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AWS Lake Formation pros and cons

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

3.9 out of 5

11 reviews
72% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

AWS Lake Formation integrates seamlessly with the AWS ecosystem, excelling in connecting data lakes to other AWS technologies. It centralizes data analytics, optimizing workflows and saving costs. However, it requires improvements in orchestration, automation, and granular access control. Enhancements in audit logs and monitoring are also needed, alongside more competitive pricing. Despite its benefits, AWS Lake Formation might not meet all granular needs or budget constraints for every user.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

AWS Lake Formation connects the data lake to other technologies in AWS, providing a seamless experience.

It excels in enhancing workflows with measurable benefits in cost, time, and resource savings.

Its integration within the AWS ecosystem helps manage access patterns effectively for AWS-native services.

It centralizes analytics efficiently, aiding in data management.

Data can be easily moved between cold and regular storage, improving data handling capabilities.

CONS

AWS could improve orchestration and automation capabilities.

Professional services of AWS are very expensive, which can be a drawback.

Pricing of AWS Lake Formation could be cheaper.

More granular access control such as cell-level or row-level entitlements is lacking.

AWS Lake Formation could enhance capabilities in audit logs and real-time monitoring.

AWS Lake Formation Pros review quotes

Ramesh Raghavan

US South Lead, Accenture AWS Business Group at Accenture

Sep 10, 2024

AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products.

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Vice President Application Security North America at BNP Paribas

Sep 23, 2020

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

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reviewer1457997

Technical Head & Director - Data , AI & Robotics at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Dec 30, 2020

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

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AWS Lake Formation

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reviewer2290962

VP- Cloud Data/ Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Oct 9, 2023

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

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reviewer2749269

Co-Founder and Data Engineer

Aug 12, 2025

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

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reviewer1194768

Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics and Big Data Service Line at NTT DATA

Nov 2, 2020

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.

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reviewer2748012

AWS Data Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 5, 2025

We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows.

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Maxwell Seefeld

President & CEO at Y12

Nov 8, 2024

I can easily move data from cold storage to regular storage.

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VS

Large Account Manager at Almoayyed Computers

Aug 7, 2023

We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse.

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AWS Solution Architect at bcaa

Sep 4, 2024

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

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AWS Lake Formation Cons review quotes

Ramesh Raghavan

US South Lead, Accenture AWS Business Group at Accenture

Sep 10, 2024

Lake Formation could enhance its capabilities in audit logs, real-time monitoring, and advanced data governance.

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Vice President Application Security North America at BNP Paribas

Sep 23, 2020

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.

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reviewer1457997

Technical Head & Director - Data , AI & Robotics at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Dec 30, 2020

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

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AWS Lake Formation

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about AWS Lake Formation. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer2290962

VP- Cloud Data/ Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Oct 9, 2023

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.

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reviewer1194768

Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics and Big Data Service Line at NTT DATA

Nov 2, 2020

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.

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Maxwell Seefeld

President & CEO at Y12

Nov 8, 2024

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

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VS

Large Account Manager at Almoayyed Computers

Aug 7, 2023

AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper.

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AWS Solution Architect at bcaa

Sep 4, 2024

You need to have data experience to use the product.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Cloud Data Warehouse

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Cloud Data Warehouse

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Databricks vs AWS Lake Formation

Azure Data Factory vs AWS Lake Formation

Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs AWS Lake Formation

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation

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See all alternatives

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