AWS Athena can read tables, create new tables and insert into tables (among other things). Is it fair to say that Athena can replace the basic functions of a database , or is it fair to say that Athena can be seen as a lightweight serverless replacement of a relational DB? What are its major differences compared to a DB ?
1 Answers
Athena is not a database and it's a query engine.In Athena compute and storage are separate where as in the case of a database both are tightly coupled.
Athena is more of a OLAP solution where as relational DB is OLTP and it is fully managed service. It will also not maintain the metadata and instead use Glue catalog to store and reteive it.
Also found this article which talks little more about the differences. You can have a read.
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