Amazon Athena vs. Azure SQL Database

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Athena
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data directly in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can point Athena at their data stored in S3 and begin using standard SQL to run ad-hoc queries and get results in seconds. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to setup or manage, and customers pay only for the queries they run. You can use Athena to process logs, perform ad-hoc analysis, and run…
$5
per TB of Data Scanned
Azure SQL Database
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Azure SQL Database is Microsoft's relational database as a service (DBaaS).
$0.50
Per Hour
Pricing
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Editions & Modules
Price per Query
$5.00
per TB of Data Scanned
2 vCORE
$0.5044
Per Hour
6 vCORE
$1.5131
Per Hour
10 vCORE
$2.52
Per Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Features
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Database-as-a-Service
Comparison of Database-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Athena
8.6
Ratings
1% below category average
Azure SQL Database
9.2
Ratings
6% above category average
Automatic software patching8.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Database scalability9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Automated backups7.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Database security provisions9.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Monitoring and metrics8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Automatic host deployment9.20 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Small Businesses
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
IBM Cloudant
IBM Cloudant
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon AthenaAzure SQL Database
Likelihood to Recommend
Best suited for analyzing huge amounts of data by just querying on Amazon Athena. Amazon Athena is also best to integrate with Amazon Quickight for visualization and reporting of data. Easy to work with CSV, JSON, and columnar data formats like Parquet, and ORC. Less appropriate to work with AVRO data format and also stored procedures are not supported in Amazon Athena. The size of a single row is also limited to 32 MB.
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Your upcoming app can be built faster on a fully managed SQL database and can be moved into Azure with a few to no application code changes. Flexible and responsive server less computing and Hyperscale storage can cope with your changing requirements and one of the main benefits is the reduction in costs, which is noticeable.
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Pros
  • Load Balance traffic analysis
  • Big data report generation
  • Micro services pattern query analysis
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  • Scalability is #1: if it used to be an almost no-win endeavour to try to modernize your server or migrate to other hardware, with Azure SQL Database it becomes a press of a button.
  • All the tools simply work after you are on Azure SQL Database.
  • The applications do not need changes in order to start using Azure SQL Database.
  • Hybrid Cloud scenarios will work.
  • Clustering and failover - already there.
  • You can start monitoring the use and extract performance insights in a new way in Azure.
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Cons
  • Every dialect of SQL has some missing functions. I wish there was automated GROUP BY options here.
  • There are connection problems back to Power BI occasionally.
  • If you don't watch certain queries, it's possible that it takes a long time to run and charges you a lot of money.
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  • A little slow on processing complex or large Views. We use a lot of Views to feed our BI system, and the processing time could see some improvement, IMHO.
  • Additional monitoring components would be nice too, automating some built in performance measurement tools would be a nice feature.
  • Price can always be improved as well. It’s not bad, but room for improvement.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
This is best solution as a DBA one could expect from a service provider and as a cloud service, it removes all your hassles.
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Usability
Easy to use. Scalable. Gets the job of data warehousing setup done. Using the datalake on S3 has become super convenient.
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It just works!
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
We give the support a high rating simply because every time we've had issues or questions, representatives were in contact with us quickly. Without fail, our issues/questions were handled in a timely matter. That kind of response is integral when client data integrity and availability is in question. There is also a wealth of documentation for resolving issues on your own.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon Athena, a product from Amazon, competes with offerings from Google and Microsoft. Overall, I think your database choice depends on some of the other applications you are running at your company. For example, if you are using Microsoft Power BI for reporting needs, you might want to consider going the Azure route.
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Oracle Database is "the" serious database. There really is no competition in that field. SQL Database would be a serious competitor through the ease of implementation and the "no maintenance," but since it's too expensive for "normal" use (medium to small applications), it just priced itself out of the market, so to speak. Nevertheless, we do have 2 or 3 large applications that are highly integrated in azure, and for those it's just too easy to use SQL Database instead of the on premise Oracle Database with VPN gateways etcetera.
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Return on Investment
  • It's easy to store and query data on S3. Multiple teams can query the same data to generate their reports. It removes the need for a full-fledged data warehouse for a startup. Saves costs.
  • Improved team efficiency on monitoring user activities by easy logging and reporting.
  • As the dataset gets heavier on S3, one needs to understand partitioning and that leads to the requirement of expertise.
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  • We don't need a dedicated SQL dba because so many of the database maintenance operations are managed. A huge positive not only in budget but time constraints.
  • The ability to scale quickly is the biggest positive as our data needs change constantly.
  • Easy to migrate from legacy tools and systems, saving us on the need for redevelopment.
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ScreenShots