AWS Lake Formation vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.3, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 5.1% mindshare in CDW, compared to Microsoft’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 71% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

AWS Lake Formation

Read 8 AWS Lake Formation reviews

2,803 Views
2,407 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Read 91 Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reviews

8,714 Views
3,808 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and AWS Lake Formation are competing in the data integration and analytics platform category. Azure Synapse Analytics seems to have an edge in terms of support and pricing, while AWS Lake Formation offers greater value through its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Azure Synapse Analytics provides integrated analytics services, seamless scalability, and a user-friendly interface for Microsoft product integration. These features make it particularly suitable for businesses utilizing other Azure services. AWS Lake Formation stands out with its robust data cataloging, advanced security capabilities, and strong interoperability within the AWS ecosystem. These strengths facilitate superior data governance and management.

Room for Improvement: Azure Synapse Analytics may lack some advanced data security features compared to AWS, potentially requiring enhancements in data cataloging for non-Microsoft environments. It might benefit from improved interoperability with non-Microsoft platforms. AWS Lake Formation could improve ease of deployment and user experience for those unfamiliar with AWS. Additionally, streamlining integration processes for non-native AWS services could increase its appeal outside the AWS environment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Synapse Analytics offers a streamlined deployment process, particularly within the Azure ecosystem, bolstered by reliable customer support. AWS Lake Formation, while posing a more comprehensive setup due to its wide-ranging data management capabilities, provides strong backing with customer support tailored to meet enterprise-level requirements. This distinction underscores ease of use in environments where each solution excels, with Azure Synapse integrating more smoothly within Microsoft-based infrastructures.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Synapse Analytics presents competitive pricing, especially for Microsoft-centric organizations, offering efficient ROI through streamlined data processing workflows. AWS Lake Formation may require a higher initial financial commitment but promises significant ROI owing to its extensive security and robust data management features. Deciding between the two requires organizations to weigh cost against long-term value, considering their strategic priorities around data governance and security.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

January 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

AWS Lake Formation

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 5.1%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 6.9%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

Ramesh Raghavan

US South Lead, Accenture AWS Business Group at Accenture

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.

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Matthew Spieth

Senior Database Administrator at Summa Health System

Beneficial real-time analytics, simple setup, and useful tutorials

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve its compatibility with Visual Studio. One of the challenges for people moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, is that you're constantly working in a browser. There are people that have been working for decades on desktop applications. For them to start working in a browser, it's quite a change. Allowing people to work and do their work inside Visual Studio than in the browser, would be a large advantage.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."

"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."

"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."

"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."

"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 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."

"The ability to scale out services on-demand and scale them down when they are not required is most valuable. You are in control of your expenditures, and you are also in control of the horsepower that you need. That's a major advantage."

"We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

"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."

"We've had a good experience with technical support in general."

"I like the keynotes and their simplicity. Like other Microsoft products, Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is simple to understand and use."

"It's quite quick for querying, even with large datasets, and it's scalable. It's also flexible to use, so it's easy to update and get data quickly without wasting time."

"The product works well with other Azure products."

"The main advantage of using this solution is its ability to scale and handle very large amounts of data, in the petabyte range."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pros

Cons

"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."

"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."

"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."

"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."

"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."

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

"Microsoft should develop an interface to make it easier to shift from on-premise to the cloud."

"We'd like the solution to have more analytics capability."

"In our company, we always want to improve our data management, including how to manage structured and unstructured data."

"More integration is needed to improve the product for the future."

"The initial setup process needs improvement. When you're moving to the cloud it takes a bit of time. It would be great if they could implement something that would make it faster."

"The need to improve a little bit in terms of user-friendliness."

"One area for improvement could be better integration with Power BI, as well as data integration with BW."

"There is a limit on the number of concurrent queries to around 125 for Azure Synapse."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"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."

"This is a cost-effective product."

"The solution is expensive at the enterprise level."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an expensive solution and there is a license needed to use it. My company has an enterprise license."

"I understand that Synapse Analytics' pricing is lower than Informatica's."

"The product is expensive."

"The price of the package not expensive and depends on how much it is used."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Educational Organization

51%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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

The pricing is expensive compared to OpenStack, but cheaper than other cloud environments. It's middle-of-the-road for regular storage yet very cost-effective when using Amazon Glacier for data.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?

If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker. I would have built-in functions that provide statistics for the data when using the GUI, such as SageMaker Insig...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The financial aspect, including pricing and cost reduction, is not something I focus on.

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 39% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 18% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 17% of the time

BigQuery vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon EMR vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 4% of the time

More AWS Lake Formation Competitors

SAP BW4HANA vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 14% of the time

Teradata vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Snowflake vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

February 2025

Download AWS Lake Formation product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

February 2025

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report

Download Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics product report

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

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)

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an end-to-end analytics solution that successfully combines analytical services to merge big data analytics and enterprise data warehouses into a single unified platform. The solution can run intelligent distributed queries among nodes, and provides the ability to query both relational and non-relational data.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is built with these 4 components:

Synapse SQL
Spark
Synapse Pipeline
Studio

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has many valuable key features, including:

Cloud Data Service: WIth Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can operate services (data analytics, machine learning, data warehousing, dashboarding, etc.) in a single workspace via the cloud.
Structured and unstructured data: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports both structured and unstructured data and allows you to manage relational and non-relational data - unlike data warehouses and lakes that tend to store them respectively.
Effective data storage: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers next-level data storage with high availability and different tiers.
Responsive data engine: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and analytical workloads efficiently without any problems.
Several scripting languages: The solution provides language compatibility and supports different programming languages, such as Python, Java, Spark SQL, and Scala.
Query optimization: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works well to facilitate limitless concurrency and performance optimization. It also simplifies workload management.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics include:

Database templates: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers industry-specific database templates that make it easy to combine and shape data.
Better business insights: With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can expand discovery of insights from all your data and apply machine learning models to all your intelligent apps.
Reduce project development time: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics makes it possible to have a unified experience for developing end-to-end analytics, which reduces project development time significantly.
Eliminate data barriers: By using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can perform analytics on operational and business apps data without data movement.
Advanced security: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides both advanced security and privacy features to ensure data protection.
Machine Learning: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Power BI.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Jael S., who is an Information Architect at Systems Analysis & Design Engineering, comments on her experience using the product, saying that it is “Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeps your data secure”. She also says "We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

Michel T., CHTO at Timp-iT, mentions that "the features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."

A Senior Teradata Consultant at a tech services company says, "Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe,

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

January 2025

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

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