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AWS Lake Formation vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th)
Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Ciro Baldim Guerra - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Prabir Kumar Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Has consistently delivered high performance and aligned security while evolving with AI-driven improvements
When discussing Oracle Exadata, the main thing is the specialized database appliance, the flash cache, and the engineered machine on the database for the database itself. Overall, all the features are useful and meaningful for any database like Oracle to run the Oracle database. Regarding Smart Scan technology, it is for better performance. If a customer cannot tune their applications, this will help them to run the database and run the application without any tuning itself. Oracle Exadata's advanced compression techniques have affected my customer's data storage efficiency positively, with the feature being great, but as of now, our customer is not using that. I find its security measures align with my customer's organization, as security is aligned as per the customer's requirement. It has helped optimize performance and cost.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS Lake Formation has several valuable features that enhance data management, and one particularly beneficial aspect is how it facilitates better collaboration within data teams."
"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."
"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."
"The most important advantage of using AWS Lake Formation is its ability to connect the data lake to the other technologies in AWS."
"There is no doubt that this place exceeded my expectations with its incredible ambiance, attentive service, and mouthwatering menu."
"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."
"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 AWS Lake Formation typically for the data warehouse."
"The most valuable feature is that you have the same familiar environment of an Oracle database but with the additional performance you get from this architecture."
"Exadata is very solid and robust machine, with great performance."
"Provides data analytics and helps with warehouse needs."
"The product is very, very stable and mature."
"This solution meets all of my expectations."
"Oracle Exadata's performance is one of its best features. We very satisfied with it."
"My company's data warehouse was consolidated on a single database with improved capability and performance."
"We were really impressed with the performance of the applications."
 

Cons

"Despite following official documentation, configuration problems persisted, requiring weeks of support from multiple AWS engineers to resolve."
"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."
"The solution could make improvements around orchestration and doing some automation stuff on AWS front automation."
"For the end-users, it's not as user-friendly as it could be."
"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."
"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 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."
"Performance is what we always tend to work on and it could still be improved."
"I think the patching is still lacking quite a bit."
"It would be good if Exadata made some new features available regarding data retrieval and speed capacity functions."
"I would like to see more database features and maybe more archiving features, because we need to do data archiving."
"Oracle Exadata could improve the monitoring system in the enterprise manager, it could be more user-friendly. In most Oracle tools there is a lot of functionality, and sometimes you need to do five or six clicks to find metrics, and sometimes it's a waste of time."
"There's room for improvement in terms of deployment, as it could be made faster and more user-friendly."
"We used the support from Oracle Exadata to complete the implementation."
"Customer Service: Platinum support services supplied with the Exadata is worthless."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"The solution takes a lot of time to clone the environment. I would like to see some improvement in the cloning support or the time it takes on the storage side."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"The Initial investment price could use improvement"
"The price of the solution could improve, it is expensive."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"The licensing can be a bit expensive because you need to have certain tools enabled that require them."
"I give the pricing of the solution a five out of ten."
"I did note that Oracle does tend to internally oversize things especially if they want to fill up a budget, and hence third-party oversight is essential."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Marketing Services Firm
5%
 

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 Business47
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise86
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
I find its pricing reasonable and cost-effective for large organizations, but for smaller organizations, it may not be that useful.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
I believe that there is still room for improvement in Oracle Exadata, as they are putting AI features on those databases, which is making the database more user-friendly. Even you can talk to the d...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Exadata?
I deal most with Oracle database. I have been working with Oracle Database Appliance for more than 25 years, and if you're talking about appliance, it's more than 10 years, but on Oracle database, ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lake Formation vs. Oracle Exadata and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.