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AWS Lake Formation vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

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
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 7.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 9.1%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sunil Gidwani - PeerSpot reviewer
No competitors provide the entire solution to one place
I rate Azure Synapse Analytics eight out of 10. No competitors provide the entire solution to one place like Synapse. For example, a database just focuses moving and manipulating data, etc. But Synapse is like an all-inclusive workspace. I advise other people to go with Databricks Notebook if you need a computation engine. It has a solid SQL storage procedure. Suppose you are dealing with complex transformation logic and manipulation of run-time data flows. In that case, it's better to use Databricks than any Microsoft ADF. DataBricks looks more promising in terms of computing in memory, so we integrated Databricks in Synapse.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is seamlessly integrated within the AWS ecosystem, making it straightforward to manage access patterns for AWS-native services."
"I can easily move data from cold storage to regular storage."
"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."
"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."
"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"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 most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are its serverless flexibility and complete power have allowed me to explore various different use cases. While I am not an expert in the product, my experience in programming in Databricks has shown me that Microsoft's investments in Synapse could potentially lead to it becoming a complete replacement for Databricks in the future."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics are how easy and quick it is to set up the linked services."
"They are very reliable and cost-effective."
"The setup is pretty simple."
"This is a stable solution with many functionalities."
"The platform has multiple valuable use cases. They include performance, compatibility, flexibility, and cost."
"The solution handles single or complex items within a second."
"The features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."
 

Cons

"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."
"You need to have data experience to use the product."
"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."
"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."
"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."
"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."
"The only issue that we have run into with the solutions performance is with regards to concurrency."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics's overall integration within the Azure ecosystem could improve. The native Microsoft solution versus another solution, such as Databricks, there are areas where there could be some improvements."
"In our company, we always want to improve our data management, including how to manage structured and unstructured data."
"I'm not entirely happy with the billing model. I'm not entirely happy with how the enterprise services are pretty expensive, but that's about it."
"They should provide a less expensive version with a smaller setup for small businesses. Currently, its price is quite high for entry-level or small businesses. In terms of integration, new connectors are always welcomed."
"Synapse Analytics needs to develop an automation framework because now you have to build a cache yourself. You have to build a pipeline in WhereScape, which does end-to-end pipeline automation well. Microsoft should come up with a framework to save people time. If they developed a tool like WhereScape, it would dramatically reduce development time."
"While the solution is flexible, sometimes this works against the user."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"There's no license required for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. the model is more of a use-based system. You got to pay for computing power and disk storage. Everything has different units and is kept backed up. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses storage units(SU). This is how everything's computed for cost."
"This solution starts at €1000.00 a month for just the basics and can go up to €300,000.00 per month for the fastest version."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be costly, however, a cost-effective approach would be to purchase it in advance through reservation for either one or three years. This will significantly reduce the overall expenses incurred."
"All of the prices are available online."
"Very costly solution and other products are available for less."
"We have a licensing cost to pay."
"You have to be very careful with one specific service inside Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics which is called the Sequel Data Warehouse Dedicated. It is very reliable and performs well, but it's expensive. You need to define the tier well because you can choose between several tiers and you have to define which suits your needs and not overperform the tier because it's quite expensive."
"The solution is very expensive because it often requires the purchase of additional storage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
44%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The cost is reasonable for our company. There is no license cost; we pay only for Azure Compute's costs. It is important to manage the cost efficiently on a daily basis.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.