Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Lake Formation vs Oracle Exadata 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 (8th)
Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (2nd)
 

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.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Has consistently delivered high performance and aligned security while evolving with AI-driven improvements
When discussing Oracle Exadata, the main thing is the specialized database appliance, the flash cache, and the engineered machine on the database for the database itself. Overall, all the features are useful and meaningful for any database like Oracle to run the Oracle database. Regarding Smart Scan technology, it is for better performance. If a customer cannot tune their applications, this will help them to run the database and run the application without any tuning itself. Oracle Exadata's advanced compression techniques have affected my customer's data storage efficiency positively, with the feature being great, but as of now, our customer is not using that. I find its security measures align with my customer's organization, as security is aligned as per the customer's requirement. It has helped optimize performance and cost.

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."
"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."
"In the shortest form, what I appreciated about AWS Lake Formation was that the schema definition and data cataloging were quite good."
"AWS Lake Formation significantly improves the structure of the data mesh, making it superior to previous structures we used."
"The LF-Tag system with granular permissions was key to the project as a functionality of AWS Lake Formation."
"AWS Lake Formation has several valuable features that enhance data management, and one particularly beneficial aspect is how it facilitates better collaboration within data teams."
"AWS Lake Formation works hand in hand with other products."
"The solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."
"I am satisfied with its functionalities and performance."
"What I found most valuable in Oracle Exadata is its newer technology that gives better performance. It has more recent hardware and significant changes in the architecture, so it's better than older solutions."
"The Oracle Exadata environment design is very reliable."
"In our current situation it is not bad, it's a very capable and very comprehensive solution."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is the integration with other solutions, such as SAN storage and shared VLAN network."
"The innovative use of all the technologies integrated so creatively and functionally provides an immense performance boost impossible to attain with do-it-yourself systems."
"The performance of the data is the most important part."
"Oracle is easy to use for peripheral things, such as the data vault and the data firewall, data sync, and partitions. These are the features that give an edge to other databases."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Information about the pricing, cost, and setup cost of the AWS solutions would be beneficial."
"I think AWS Lake Formation could improve by enforcing the least privilege by design, moving from ad hoc grants to role-based access controls."
"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."
"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."
"I haven't seen any measurable benefits from using AWS Lake Formation, such as time saving, resource saving, or efficiency improvements."
"Oracle Exadata could improve the platform performance tuning should be easier, automated, and user-friendly."
"The solution lacks a visualized console."
"There is room for improvement with the handling of the Temp IO, which is often used for JOIN statements."
"I would like to add some features to run applications or microservices-based applications on Exadata."
"We used the support from Oracle Exadata to complete the implementation."
"After three to four months we may need to perform a rolling reboot of the DB/storage servers."
"The entry-level pricing is too high for the smaller shops."
"We have experienced some issues with processing unstructured data on Exadata. This is an important requirement for our AIML based use case. Reactive analytics data can not be prepared easily in Oracle Exadata."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"Our customers are always looking to reduce the license's cost."
"The solution takes a lot of time to clone the environment. I would like to see some improvement in the cloning support or the time it takes on the storage side."
"The price of Oracle Exadata is competitive. There are some features that are outside of the initial purchase license, such as some monitoring packages."
"I'm giving Oracle Exadata five out of ten in terms of pricing. Its price could be lower."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"The price of the solution has been expensive to implement."
"The price of Oracle Exadata is expensive. It is not competitive with other solutions some of the times."
"Exadata is an expensive tool, but, considering the ROI, it's worth going for the solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

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 Business47
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise86
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
I believe that there is still room for improvement in Oracle Exadata, as they are putting AI features on those databases, which is making the database more user-friendly. Even you can talk to the d...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata?
I deal most with Oracle database. I have been working with Oracle Database Appliance for more than 25 years, and if you're talking about appliance, it's more than 10 years, but on Oracle database, ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Oracle Exadata and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.