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 #7 with an average rating of 7.9, while Snowflake Computing is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 5.5% mindshare in CDW, compared to Snowflake Computing’s 17.7% 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

1,486 Views
1,427 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Snowflake

Read 101 Snowflake reviews

9,251 Views
6,568 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

Snowflake

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2025

Snowflake and AWS Lake Formation are cloud data management solutions. Snowflake often leads with its scalable storage and computing features, while AWS Lake Formation is preferred for its integration with the AWS ecosystem and robust security.

Features: Snowflake offers automatic scaling, real-time data insights, and instant elasticity, allowing users to efficiently manage modern data warehousing requirements. AWS Lake Formation provides strong data governance, detailed access controls, and is seamlessly integrated with AWS services, catering to enterprises heavily invested in AWS.

Room for Improvement: Snowflake could improve in integrating seamlessly with non-native tools and optimizing initial costs for small setups. It may also enhance its data governance features. AWS Lake Formation can work on simplifying its pricing model, reducing initial setup complexity, and expanding support for non-AWS ecosystems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake is known for its simple deployment process, rapid implementation, and efficient customer service, making it accessible for diverse organizations. AWS Lake Formation offers extensive documentation and resources within the AWS support structure, which can be beneficial but also more complex due to AWS integration.

Pricing and ROI: Snowflake provides a straightforward pricing approach, offering value through scalability and predictable costs. AWS Lake Formation's pricing can be complex, potentially high at the outset due to AWS platform dependencies, but offers significant ROI through AWS integration and feature comprehensiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 870,623 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

7th

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (1st), AI Synthetic Data (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 5.5%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snowflake is 17.7%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Snowflake	17.7%
AWS Lake Formation	5.5%
Other	76.8%

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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Snehasish Das

Technology Leader at eTCaaS

Transformation in data querying speed with good migration capabilities

Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses. One key feature is the separation of compute and storage, which eliminates storage limitations. It also has tools for migrating data from legacy databases like Oracle. Its stability and efficiency enhance performance greatly. Tools in the AI/ML marketplace are readily available without needing development.

Read full review

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."

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

"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."

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

"I can easily move data from cold storage to regular storage."

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

"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."

"It is seamlessly integrated within the AWS ecosystem, making it straightforward to manage access patterns for AWS-native services."

More AWS Lake Formation pros

"The solution is very stable."

"As long as you don't need to worry about the storage or cost, this solution would be one of the best ones on the market for scalability purposes."

"I have found the solution's most valuable features to be storage, flexibility, ease of use, and security."

"It is a very good platform. It can handle structured and semi-structured data, and it can be used for your data warehouse or data lake. It can load and deal with any data that you have. It can extract data from an on-premises database or a website and make it available in the cloud. It has very fast implementation and integration as compared to other solutions. There is no need for the DBA to manage or do the day-to-day DBA tasks, which is one of the greatest things about it."

"The Time Travel feature is helpful for accessing historical data and the ability to clone external tables is useful."

"I don't think it is difficult to maintain."

"The speed of data loading and being able to quickly create the environment are most valuable."

"Snowflake is a data lake on the cloud where all processing happens in memory, resulting in very fast query responses."

More Snowflake pros

Cons

"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."

"I think AWS Lake Formation could improve by enforcing the least privilege by design, moving from ad hoc grants to role-based access controls."

"The initial onboarding process is challenging because creating a plan takes a month to a month and a half to build out."

"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."

"I haven't seen any measurable benefits from using AWS Lake Formation, such as time saving, resource saving, or efficiency improvements."

"Information about the pricing, cost, and setup cost of the AWS solutions would be beneficial."

"You need to have data experience to use the product."

"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."

More AWS Lake Formation cons

"These days, they are pushing users towards the GUI or graphical version. However, I am more familiar with the classic version. I'd like to continue to work with it using the older approach."

"It doesn't enforce typical relational database constraints. Quite expensive."

"The data science functionality could be improved in terms of the machine learning process."

"The cost is a bit high."

"Currently, Snowflake doesn't support unstructured data."

"The cost of the solution could be reduced."

"I think that Snowflake could improve its user interface. The current one is not interactive."

"Maybe there could be some more connectors to other systems, but this is what they are constantly developing anyway."

More Snowflake cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"We used Snowflake to see if it is cheaper than using BigQuery. It was just to maintain the cost or the KPI regarding the cost of connectivity by users. Snowflake wasn't cheaper than BigQuery, and its affordability was the main issue."

"I am not much aware of the price, but based on what I have analyzed so far, its cost is reasonable as compared to on-prem data warehouse solutions. It provides a great deal for production."

"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."

"Snowflake goes by credits. For a financial institution where you have 5,000 employees, monthly costs may run up to maybe $5,000 to $6,000. This is actually based on the usage. It is mostly the compute cost. Your computing cost is the variable that is actually based on your usage. It is pay-per-use. In a pay-per-use case, you won't be spending more than $6,000 to $7,000 a month. It is not more than that for a small or medium enterprise, and it may come down to $100K per year. Storage is very standard, which is $23 a terabyte. It is not much for any enterprise. If you have even 20 terabytes, you are not spending more than $400 per month, which may turn out to be $2,000 to $3,000 per annum."

"There is a licensing for this solution and we purchased an enterprise license. Overall the solution is cost-effective."

"Snowflake has consumption-based costs; users only pay for storage and computing."

"The tool's pricing is based on the number of queries you want on your database. The cost is small. To get the tool's pricing, you can do the math based on the cost per query, which is $0.002. If you're running your queries frequently, your charges will be higher than running fewer queries."

More Snowflake pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing 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	28
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	56

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

What do you like most about Snowflake?

The best thing about Snowflake is its flexibility in changing warehouse sizes or computational power.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Snowflake?

It is complicated to understand how requests impact warehouse size. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft and Databricks ( /products/databricks-reviews ), Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Snowflake?

Pricing is quite high for Snowflake Data Cloud, which is an area that could be improved. Snowflake Data Cloud is still beneficial to use, but only if you can afford it. It can be cost-effective if ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 21% of the time

Azure Data Factory 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 10% of the time

Amazon EMR vs AWS Lake Formation

Compared 6% of the time

More AWS Lake Formation Competitors

Azure Data Factory vs Snowflake

Compared 11% of the time

Teradata vs Snowflake

Compared 8% of the time

Dremio vs Snowflake

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Snowflake

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Snowflake

Compared 5% of the time

More Snowflake Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

October 2025

Download AWS Lake Formation product report

Buyer's Guide

Snowflake

September 2025

Download Snowflake product report

Also Known As

No data available

Snowflake Computing, Snowflake Data Cloud

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)

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

September 2025

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. Snowflake

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