AWS Lake Formation vs Amazon EMR comparison

Amazon EMR and AWS Lake Formation are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon EMR is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.8, while AWS Lake Formation is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.1. Amazon EMR holds a 3.8% mindshare in CDW, compared to AWS Lake Formation’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Amazon EMR users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of AWS Lake Formation users who would recommend it.

Amazon EMR

Read 25 Amazon EMR reviews

1,929 Views
945 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

AWS Lake Formation

Read 21 AWS Lake Formation reviews

1,610 Views
1,385 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Amazon EMR

AWS Lake Formation

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Amazon EMR and AWS Lake Formation compete in the big data and cloud storage domain. AWS Lake Formation seems to have the upper hand in data governance and security, making it appealing for organizations with such priorities.

Features: Amazon EMR offers rapid data processing, flexibility in choosing processing frameworks like Spark and Hive, and integration with various data sources. AWS Lake Formation focuses on data lake management, providing fine-grained access controls, data security features, and a simplified setup process integrating well with the AWS ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Amazon EMR could improve its user interface for easier configuration and reduce complexity for new users. Enhanced automated scaling features would benefit users handling fluctuating workloads. Improved documentation could assist users encountering challenges. AWS Lake Formation could enhance integration with more third-party tools, provide more customization options, and expand its set of workflow templates for complex data operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon EMR integrates seamlessly into existing AWS infrastructures, offering extensive customization and scaling options, but its complexity can be challenging. AWS Lake Formation simplifies deployment with guided workflows, making it user-friendly for non-experts. Both products offer robust support, though Lake Formation's guided workflows provide an edge in terms of user-friendliness.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon EMR's pay-as-you-go model can be cost-effective for extensive data processing tasks but may incur higher operational costs due to complexity. AWS Lake Formation aims to reduce data governance overhead costs, presenting better ROI for organizations prioritizing cost-efficiency, security, and streamlined operations.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon EMR Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon EMR

March 2026

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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

Amazon EMR

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (3rd)

AWS Lake Formation

Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Amazon EMR is 3.8%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 4.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
AWS Lake Formation	4.7%
Amazon EMR	3.8%
Other	91.5%

Cloud Data Warehouse

Featured Reviews

reviewer1343079

Senior Chief Engineer (Enterprise System Presales/Postsales) at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Has simplified ETL workflows with on-demand processing but needs improved cost efficiency and visibility

I have used AWS Glue with S3 for making tables and databases, but regarding Amazon EMR, I do not remember much as we are currently using it very minimally. This is my observation: In EKS, we have had to deploy by ourselves because EKS does not provide the Hadoop framework, Spark, Hive, and everything, but we have completed all the deployment ourselves. Whereas Amazon EMR provides all these things. The cost factor differs significantly. When you run Spark application on EKS, you run at the pod level, so you can control the compute cost. But in Amazon EMR, when you have to run one application, you have to launch the entire EC2. In Qubole, the interface was very good. I could see many details because in Amazon EMR console, very few details are available. In Qubole, at one link, you can get all the details of what is happening, how the processes are running, and the cost decreased by using Qubole. I found Qubole more user-friendly and cost-effective. From the security point of view, we had to open some access rights to Qubole, which might be a drawback in comparison to Amazon EMR which is native to AWS.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are using applications, such as Splunk, Livy, Hadoop, and Spark. We are using all of these applications in Amazon EMR and they're helping us a lot."

"I rate Amazon EMR as ten out of ten."

"The ability to resize the cluster is what really makes it stand out over other Hadoop and big data solutions."

"Overall a good cloud infrastructure and takes the burden of managing the distributed hardware and can easily scale up and scale down as per the requirement of the task at hand."

"When we grade big jobs from on-prem to the cloud, we do it in EMR with Spark."

"The security of the managed workflow and the managed services are the best features for us. Since we inherited their security model and it's all managed services, those are the key benefits for our clients."

"In Amazon EMR it is easy to rebuild anything, easy to upgrade and has good fault tolerance."

"The solution is scalable."

More Amazon EMR pros

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

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

"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."

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

"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 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."

"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."

More AWS Lake Formation pros

Cons

"Better monitoring, debugging, and stability are all needed."

"I feel some lack of functionality in Amazon EMR."

"There were times where they would release new versions and it seemed to end up breaking old versions, which is very strange."

"The problem for us is it starts very slow."

"The dashboard management could be better. Right now, it's lacking a bit."

"The initial setup was time-consuming."

"Modules and strategies should be better handled and notified early in advance."

"The product's features for storing data in static clusters could be better."

More Amazon EMR cons

"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 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."

"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 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."

"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."

"It falls short when it comes to more granular access control, such as cell-level or row-level entitlements which is a significant drawback for organizations that require precise control over who can access specific rows of data."

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

More AWS Lake Formation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EMR's price is reasonable."

"There is no need to pay extra for third-party software."

"You don't need to pay for licensing on a yearly or monthly basis, you only pay for what you use, in terms of underlying instances."

"The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"Amazon EMR is not very expensive."

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It can be expensive since it's a managed service, and if you are not careful, you can run into unexpected charges. You can make a mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars. That's happened to us twice, so I'm sensitive to it. We're still trying to work on that. Our smallest client probably spends a hundred thousand dollars yearly on licensing, while our largest is well over a million."

"There is a small fee for the EMR system, but major cost components are the underlying infrastructure resources which we actually use."

More Amazon EMR pricing and cost advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Healthcare Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EMR?

I would rate the price for Amazon EMR, where one is high and ten is low, as a good one.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon EMR?

I feel some lack of functionality in Amazon EMR. I have thoughts on what would be great to see in the product, such as AI/ML features or additional options.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon EMR?

I find it easy to integrate Amazon EMR with other AWS services like S3 or EC2 for data processing needs. I would rate this review as eight out of ten.

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?

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EMR

March 2026

Download Amazon EMR product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation

March 2026

Download AWS Lake Formation product report

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic MapReduce

No data available

Overview

Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR) is a web service that makes it easy to quickly and cost-effectively process vast amounts of data. Amazon EMR simplifies big data processing, providing a managed Hadoop framework that makes it easy, fast, and cost-effective for you to distribute and process vast amounts of your data across dynamically scalable Amazon EC2 instances.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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)

Sample Customers

Yelp

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon EMR

March 2026

Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. Amazon EMR

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