Azure Data Factory vs. Azure Data Lake Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Data Factory
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Data Factory is a service built for all data integration needs and skill levels. It is designed to allow the user to easily construct ETL and ELT processes code-free within the intuitive visual environment, or write one's own code. Visually integrate data sources using more than 80 natively built and maintenance-free connectors at no added cost. Focus on data—the serverless integration service does the rest.N/A
Azure Data Lake Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Data Lake Analytics is a BI service for processing big data jobs without consideration for infrastructure.N/A
Pricing
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
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
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Features
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
Azure Data Factory
9.0
Ratings
7% above category average
Azure Data Lake Analytics
-
Ratings
Connect to traditional data sources9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
Azure Data Factory
8.5
Ratings
4% above category average
Azure Data Lake Analytics
-
Ratings
Simple transformations9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Complex transformations8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Azure Data Factory
7.2
Ratings
10% below category average
Azure Data Lake Analytics
-
Ratings
Data model creation8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Metadata management7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Business rules and workflow7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Collaboration6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Testing and debugging7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
Azure Data Factory
7.5
Ratings
8% below category average
Azure Data Lake Analytics
-
Ratings
Integration with data quality tools7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Small Businesses
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.9 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Data FactoryAzure Data Lake Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
In a data pipeline, you will be able to add different kinds of activities for example connect from your on-premise SFTP and move CSV files to storage accounts. As well data factory has its own data flow if you are an ETL developer who experimented with maybe you have worked with SSIS, thus, you will start quickly with this new feature of the data factory.
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For us we have an enterprise of SQL users at all skill levels, and this product is very SQL friendly and extremely fast in creation of data aggregates and analysis. If you are an Azure storage user, considering using Lake Analytics over top of your blob or any other storage just adds complementary services and functions native to your existing architecture.
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Pros
  • Creating ETL and ELT workflows as well as orchestrating and monitoring pipelines without writing any code.
  • Hybrid data integration is easily and agilely possible through this software.
  • It has lot of various useful components
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  • It combines big data.
  • Monitors and alerts are helpful.
  • Report visualization relies on analytics.
  • It is compatible with Power BI services for report generation.
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Cons
  • Learning curve for pipeline creation interface.
  • Alerting isn't necessarily built in. Had to work around this to meet team needs.
  • With GIT enabled, some features can only be done via git, while some need to be done via the portal.
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  • There's a bit of bias towards cloud with ADL Analytics. Depending upon a company's infra strategy and investment plans, there are some challenges with migration and integeration.
  • Not worth the time/effort/money if the organization doesn't have "Volume" of data. Cost effective only when daily loads exceed around 1million.
  • While training materials are available online, Adoption rate - Yet to pick up.
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Usability
So far product has performed as expected. We were noticing some performance issues, but they were largely Synapse related. This has led to a shift from Synapse to Databricks. Overall this has delayed our analytic platform. Once databricks becomes fully operational, Azure Data Factory will be critical to our environment and future success.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
We have not had need to engage with Microsoft much on Azure Data Factory, but they have been responsive and helpful when needed. This being said, we have not had a major emergency or outage requiring their intervention. The score of seven is a representation that they have done well for now, but have not proved out their support for a significant issue
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Alternatives Considered
Azure Data Factory fits well into our overall systems architecture where we already utilize largely Azure services and also Microsoft based products in the on-premises environment. I think cost structure is also very competitive with Azure Data Factory. Most services provide a visual interface for designing ETL workflows, but our team found Azure Data Factory's interface more intuitive.
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Azure Data Lake simplifies extensive data analysis. It runs Hadoop, HDInsight, and Data Lakes, and even complex queries run smoothly and quickly. We write queries to transform data and extract insights instead of configuring hardware. It can handle any size job by adjusting the power. Azure's servers, networking, and data entry are fantastic. It provides security and assured data access.
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Return on Investment
  • Limiting the amount of data moving up and down from the cloud for cloud-native applications.
  • Overall simple to use interface which is actually easier for a first time ETL developer than SSIS.
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  • Since we have implemented this solution, we have been more able to follow what is going on in our process and sells.
  • We are also sparing some money by comparing the costs now against the costs we had on-premise.
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ScreenShots