No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (10th)
Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ciro Baldim Guerra - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows."
"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."
"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"We use this to reduce latency from minutes to seconds, as we aim for real-time visibility into patient healthcare monitoring."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"The main benefits that I have seen from using AWS Lake Formation are related to FinOps because you have control of your data and can track your costs since AWS Lake Formation is integrated into a unique platform, which is AWS Cloud Service."
"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 has been reliable."
"This is a great product for big data analytics as it can challenge other MPPs quite well."
"We have complete control over our data."
"I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support."
"The solution's integration is good."
"I like Data Warehouse's data integrity features. Data integrity is what databases are made for as opposed to spreadsheets."
"The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"The UI of AWS Lake Formation is not very responsive."
"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"Despite following official documentation, configuration problems persisted, requiring weeks of support from multiple AWS engineers to resolve."
"The initial onboarding process is challenging because creating a plan takes a month to a month and a half to build out."
"You need to have data experience to use the product."
"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."
"Lake Formation could enhance its capabilities in audit logs, real-time monitoring, and advanced data governance."
"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."
"The reporting for certain types of data needs to be improved."
"The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up."
"The initial setup of this solution is complex and can be improved."
"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."
"When there are many users or many expensive queries, it can be very slow."
"It requires significant infrastructure expertise to implement."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution."
"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"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."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"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 tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with AWS Lake Formation?
Regarding areas of AWS Lake Formation that could be improved or enhanced, I prefer not to answer, mainly because I do not believe that I would be the most valuable person to ask, as I have not used...
What is your primary use case for AWS Lake Formation?
My usual use cases for AWS Lake Formation involved securing and governing the data resources that we configured in AWS, but we did not use the analytics or machine learning capabilities specificall...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.
 

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 Snowflake Computing, Teradata, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.