it becomes more complex. It is not related to BigQuery, it is related to Google security model, which is not easy to manage. I would not call it an integration issue of BigQuery, I would call it an integration issue of Google security model.

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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

"The features and capabilities of AWS Lake Formation that I have found most valuable are that it is really convenient to see all the different data assets that were configured and understand who has and what type of service has or does not have access to those services."

"The most important advantage of using AWS Lake Formation is its ability to connect the data lake to the other technologies in AWS."

"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."

"There is no doubt that this place exceeded my expectations with its incredible ambiance, attentive service, and mouthwatering menu."

"It is seamlessly integrated within the AWS ecosystem, making it straightforward to manage access patterns for AWS-native services."

"AWS Lake Formation has several valuable features that enhance data management, and one particularly beneficial aspect is how it facilitates better collaboration within data teams."

"The integration of AWS Lake Formation with the IAM for authentication and authorization is very good; I didn't have any problems in the setup and thought it was simple."

"The solution is quite good at handling analytics."

More AWS Lake Formation pros

"The feature called calibrating the capacity is valuable."

"BigQuery excels at data analysis. It processes vast amounts of information using its advanced architecture and sophisticated querying capabilities, making it crucial for critical insights and safe for handling sensitive data."

"BigQuery can be used for any type of company. It has the capability of building applications and storing data. It can be used for OLTP or OLAP. It has many other products within the Google space."

"Even non-coders can review the data in BigQuery."

"We can analyze terabytes of data in a very small amount of time."

"BigQuery has a very nice interface that you can easily learn if you know SQL."

"The interface is what I find particularly valuable."

"I like that we can synch and run a large query. I also like that we can work with a large amount of data. You don't need to work separately, as it's a ready-made solution. It also comes with a built-in machine-learning feature. Once we start inputting the data, it will suggest some things related to the data, and we can come up with nice dashboards and statistics from a vast amount of data."

More BigQuery pros

Cons

"The initial onboarding process is challenging because creating a plan takes a month to a month and a half to build out."

"I think AWS Lake Formation could improve by enforcing the least privilege by design, moving from ad hoc grants to role-based access controls."

"The solution could make improvements around orchestration and doing some automation stuff on AWS front automation."

"The main challenge we faced with AWS Lake Formation was related to cross-account sharing. Granting access to other AWS accounts for tables or databases in a different AWS account was somewhat difficult."

"You need to have data experience to use the product."

"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."

"I haven't seen any measurable benefits from using AWS Lake Formation, such as time saving, resource saving, or efficiency improvements."

"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."

More AWS Lake Formation cons

"The price is a bit high but the technology is worth it."

"It would be beneficial to integrate additional tools, particularly from a business intelligence perspective."

"It would be beneficial if BigQuery could be made more affordable."

"The product’s performance could be much faster."

"Some of the queries are complex and difficult to understand."

"It would be better if BigQuery didn't have huge restrictions. For example, when we migrate from on-premises to on-premise, the data which handles all ebook characters can be handled on-premise, but in BigQuery, we have huge restrictions."

"I noticed recently it's more expensive now."

"When I execute a query, the dashboard doesn't always present the output seamlessly. Troubleshooting requires opening each pipeline individually, which is time-consuming."

More BigQuery cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"We are above the free threshold, so we are paying around 40 euros per month for BigQuery."

"The solution's pricing is cheaper compared to other solutions."

"1 TB is free of cost monthly. If you use more than 1 TB a month, then you need to pay 5 dollars extra for each TB."

"The price could be better. Usually, you need to buy the license for a year. Whenever you want more, you can subscribe to it, and you can use it. Otherwise, you can terminate the license. You can use it daily or monthly, and we use it based on a project's requirements."

"The solution is pretty affordable and quite cheap in comparison to PDP or Cloudera."

"BigQuery pricing can increase quickly. It's a high-priced solution."

"The product operates on a pay-for-use model. Costs include storage and query execution, which can accumulate based on data volume and complexity."

"The product’s pricing could be more flexible for end users."

More BigQuery pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lake Formation?

I don't understand much about the pricing of AWS Lake Formation, but I know how to search for the cost of Glue jobs, and I use the calculator in Amazon. I use a tool to preview the cost based on th...

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What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?

Regarding areas of AWS Lake Formation that could be improved or enhanced, I prefer not to answer, mainly because I do not believe that I would be the most valuable person to ask, as I have not used...

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What is your primary use case for AWS Lake Formation?

My usual use cases for AWS Lake Formation involved securing and governing the data resources that we configured in AWS, but we did not use the analytics or machine learning capabilities specificall...

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What do you like most about BigQuery?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigQuery?

I believe the cost of BigQuery is competitive versus the alternatives in the market, but it can become expensive if the tool is not used properly. It is on a per-consumption basis, the billing, so ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with BigQuery?

With what I have seen in BigQuery, I had some response times problems, but then it is an analytical database and not a transactional database, so it comes with eventual consistency. I cannot have e...

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Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

Amazon EMR vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 5% of the time

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Teradata vs BigQuery

Compared 10% of the time

Snowflake vs BigQuery

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Analytics Database (Vertica) vs BigQuery

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs BigQuery

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

April 2026

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Buyer's Guide

BigQuery

April 2026

Download BigQuery product report

Also Known As

No data available

Overview

AWS Lake Formation is a service that makes it easy to set up a secure data lake in days. A data lake is a centralized, curated, and secured repository that stores all your data, both in its original form and prepared for analysis.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse that solves this problem by enabling super-fast SQL queries using the processing power of Google's infrastructure. ... You can control access to both the project and your data based on your business needs, such as giving others the ability to view or query your data.

Google

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. BigQuery

April 2026

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. BigQuery

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