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AWS Lake Formation vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Data Warehouse category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.1, while Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 3.8% mindshare in CDW, compared to Microsoft’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.
AWS Lake Formation
Read 21 AWS Lake Formation reviews
  • 2,153 Views
  • 1,744 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Read 98 Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reviews
  • 5,978 Views
  • 3,826 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and AWS Lake Formation are competing in the data integration and analytics platform category. Azure Synapse Analytics seems to have an edge in terms of support and pricing, while AWS Lake Formation offers greater value through its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Azure Synapse Analytics provides integrated analytics services, seamless scalability, and a user-friendly interface for Microsoft product integration. These features make it particularly suitable for businesses utilizing other Azure services. AWS Lake Formation stands out with its robust data cataloging, advanced security capabilities, and strong interoperability within the AWS ecosystem. These strengths facilitate superior data governance and management.

Room for Improvement: Azure Synapse Analytics may lack some advanced data security features compared to AWS, potentially requiring enhancements in data cataloging for non-Microsoft environments. It might benefit from improved interoperability with non-Microsoft platforms. AWS Lake Formation could improve ease of deployment and user experience for those unfamiliar with AWS. Additionally, streamlining integration processes for non-native AWS services could increase its appeal outside the AWS environment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Synapse Analytics offers a streamlined deployment process, particularly within the Azure ecosystem, bolstered by reliable customer support. AWS Lake Formation, while posing a more comprehensive setup due to its wide-ranging data management capabilities, provides strong backing with customer support tailored to meet enterprise-level requirements. This distinction underscores ease of use in environments where each solution excels, with Azure Synapse integrating more smoothly within Microsoft-based infrastructures.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Synapse Analytics presents competitive pricing, especially for Microsoft-centric organizations, offering efficient ROI through streamlined data processing workflows. AWS Lake Formation may require a higher initial financial commitment but promises significant ROI owing to its extensive security and robust data management features. Deciding between the two requires organizations to weigh cost against long-term value, considering their strategic priorities around data governance and security.

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To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Report (Updated: June 2026).
Buyer's Guide
AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
June 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

AWS Lake Formation
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Ranking in Cloud Data Warehouse
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of AWS Lake Formation is 3.8%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is 5.8%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics5.8%
AWS Lake Formation3.8%
Other90.4%
Cloud Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Ciro Baldim Guerra - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Read full review
AnandTiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
AnandTiwari
CTO at New Turn Technologies
Has consistently supported integration across diverse environments and streamlined deployment processes
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve their pricing structure. They currently have two separate pricing tiers: full log and partial log. I suggest they implement a single price and reduce charges on logs. They could implement a cap with some free tier or price tier based on the GBs of log collected. This would help customers use Azure more effectively. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an excellent product because it includes both SIEM and orchestration capabilities with playbooks, but the log management part is very costly. Regarding future improvements, I would appreciate more application connectors for integration, particularly for on-premise based solutions. Many customers still maintain on-premise infrastructure, so having more integration possibilities for these environments would be beneficial.
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

"We use AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"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 solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"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."
"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."
"AWS Lake Formation lets you see all your data and tables on one screen."
"We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows."
More AWS Lake Formation pros
"The solution's scalability is very, very good; it's widely acknowledged as an excellent product throughout the industry, and there is a lot of knowledge about it in the Netherlands, making it very easy to find consultancy and employees who can help us with its modern architecture."
"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is that it's native only for Azure, so you get better performance and there's no issue. To explain further, many different types of data come, in particular, structured and unstructured data. For audit purposes, there's also unstructured data, so the most important aspect is that with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you have the capability of using both technologies, meaning that you can use or mix structured and unstructured data which is important. This can also be done in Hadoop, and on other platforms, so you have everything in one place. You don't have to worry about how to manage both structured and unstructured data and where to store information. With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can take care of everything, particularly in Azure. The solution also provides you with many features apart from analytics, for example, storage which makes it better."
"The speed is great and the architecture is excellent."
"The useability, the user interface, is very user-friendly."
"The most advantageous aspect of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is its simplified data transformation process compared to traditional databases. This makes data cleansing and transformation more manageable and straightforward, which we appreciate. It is much easier to build as well."
"Our primary use case is for gathering data and analytics. We provide insights into vehicle data. We gather millions of records per second and we have various millions of vehicles running across."
"Pretty much all of the features are valuable; the storage and compute are very reliable and cost-effective, it meets the client's requirements, is user-friendly, has a good dashboard, and my team is happy with everything."
"The product is being upgraded and updated to support a lot of analytic features, and it is a great tool to use."
More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pros
 

Cons

"I haven't seen any measurable benefits from using AWS Lake Formation, such as time saving, resource saving, or efficiency improvements."
"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."
"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."
"AWS Lake Formation's pricing could be cheaper."
"The initial onboarding process is challenging because creating a plan takes a month to a month and a half to build out."
"Despite following official documentation, configuration problems persisted, requiring weeks of support from multiple AWS engineers to resolve."
"Information about the pricing, cost, and setup cost of the AWS solutions would be beneficial."
"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."
More AWS Lake Formation cons
"If I'm looking for something good in the cloud, I would want it to have better standard connectors."
"The macro functions, though useful, are not totally user-friendly. Some people have difficulties in learning them."
"Synapse Analytics needs to develop an automation framework because now you have to build a cache yourself."
"As far as improvements to the product, I think the Data Factory integration should be enhanced to be properly implemented because right now it is still lagging behind other vendors like Informatica."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve its compatibility with Visual Studio. One of the challenges for people moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, is that you're constantly working in a browser. There are people that have been working for decades on desktop applications. For them to start working in a browser, it's quite a change. Allowing people to work and do their work inside Visual Studio than in the browser, would be a large advantage."
"I think potential areas to improve on could be performance and if they offered a decoupled compute from storage kind of service that would be nice."
"The need to improve a little bit in terms of user-friendliness."
"The major pro of Synapse is the service, and the major con is that when you decide to move out of Synapse, you would have to rewrite the entire thing, whereas, with Snowflake, it would be just simple migration to different cloud providers."
More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"We normally pay between $300 and $500 per month, which is quite expensive for how much we actually use it, performance- and usage-wise. They have a cheap version and an expensive version, and our usage usually falls in the middle ground, which makes it not as cost-effective as it could be."
"All of the prices are available online."
"My company pays for the license and I am not sure about the price."
"Very costly solution and other products are available for less."
"This solution starts at €1000.00 a month for just the basics and can go up to €300,000.00 per month for the fastest version."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be costly, however, a cost-effective approach would be to purchase it in advance through reservation for either one or three years. This will significantly reduce the overall expenses incurred."
"The licensing fees for this solution are on a pay-per-use basis, and not very expensive."
"It just depends on how big your instance is. It could be anywhere from 1,000 to 50,000 per year depending on how big your instance is. You pay based on how big you make your database. Essentially, they charge you per hour of usage."
More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business29
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise59
 

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...
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
How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
I think the licensing cost for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is very high, but I have a local system to support that, so I don't consider that in the near future.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
I am hoping that in the future Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics may have AI support.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation Logo
Amazon Redshift vs AWS Lake Formation
Compared 13% of the time
Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation Logo
Snowflake vs AWS Lake Formation
Compared 13% of the time
Azure Data Factory vs AWS Lake Formation Logo
Azure Data Factory vs AWS Lake Formation
Compared 10% of the time
Databricks vs AWS Lake Formation Logo
Databricks vs AWS Lake Formation
Compared 9% of the time
Amazon EMR vs AWS Lake Formation Logo
Amazon EMR vs AWS Lake Formation
Compared 5% of the time
More AWS Lake Formation Competitors
Snowflake vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Logo
Snowflake vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
Compared 19% of the time
Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Logo
Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
Compared 8% of the time
Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Logo
Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
Compared 6% of the time
Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Logo
Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
Compared 6% of the time
Amazon EMR vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Logo
Amazon EMR vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
Compared 3% of the time
More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
AWS Lake Formation
June 2026
AWS Lake Formation reportDownload AWS Lake Formation product report
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
June 2026
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics reportDownload Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
 

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)

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates data warehousing and big data analytics seamlessly. It provides scalability and user-friendly features for efficient, real-time reporting and data management.

Azure Synapse Analytics is designed for seamless data integration, allowing users to scale their operations effectively while providing extensive analytics capabilities. It supports both traditional data warehousing and big data solutions with real-time reporting through an interactive interface that integrates well with Power BI. The platform's serverless flexibility optimizes cost while ensuring robust security, leveraging users' familiarity with SQL technologies. Scalability allows processing of large datasets efficiently, empowering companies to connect disparate data sources and support industry-specific needs. Despite its strengths, Synapse users often seek improved governance, schema management, and technical support. Enhanced integration with Microsoft and third-party tools, along with better data loading capabilities, are also desired.

What are the key features of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
  • SQL Pooling: Provides a dedicated SQL pool for scalable data processing.
  • Massively Parallel Processing: Architecture that enhances efficiency for big data workloads.
  • Pipelines: Streamlines data orchestration and workflow automation.
  • Real-Time Reporting: Delivers quick insights by processing data in real time.
  • Power BI Integration: Seamlessly connects with Power BI for advanced data visualization.
  • Serverless Flexibility: Optimizes cost management by allowing on-demand resources.
What benefits and ROI should be considered in reviews of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
  • Scalability: Efficiently handles expanding data loads.
  • Cost Management: Serverless architecture provides cost-efficient resource usage.
  • Security Features: Ensures data protection and compliance.
  • Data Integration: Connects various data sources for unified analytics.
  • SQL Familiarity: Leverages common SQL skills for ease of use.

Azure Synapse Analytics is extensively implemented across sectors like healthcare, finance, marketing, and government. Organizations use it to build data pipelines, perform analytics modeling, and facilitate reporting. It supports data transformation, migration, and orchestration, enhancing business intelligence and decision-making capabilities by efficiently handling big data and connecting disparate data sources.

Microsoft
 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Buyer's Guide
AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
June 2026
Free Report: AWS Lake Formation vs. Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics
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