AWS Lake Formation vs Teradata comparison

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AWS Lake Formation

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 30, 2025

Teradata and AWS Lake Formation are significant players in the data management and analytics market; Teradata excels with advanced features while AWS Lake Formation is strong in integration within the AWS ecosystem.

Features: Teradata offers advanced query optimization, scalability, and robust parallel processing. Its architecture supports complex queries efficiently, making it suitable for large data volumes. Teradata's workload management and security features enhance comprehensive analytics and data warehousing. AWS Lake Formation is valued for its seamless integration within AWS services, managing access patterns effectively. Its centralized access management supports compliance and secure collaboration, enhancing data governance capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Teradata faces challenges with high costs and some limitations in SQL functionalities, affecting its scalability in multi-cloud environments. Enhancements in processing capabilities and OLTP optimization are necessary. AWS Lake Formation needs improvements in real-time monitoring, user interface responsiveness, and integration with non-AWS services. Its configuration complexity and onboarding process could be more flexible.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Teradata can be deployed in various environments like on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud, with a positive reputation for technical support despite occasional slowness. AWS Lake Formation is cloud-centric, praised for its integration within AWS yet has been critiqued for its complex support and deployment processes.

Pricing and ROI: Both Teradata and AWS Lake Formation have premium pricing with potential for good ROI. Teradata's pricing is considered high, though its robust performance justifies the cost. AWS Lake Formation's pricing is cost-effective when integrated with other AWS products, with complexity in pricing depending on broader AWS service usage.

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

AWS Lake Formation vs. Teradata

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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

Teradata

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Customer Experience Management (6th), Backup and Recovery (17th), Data Integration (15th), Relational Databases Tools (7th), Data Warehouse (3rd), BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (9th), Marketing Management (5th), Database Management Systems (DBMS) (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 5.3%, up from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 9.0%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Teradata	9.0%
AWS Lake Formation	5.3%
Other	85.7%

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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David Durand Velásquez

Engineers at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Delivers consistent performance and enables advanced analytics across complex data environments

Teradata stands out as a solid platform for managing and analyzing large volumes of data. Its architecture allows information to be processed efficiently while maintaining stable performance, even in highly demanding environments. One of its most notable strengths is the ability to run complex queries at high speed, which is essential for organizations that require timely and reliable analytics. Teradata offers a well-integrated ecosystem that supports working with different types of data and enables scalability as organizational needs grow. Its focus on advanced analytics, integration with modern business intelligence tools, and the ability to operate both on-premise and in the cloud make it a versatile solution for data warehousing and large-scale processing. Teradata's stability, technological maturity, and the availability of strong documentation and best practices are noteworthy. I consider Teradata to be a tool with great potential for any organization looking to enhance its analytical capabilities, optimize data processing, and move toward more data-driven decision-making. Teradata stands out as a solid platform for managing a large volume of data in different projects. Its architecture allows information to be processed efficiently while maintaining stable performance, even in high-demanding environments. A well-integrated AI ecosystem that supports working with different types of data and enables scalability as organizational needs grow across different kinds of enterprises or organizations. The focus on advanced analytics integration with modern business intelligence tools is particularly valuable. Teradata combines a powerful parallel process and optimizing SQL engine with a highly scalable architecture allowing businesses to execute complex queries and analytics in real-time. It supports multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments, giving organizations flexibility to choose the setup that best aligns with their strategy. One of the biggest strengths is the ability to unify disparate data sources and support high concurrency, enabling different teams, such as analytics, operations, BI, and data science, to access consistent, trusted data across the enterprise.

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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 solution has many features that are applicable to events such as audits."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More AWS Lake Formation pros

"It is a solid database a lot of different tools to move data."

"Auto-partitioning and indexing, and resource allocation on the fly are key features."

"It has reduced a lot of reworking on maintaining indexes, partitions, etc."

"Teradata's capabilities enhance data management efficiency, support scalability, and contribute to faster query performance."

"Teradata can be deployed on-premise, on the cloud, or in a virtual machine, which means customers can move without having to create their architecture all over again."

"It's a pre-configured appliance that requires very little in terms of setting-up."

"Teradata solutions help organizations reduce IT, operations, and maintenance costs; enhance on-time delivery of products and services."

"Teradata's most valuable feature is that it's easy to use."

More Teradata 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."

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

"I would appreciate online support, which I don't have access to in my corporation at the bank, so that is important."

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

"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."

"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."

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

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

More AWS Lake Formation cons

"Data synchronization to the DR site."

"The SQL Assistant is very basic. This tool can be improved for usability."

"Query language and its functionality are rather limited, compared to Oracle or even SQL Server. However, it is possible to perform any kind of logic in it (though some workarounds may be required)."

"I choose 8 out of 10 for Teradata because there is always the scope for improvement."

"The scalability could be better. The on-premises solution is always more complicated to scale."

"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that while it was not part of my work, I found Teradata to be somewhat costlier when considering other options."

"Teradata's pricing is quite high compared to Redshift, Synapse, or GCP alternatives."

"They should add more connectors to different platforms."

More Teradata cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

"Teradata pricing is fine, and it's competitive with all the legacy models. On a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best, I'm giving Teradata a three, because it can be a little expensive, when compared to other solutions."

"We are looking for a more flexible cost model for the next version that we use, whether it be cloud or on-premise."

"It's a very expensive product."

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Teradata IntelliFlex, which is very expensive."

"It comes at a notably high cost for what it offers."

"Teradata is currently making improvements in this area."

"The cost of running Teradata is quite high, but you get a good return on investment."

"The tool costs about 30,000 euros a month, while Azure Synapse SQL only costs 10,000."

More Teradata pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user232068

Senior Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 5, 2015

Netezza vs. Teradata

Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

23%

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	28
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	52

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...

Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?

I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite simi...

Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?

Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the comp...

Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?

Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example,...

Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Snowflake vs Teradata

Compared 6% of the time

SQL Server vs Teradata

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs Teradata

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Database vs Teradata

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

AWS Lake Formation

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Also Known As

No data available

IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture, Teradata Vantage Enterprise (DIY)

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)

Teradata is a powerful tool for handling substantial data volumes with its parallel processing architecture, supporting both cloud and on-premise environments efficiently. It offers impressive capabilities for fast query processing, data integration, and real-time reporting, making it suitable for diverse industrial applications.

Known for its robust parallel processing capabilities, Teradata effectively manages large datasets and provides adaptable deployment across cloud and on-premise setups. It enhances performance and scalability with features like advanced query tuning, workload management, and strong security. Users appreciate its ease of use and automation features which support real-time data reporting. The optimizer and intelligent partitioning help improve query speed and efficiency, while multi-temperature data management optimizes data handling.

What are the key features of Teradata?

Parallel Processing Architecture: Enables efficient handling of substantial data volumes.
Cloud and On-Premise Deployment: Offers seamless adaptability across environments.
Query Tuning: Improves speed and performance of data retrieval processes.
Workload Management: Ensures optimal resource allocation for enhanced performance.
Robust Security: Provides high levels of data protection and system integrity.
Data Integration: Facilitates cohesive data management from multiple sources.
Automation for Real-time Reporting: Enhances timely data insights and decision-making.
Optimizer and Intelligent Partitioning: Further increase query speed and system efficiency.
Multi-Temperature Data Management: Optimizes the handling and retrieval of data.

What benefits and ROI do users look for?

Efficient Data Management: Facilitates smooth integration and processing of diverse data sets.
Scalability: Easy adjustment to increasing or decreasing data requirements.
Improved Performance: Fast query speeds and optimized resource use.
Comprehensive Security: Safeguards data integrity and accessibility.
Ease of Use: Simplifies data handling and operational processes.

In the finance, retail, and government sectors, Teradata is employed for data warehousing, business intelligence, and analytical processing. It handles vast datasets for activities like customer behavior modeling and enterprise data integration. Supporting efficient reporting and analytics, Teradata enhances data storage and processing, whether deployed on-premise or on cloud platforms.

Sample Customers

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

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AWS Lake Formation vs. Teradata