LavaLake vs Starburst Galaxy

LavaLake combines a data warehouse and lakehouse with SQL, dashboards and AI agents for deployment in a customer’s own data center. Its assistant can find data, query metrics and create dashboards using the signed-in user’s permissions. An MCP server lets external agents use platform tools under those permissions. Read-only database sources include PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server, SAP Business One and SAP S/4HANA. CSV and DATEV files can be imported, while PDF, Word and text documents can be searched. Hybrid search combines vector and keyword results using a locally run nomic-embed-text model with PostgreSQL and pgvector. The lakehouse uses Apache Iceberg on S3-compatible storage, Nessie as its versioned catalog and Trino as its query engine. Tableau and Power BI connect through a read-only HTTP feed that applies analyst identity and records data fetches in an audit chain. The maker says lakehouse data and local search stay on the customer’s network, while external AI providers receive conversation content and assistant tool results. Core is free with no time limit; paid plans start at €249/mo.

Starburst Galaxy is a managed cloud analytics platform built on Trino. It lets teams query data across sources in one SQL query without copying it, with availability on AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Starburst lists more than 50 data sources, including Amazon S3, Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery and Azure Blob. Galaxy can stream from Kafka or load CSV, JSON and AVRO files into Iceberg. Its LakeOps service automates Iceberg table compaction, snapshot expiry and orphan-file removal; AIDA converts natural-language questions into governed insights through a customizable interface or MCP. Security provisions include fine-grained RBAC and ABAC, encryption, data classification and private connectivity. Starburst describes Galaxy as SOC 2 Type II certified and HIPAA-ready. A free plan allows up to three clusters for ad hoc queries in standard execution mode. Usage charges vary by plan and cover items such as compute, ingestion and private-link data transfer. A 30-day trial includes Enterprise features and $500 in compute resources. Starburst recommends Galaxy for organizations without resources to manage complex data clusters.