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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 (7th)
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

"The solution is quite good at handling analytics. It's done a good job at helping us centralize them."
"In the shortest form, what I appreciated about AWS Lake Formation was that the schema definition and data cataloging were quite good."
"The LF-Tag system with granular permissions was key to the project as a functionality of AWS Lake Formation."
"We use this to reduce latency from minutes to seconds, as we aim for real-time visibility into patient healthcare monitoring."
"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."
"We have observed measurable benefits in terms of cost savings, time savings, resource savings, and efficiency improvements in our workflows."
"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."
"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 very stable solution, which we have hardly any problems with."
"It offers a significant advantage for accommodating a large number of users."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is the smart scan. We have large TB sessions of approximately 100 per second for each of our three instances. The smart scan allows us the obtain data in time in the enterprise manager."
"The data replication is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is its capabilities for storing and processing data. It is very good for our domain."
"The business intelligence is very good."
"The ease of setup is an eight out of ten."
"Oracle Exadata's performance is one of its best features. We very satisfied with it."
 

Cons

"If I could improve AWS Lake Formation, I would add more integrations with SageMaker."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I haven't seen any measurable benefits from using AWS Lake Formation, such as time saving, resource saving, or efficiency improvements."
"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."
"It's too expensive per terabyte. It's complex."
"Certification should also be improved. Today, Oracle doesn't certify applications with engineered systems."
"There's room for improvement in terms of deployment, as it could be made faster and more user-friendly."
"The integration with third-party applications regarding access management security could be better."
"There is a feature for security, but it is not included in the first purchase of this solution. That means if you need to increase the security, you need to buy the security feature which doesn't come by default on these solutions."
"The setup is a little bit complex. We would like to see the installation part get easier."
"Since the product is an appliance, it is very costly."
"I have found Oracle Exadata to be scalable. However, you have to purchase more hardware, such as memory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Lake Formation is a bit expensive."
"I give the pricing of the solution a five out of ten."
"All things considered, the price of this product is fairly high, as is always the case with Oracle."
"Oracle Exadata is costly. Its licensing should also be more versatile. Smaller companies would benefit if Oracle Exadata had lower pricing."
"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 majority of our customers are in government or big enterprises, and the projects that we sell come out to several million USD. With this amount of money on the table, it's always better to have an experienced team of consultants, who know Exadata very well, handle the implementation."
"I'm giving Oracle Exadata five out of ten in terms of pricing. Its price could be lower."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The solution is expensive."
"The price of the solution could improve, it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
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 do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
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...
 

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: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.