AWS Lake Formation vs Azure Data Factory comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.1, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 5.7% mindshare in CDW, compared to Microsoft’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

AWS Lake Formation

Read 20 AWS Lake Formation reviews

1,634 Views
1,585 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Azure Data Factory

Read 92 Azure Data Factory reviews

14,334 Views
2,437 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

Azure Data Factory

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Azure Data Factory and AWS Lake Formation are competing cloud services in managing and orchestrating data workflows. Azure Data Factory seems to have an advantage with superior pricing and customer support but AWS Lake Formation's robust features justify its cost for those prioritizing comprehensive capabilities.

Features: Azure Data Factory offers entrenched integration options across various platforms, intuitive data mapping, and transformation capabilities with ease of use. AWS Lake Formation provides a focused system for setting up secure data lakes with automated data cataloging and fine-grained access control, establishing a strong data governance framework.

Room for Improvement: Azure Data Factory could improve its security features and offer more detailed monitoring capabilities. Expanding built-in connectors for even wider integration and enhancing real-time streaming support could also be beneficial. AWS Lake Formation might focus on streamlining its initial setup and improving user interface simplicity. Offering enhanced support for data analysis tools and additional automation features could further elevate its service.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Data Factory enables quick deployment with agility and receives praise for rapid customer service responses. AWS Lake Formation requires more setup time due to its emphasis on security and data governance, suitable for businesses needing extensive formulations but offers a thorough data management process.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Data Factory presents attractive pricing with low initial setup costs, promoting a favorable ROI for enterprises needing cost-effective solutions. AWS Lake Formation involves higher initial costs, which are balanced by its valuable data governance capabilities, rendering it appealing for businesses focusing on security and oversight.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Azure Data Factory Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Azure Data Factory

July 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

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Azure Data Factory

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 5.7%, up from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 6.9%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Data Factory	6.9%
AWS Lake Formation	5.7%
Other	87.4%

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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KandaswamyMuthukrishnan

Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Integrates diverse data sources and streamlines ETL processes effectively

Regarding potential areas of improvement for Azure Data Factory, there is a need for better data transformation, especially since many people are now depending on DataBricks more for connectivity and data integration. Azure Data Factory should consider how to enhance integration or filtering for more transformations, such as integrating with Spark clusters. I am satisfied with Azure Data Factory so far, but I suggest integrating some AI functionality to analyze data during the transition itself, providing insights such as null records, common records, and duplicates without running a separate pipeline or job. The monitoring tools in Azure Data Factory are helpful for optimizing data pipelines; while the current feature is adequate, they can improve by creating a live dashboard to see the online process, including how much percentage has been completed, which will be very helpful for people who are monitoring the pipeline.

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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 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."

"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."

"We use this to reduce latency from minutes to seconds, as we aim for real-time visibility into patient healthcare monitoring."

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

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

"A favorite feature of AWS Lake Formation is that it provides us with visibility into who has access to a particular table or database in Glue."

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

More AWS Lake Formation pros

"The scalability of the product is impressive."

"The most valuable aspect is the copy capability."

"UI is easy to navigate and I can retrieve VTL code without knowing in-depth coding languages."

"Most of our customers are Microsoft shops and prefer Azure Data Factory because they have good licensing options and a trust factor with Microsoft."

"The interface of Azure Data Factory is very usable with a more interactive visual experience, making it easier for people who are not as experienced in coding to work with."

"I can do everything I want with SSIS and Azure Data Factory."

"The solution includes a feature that increases the number of processors used which makes it very powerful and adds to the scalability."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Data Factory is that it has a good combination of flexibility, fine-tuning, automation, and good monitoring."

More Azure Data Factory 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 would appreciate online support, which I don't have access to in my corporation at the bank, so that is important."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Athena can be a bit clunky when writing queries, indicating a potential enhancement point for easier user interaction with query tools such as DataGrip using provided driver JARs."

More AWS Lake Formation cons

"It can improve from the perspective of active logging. It can provide active logging information."

"A room for improvement in Azure Data Factory is its speed. Parallelization also needs improvement."

"Data Factory's performance during heavy data processing isn't great."

"Lacks a decent UI that would give us a view of the kinds of requests that come in."

"When working with AWS, we have noticed that the difference between ADF and AWS is that AWS is more customer-focused. They're more responsive compared to any other company. ADF is not as good as AWS, but it should be. If AWS is ten out of ten, ADF is around eight out of ten. I think AWS is easier to understand from the GUI perspective compared to ADF."

"I do not have any notes for improvement."

"The product could provide more ways to import and export data."

"Currently, smaller businesses face a disadvantage in terms of pricing, and reducing costs could address this issue."

More Azure Data Factory cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"Product is priced at the market standard."

"I would not say that this product is overly expensive."

"The price you pay is determined by how much you use it."

"I rate the product price as six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

"ADF is cheaper compared to AWS."

"This is a cost-effective solution."

"The pricing is pay-as-you-go or reserve instance. Of the two options, reserve instance is much cheaper."

"I am aware of the pricing of Azure Data Factory, but I prefer not to disclose specific details."

More Azure Data Factory pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	55

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?

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?

I don't know any features that I would want to see included in the future releases of AWS Lake Formation. Making queries in SQL is a reality now, and in the future, it would be beneficial if AWS im...

See all answers

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?

AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.

See all answers

How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?

Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...

See all answers

How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?

Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...

See all answers

Comparisons

Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 29% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 20% of the time

BigQuery vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 11% of the time

Databricks vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 7% of the time

More AWS Lake Formation Competitors

Snowflake vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 8% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 6% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 6% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 5% of the time

Denodo vs Azure Data Factory

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Data Factory Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

September 2025

Download AWS Lake Formation product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Data Factory

September 2025

Download Azure Data Factory product report

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)

Azure Data Factory efficiently manages and integrates data from various sources, enabling seamless movement and transformation across platforms. Its valuable features include seamless integration with Azure services, handling large data volumes, flexible transformation, user-friendly interface, extensive connectors, and scalability. Users have experienced improved team performance, workflow simplification, enhanced collaboration, streamlined processes, and boosted productivity.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Azure Data Factory

July 2025

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. Azure Data Factory

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