AWS Lake Formation vs Snowflake comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Snowflake Computing are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.1, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 4.1% mindshare in CDW, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 14.9% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Snowflake Computing users who would recommend it.

AWS Lake Formation

Read 21 AWS Lake Formation reviews

1,976 Views
1,620 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 105 Snowflake reviews

12,141 Views
6,556 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

Snowflake

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Snowflake and AWS Lake Formation are two prominent solutions for managing data storage and access in the cloud. Snowflake has a favorable edge with users for pricing and support due to its scalability and flexibility, while AWS Lake Formation is seen as superior regarding security features, integrated AWS ecosystem capabilities, and cost-effectiveness for larger infrastructure deployments.

Features: Snowflake offers seamless scalability, high-speed distributed processing, and supports diverse file formats like CSV, JSON, and GZIP. AWS Lake Formation is known for its robust security features, ease of connection within the AWS environment, and presenting a unified ecosystem for AWS-native services users.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could enhance its spatial capabilities, streamline Snowpipe auto-ingestion, and improve pricing transparency. AWS Lake Formation could integrate better with third-party services, enhance data governance, and improve cross-account sharing capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake is praised for its scalability and ease of deployment, although its support lacks SLAs. AWS Lake Formation excels in seamless deployment within AWS but may be less flexible across non-AWS environments, with responsive customer service, facing complexities in customized support.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake's consumption-based pricing is seen as high compared to cloud services like Redshift but offers strong ROI through productivity enhancements. AWS Lake Formation is reasonably priced within the AWS ecosystem, enhancing ROI through integration benefits and comprehensive service offerings.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake

April 2026

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Helped 893,244 peers since 2012

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

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Snowflake

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (7th), AI Software Development (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 4.1%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 14.9%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Snowflake	14.9%
AWS Lake Formation	4.1%
Other	81.0%

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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SunilPatil1

Asset Builder at Genpact - Headstrong

Have prioritized security while managing multi-agent data migration and cloud adoption

We utilize Time Travel with Snowflake because this is a very useful feature. Everyone finds it crucial because in conventional data platforms, it's very difficult to handle these kinds of things. This feature is essential, though I don't have the use cases currently; it is just there for implementation. Regarding Snowflake's automated scaling and suspension features, this auto-scaling is very significant. We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.

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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 features and capabilities of AWS Lake Formation that I have found most valuable are that it is really convenient to see all the different data assets that were configured and understand who has and what type of service has or does not have access to those services."

"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."

"Every solution has its pros and cons, however, for our purposes, this solution works quite well for us."

"The most valuable features of AWS Lake Formation were the access model itself, as it allows implementation of filters, Blueprints, and row-level and column-level security to mask data that shouldn't be accessed by certain entities, enabling granular control without exposing PII data."

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

"AWS Lake Formation significantly improves the structure of the data mesh, making it superior to previous structures we used."

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

"In the shortest form, what I appreciated about AWS Lake Formation was that the schema definition and data cataloging were quite good."

More AWS Lake Formation pros

"Once you have finished your designs they can be easily imported to Snowflake and the information can be readily accessed without an IT expert."

"It requires no maintenance on our part. They handle all that. The speed is phenomenal. The pricing isn't really anything more than what you would be paying for a SQL server license or another tool to execute the same thing. We have zero maintenance on our side to do anything and the speed at which it performs queries and loads the data is amazing. It handles unstructured data extremely well, too. So, if the data is in a JSON array or an XML, it handles that super well."

"It requires no maintenance on our part, they handle all that, the speed is phenomenal, the pricing isn't really anything more than what you would be paying for a SQL Server license or another tool to execute the same thing, we have zero maintenance on our side to do anything, and the speed at which it performs queries and loads the data is amazing."

"Snowflake has three great features: Snowpiping is proving to be very valuable, Time Travel is excellent, and Snowpipes are another great functionality the solution has made available."

"The most valuable feature of Snowflake is the query performance."

"The most valuable features of Snowflake are that you have to pay per usage, and you don't have to worry about the maintenance of the data warehouse because it is on the cloud."

"We utilize Time Travel with Snowflake because this is a very useful feature; everyone finds it crucial because in conventional data platforms, it's very difficult to handle these kinds of things."

"It has great flexibility whenever we are loading data and performs ELT (extract, load, transform) techniques instead of ETL."

More Snowflake pros

Cons

"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 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."

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

"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."

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

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

"Despite following official documentation, configuration problems persisted, requiring weeks of support from multiple AWS engineers to resolve."

"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."

More AWS Lake Formation cons

"If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial."

"The solution could use a little bit more UI."

"Currently there isn't end-to-end or B2B sharing of data."

"Snowflake needs to improve its programming part. Though the tool has Snowpath, it doesn’t support all features like its competitor, Databricks. Snowflake doesn’t support external data ingestion capabilities. You need to have third-party tools for that. Also, the tool needs to incorporate data integration features in its future releases."

"Users considering adding the solution should understand that Snowflake can be used only for transactional processing, not for analytical processing."

"If you're running a procedure, it just gives a standard error instead of the exact error captured."

"To ensure the proper functioning of Snowflake as an MDS, it relies heavily on other partner tools."

"The current API is very limited and difficult to configure."

More Snowflake cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"Part of the problem with the pricing is that it is very difficult for businesses to get an idea of how expensive it might be until they actually start using Snowflake."

"Pricing is based on usage. It is the most expensive of our data tools."

"Snowflake is a cost-effective solution."

"The solution is costly, making it unsuitable for midsize organizations due to its price."

"The price for the solution's license depends on the use cases."

"It is on a monthly basis. It is based on your usage. There are no additional costs from the point of the licensing fee. We do give some kind of evaluation to the customers about how much it is going to be. You can decide in Snowflake the virtual machine that you are using for customers. There are several kinds of virtual machines that you can use. It is similar to the clothing sizes: small to extra large. If you need more power in the coming month, you can decide in advance and take a more powerful machine. You can just select it from the platform. You can also decide which machine you want to take for extracting data."

"The product's price range falls between average to a bit expensive range. I think the tool is worth the money if you use it properly."

"Snowflake licensing is more flexible and it is cheaper than other solutions. I can use it for only 10 days for MVP, or three years, and for flexible models. I can scale up, or down, and the pricing is based on the volume and duration. There are many licensing permutation combinations available."

More Snowflake pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	60

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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

For pricing, setup cost, and licensing, everything is managed smoothly. Regarding licensing, it is inexpensive. The setup cost is low, mainly due to AWS Marketplace; we only need to pay for serverl...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Snowflake is already quite improved, but they have recently introduced AI features. AI integration would be beneficial for direct data capturing from systems such as SAP and Salesforce to Snowflake...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Snowflake?

Snowflake is primarily used to handle the data warehousing part, for creating data modeling, and also keeping the raw data and creating reporting data so that it is further used for data analytics....

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 11% of the time

Databricks vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 11% of the time

BigQuery vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 6% of the time

More AWS Lake Formation Competitors

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Databricks vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 4% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

May 2026

Download AWS Lake Formation product report

Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

April 2026

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

Overview

AWS Lake Formation streamlines data lake organization by integrating seamlessly with AWS services, ensuring robust access control, and facilitating effective data management. Its extensible framework and centralized data handling make it ideal for cloud environments that require scalability.

AWS Lake Formation offers comprehensive data synchronization with AWS, robust security through fine-grained policies, and seamless team collaboration tools. It centralizes data assets, supports analytics with Glue, and enhances data mesh structures. Its IAM integration supports efficient governance, with reliable data storage and retrieval backed by extensive documentation. While highly efficient within AWS ecosystems, Lake Formation faces integration challenges with third-party libraries, and users experience clutter in its interface. Aspects such as automation, policy management, and debugging are areas for improvement. Enhancements in orchestration, cross-account sharing, and integrations with services like SageMaker are user recommendations.

What are the key features of AWS Lake Formation?

Data Synchronization: Integrates with AWS services for seamless data management.
Security Policies: Implements fine-grained access control for secure data handling.
Team Collaboration: Facilitates cooperation through centralized data management.
Analytics Support: Enhances data processing with Glue integration.
Extensibility: IAM integration allows scalable governance.

What benefits or ROI can users expect?

Scalability: Efficiently manages expanding data volumes.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces cloud data management expenses.
Data Security: Ensures compliance with robust policies.
Comprehensive Support: Access to detailed documentation and AWS resources.

Organizations utilize AWS Lake Formation across various industries to build and manage data lakes, ensuring effective data governance and storage solutions. It helps integrate and transform data, control permissions, and support analytics. From e-commerce to healthcare, AWS Lake Formation delivers centralized data repositories for structured and unstructured data, securing information while providing scalable infrastructure and efficient resource management.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.

Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.

What are Snowflake's Key Features?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to handle growing data volumes.
Seamless Integration: Works with a wide range of platforms.
Consumption-Based Costs: Pay only for what you use.
Time Travel: Access historical data effortlessly.
Data Sharing: Secure and efficient sharing of datasets.
Time Zone Conversion: Built-in feature for global operations.
Security: Robust measures to protect sensitive information.
Compute and Storage Separation: Independent scaling for optimal performance.

What Benefits Should You Look for?

Cost Efficiency: Optimized pricing models for minimal waste.
Enhanced Performance: Fast queries and processing times.
Flexibility: Handles both structured and semi-structured data.
Analytics Capabilities: Supports advanced data analysis and reporting.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.

Snowflake Computing

Sample Customers

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

Accordant Media, Adobe, Kixeye Inc., Revana, SOASTA, White Ops

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake

April 2026

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