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AWS Lake Formation vs SAP IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (13th)
SAP IQ
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (26th), Data Warehouse (13th)
 

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.
Tejas Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Columnar database, so pulling records is easy but there isn't enough documentation for installation
I've seen very few SAP IQ systems in recent years. So people are moving away from SAP IQ In the last three years, I've rarely encountered customers using it. Fewer systems with SAP IQ usage among our customers. Most of them have moved on to HANA. There are parallel products, and there are also viable alternatives from AWS, so many have migrated to those.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."
"I can easily move data from cold storage to regular storage."
"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."
"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 initial setup is easy."
"All data is compressed and indexed, allowing for fast execution of transactions."
"Columnar storage allows high compression, high load rates and high query performance."
"It is very robust for ad hoc DW queries and its columnar compression is unique and valuable."
"The column-based technologies (basically all the database for ITP) are used for SAP IQ. It is used as a column-based solution."
"IQ is a very high-performance and high-transaction database."
"The product is easy to learn."
"Unbeatable speed and compression with a colummn-structured relational database."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"You need to have data experience to use the product."
"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"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."
"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."
"Lake Formation could enhance its capabilities in audit logs, real-time monitoring, and advanced data governance."
"The room for improvement would be the marketing of the product, because this product is much better than advertised."
"The solution works best when combined with other SAP solutions. If the environment has other systems other options might be better."
"The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru."
"There is very little documentation available."
"The tool gets stuck sometimes."
"Concurrency and functional error messaging."
"The only negative aspect of IQ is the cost, which can be challenging for companies in Peru."
"The organization who owns the product does not support it well and appears not to be doing significant development for the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"Negotiate based on the features required."
"It's not that costly. So, the pricing is cheap."
"The only costs after standard licensing fees are for add-ons and upgrades."
"Evaluate all options; check to see if you need expensive add-ons."
"The cost of implementation is about $3,000."
"Negotiation is very important."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 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.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP IQ?
IQ implementation costs about three thousand dollars. It's less expensive compared to alternatives like Teradata Base in terms of transactional efficiency.
What needs improvement with SAP IQ?
The primary negative aspect is the cost, which can be a challenge due to the economic conditions in Peru.
What is your primary use case for SAP IQ?
I worked on implementing new databases, migration data in production, and developer environments with SAP IQ.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Sybase IQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
ASR Group, Citrix, State of Indiana, PocketCard Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. SAP IQ and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.