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AWS Lake Formation vs Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse 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
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (13th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
 

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.
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides flexible data handling and integrates easily but requires less frequent patch releases
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse keeps giving updates and new features. In my first consultancy, I transitioned a mortgage company from Oracle OBIEE to Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse to greatly reduce the mortgage approval time. There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time. It extracts data from the ERP system, and we are doing extensive data analytics. The system handles target marketing for a company which does 85 to 90% of its business in wholesale. We have a variety of clients from mom-and-pop stores to big box stores, and we have intermediaries. We sell through approximately 13 retail channels including Etsy, our retail website, Faire, Wayfair, and Walmart. Each channel requires different types of inventory updates and packaging, which is managed automatically. A significant amount of development is done on Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse where all these processes are automatically fed out and updated. We also conduct inventory analysis and aging analysis. We identify seasonal buyers, track their purchasing habits, and auto-trigger campaigns for them, sometimes offering discounts on various items. We've found that combining top-selling items with non-selling items can lead to increased sales, as people often buy additional items when they find one on sale.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"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."
"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."
"There is no doubt that this place exceeded my expectations with its incredible ambiance, attentive service, and mouthwatering menu."
"We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows."
"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."
"We are able to monitor daily jobs, so if there is anything that needs to be done then we can do it."
"The interface is very user-friendly."
"It is not a pricey product compared to other data warehouse solutions."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution's integration is good."
"The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature."
"Overall, I rate Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse a nine out of ten."
"It performs very well overall."
 

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."
"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"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."
"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 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."
"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."
"Sometimes, the product requires rolling back to its previous version during a software update. This particular area could be enhanced."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution."
"If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data."
"The product must provide more frequent updates."
"They need to incorporate a machine learning engine."
"It could be made more user-friendly for business users which would increase the user base."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Media Company
5%
Computer Software Company
25%
Insurance Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
 

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 do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The patch releases are a concern. For a customer with tons of servers, frequent patches lead to required reboots, which interrupts business. It would be better to release patches less frequently, m...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.