Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache Airflow VS Apache NiFi

Compare Apache Airflow VS Apache NiFi and see what are their differences

Apache Airflow logo Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.

Apache NiFi logo Apache NiFi

An easy to use, powerful, and reliable system to process and distribute data.
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17
  • Apache NiFi Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-01-17

Apache Airflow features and specs

  • Scalability
    Apache Airflow can scale horizontally, allowing it to handle large volumes of tasks and workflows by distributing the workload across multiple worker nodes.
  • Extensibility
    It supports custom plugins and operators, making it highly customizable to fit various use cases. Users can define their own tasks, sensors, and hooks.
  • Visualization
    Airflow provides an intuitive web interface for monitoring and managing workflows. The interface allows users to visualize DAGs, track task statuses, and debug failures.
  • Flexibility
    Workflows are defined using Python code, which offers a high degree of flexibility and programmatic control over the tasks and their dependencies.
  • Integrations
    Airflow has built-in integrations with a wide range of tools and services such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Apache Hadoop, making it easier to connect to external systems.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Airflow

  • Complexity
    Setting up and configuring Apache Airflow can be complex, particularly for new users. It requires careful management of infrastructure components like databases and web servers.
  • Resource Intensive
    Airflow can be resource-heavy in terms of both memory and CPU usage, especially when dealing with a large number of tasks and DAGs.
  • Learning Curve
    The learning curve can be steep for users who are not familiar with Python or the underlying concepts of workflow management.
  • Limited Real-Time Processing
    Airflow is better suited for batch processing and scheduled tasks rather than real-time event-based processing.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing task dependencies in complex DAGs can become cumbersome and may lead to configuration errors if not properly handled.

Apache NiFi features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Apache NiFi offers a drag-and-drop interface for designing data flows, making it easy to use even for those without extensive coding experience.
  • Extensive Connector Support
    NiFi comes with a wide range of pre-built connectors for various data sources and destinations, simplifying integration tasks.
  • Real-time Data Processing
    NiFi supports real-time data ingestion and processing, enabling timely data flow management.
  • Scalability
    Designed to be highly scalable, NiFi can handle both small and large data volumes, adjusting to organizational needs as they grow.
  • Flexible Data Routing
    NiFi allows dynamic routing of data based on content, making it versatile for various data transformation and routing needs.
  • Visual Data Monitoring
    It offers real-time monitoring of data flows with visual representations, aiding in quick issue identification and resolution.

Possible disadvantages of Apache NiFi

  • Resource Intensive
    Running NiFi can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial CPU and memory, especially for large-scale operations.
  • Complexity for Advanced Operations
    While straightforward for basic tasks, more complex workflows can become challenging and may require deeper technical expertise.
  • Security Management
    Although NiFi includes security features, configuring and maintaining a secure environment can be complex and time-consuming.
  • Limited Community Support
    As a specialized tool, the user community and available online resources are smaller compared to more widespread software solutions.
  • Learning Curve
    New users may face a steep learning curve, particularly when dealing with advanced features and custom processor development.
  • Licensing Costs for Enterprise Features
    Additional enterprise features and support offered by commercial versions may incur extra costs, potentially increasing the total cost of ownership.

Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Apache NiFi videos

Forget Duplicating Local Changes: Apache NiFi and the Flow Development Lifecycle (FDLC)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Airflow and Apache NiFi)
Workflow Automation
88 88%
12% 12
Analytics
0 0%
100% 100
Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Data Integration
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Apache Airflow and Apache NiFi

Apache Airflow Reviews

5 Airflow Alternatives for Data Orchestration
While Apache Airflow continues to be a popular tool for data orchestration, the alternatives presented here offer a range of features and benefits that may better suit certain projects or team preferences. Whether you prioritize simplicity, code-centric design, or the integration of machine learning workflows, there is likely an alternative that meets your needs. By...
Top 8 Apache Airflow Alternatives in 2024
Apache Airflow is a workflow streamlining solution aiming at accelerating routine procedures. This article provides a detailed description of Apache Airflow as one of the most popular automation solutions. It also presents and compares alternatives to Airflow, their characteristic features, and recommended application areas. Based on that, each business could decide which...
Source: blog.skyvia.com
10 Best Airflow Alternatives for 2024
In a nutshell, you gained a basic understanding of Apache Airflow and its powerful features. On the other hand, you understood some of the limitations and disadvantages of Apache Airflow. Hence, this article helped you explore the best Apache Airflow Alternatives available in the market. So, you can try hands-on on these Airflow Alternatives and select the best according to...
Source: hevodata.com
A List of The 16 Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose Them
Apache Airflow is an open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. The platform features a web-based user interface and a command-line interface for managing and triggering workflows.
15 Best ETL Tools in 2022 (A Complete Updated List)
Apache Airflow programmatically creates, schedules and monitors workflows. It can also modify the scheduler to run the jobs as and when required.

Apache NiFi Reviews

Top 8 Apache Airflow Alternatives in 2024
Another product by Apache is called NiFi – even though it’s also dedicated to data workflow management, it differs from Apache Airflow in many aspects. First of all, Apache NiFi is a completely web-based tool with a drag&drop interface and no coding. It’s easy to add and configure processors as graph nodes of data workflow, set up routing directions as graph edges, and...
Source: blog.skyvia.com
11 Best FREE Open-Source ETL Tools in 2024
Apache NiFi allows you to automate and manage the flow of information systems. It also enables NiFi to be an effective platform for building scalable and powerful dataflows. NiFi follows the fundamental concept of Flow-Based Programming. It has a highly configurable web-based UI, and houses features such as Data Provenance, Extensibility, and Security features.
Source: hevodata.com
10 Best Airflow Alternatives for 2024
Apache NiFi is a free and open-source application that automates data transfer across systems. The application comes with a web-based user interface to manage scalable directed graphs of data routing, transformation, and system mediation logic. It is a sophisticated and reliable data processing and distribution system. To edit data at runtime, it provides a highly flexible...
Source: hevodata.com
15 Best ETL Tools in 2022 (A Complete Updated List)
Apache Nifi simplifies the data flow between various systems using automation. The data flows consist of processors and a user can create their own processors. These flows can be saved as templates and later can be integrated with more complex flows. These complex flows can then be deployed to multiple servers with minimal efforts.
Top 10 Popular Open-Source ETL Tools for 2021
Apache NiFi allows you to automate and manage the flow of information systems. It also enables NiFi to be an effective platform for building scalable and powerful dataflows. NiFi follows the fundamental concept of Flow-Based Programming. It has a highly configurable web-based UI, and houses features such as Data Provenance, Extensibility, and Security features.
Source: hevodata.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Airflow should be more popular than Apache NiFi. It has been mentiond 75 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache Airflow mentions (75)

  • The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome
    Is this really true? Something that can be supported by clear evidence? I’ve seen this trotted out many times, but it seems like there are interesting Apache projects: https://airflow.apache.org/ https://iceberg.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/ https://superset.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • 10 Must-Know Open Source Platform Engineering Tools for AI/ML Workflows
    Apache Airflow offers simplicity when it comes to scheduling, authoring, and monitoring ML workflows using Python. The tool's greatest advantage is its compatibility with any system or process you are running. This also eliminates manual intervention and increases team productivity, which aligns with the principles of Platform Engineering tools. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Data Orchestration Tool Analysis: Airflow, Dagster, Flyte
    Data orchestration tools are key for managing data pipelines in modern workflows. When it comes to tools, Apache Airflow, Dagster, and Flyte are popular tools serving this need, but they serve different purposes and follow different philosophies. Choosing the right tool for your requirements is essential for scalability and efficiency. In this blog, I will compare Apache Airflow, Dagster, and Flyte, exploring... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • AIOps, DevOps, MLOps, LLMOps – What’s the Difference?
    Data pipelines: Apache Kafka and Airflow are often used for building data pipelines that can continuously feed data to models in production. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Data Engineering with DLT and REST
    This article demonstrates how to work with near real-time and historical data using the dlt package. Whether you need to scale data access across the enterprise or provide historical data for post-event analysis, you can use the same framework to provide customer data. In a future article, I'll demonstrate how to use dlt with a workflow orchestrator such as Apache Airflow or Dagster.``. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
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Apache NiFi mentions (18)

  • NSA Ghidra open-source reverse engineering framework
    They also contributed Apache NiFi but that was much earlier: https://nifi.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Workbench for Apache NiFi data flows
    This article presents the concept and implementation of a universal workbench for Apache NiFi data flows. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?
    Apache NIFI (https://nifi.apache.org/). It uses the concept of Flow-based programming. Also its so underacknolged but this tool is very flexible. I have used as an Event Bus all the 3rd-Party Integrations. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Help with choosing techstack for a new DE team
    Presently setting up Apache Nifi + Apache MiNiFi for the ETL portion of my work. NiFi was easy enough to figure out; but the docs for MiNiFi have been a pain due to differences between the Java and C++ versions. I then entirely configured it with the Java version so that it was easier to search for answers for the MiNiFi yaml syntax. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Json splitting and Rerouting (new to nifi)
    NIFI, like most Apache projects does most of its discussion on its mailing lists, but also has a slack. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Airflow and Apache NiFi, you can also consider the following products

Make.com - Tool for workflow automation (Former Integromat)

AFSAnalytics - AFSAnalytics.

ifttt - IFTTT puts the internet to work for you. Create simple connections between the products you use every day.

Histats - Start tracking your visitors in 1 minute!

Microsoft Power Automate - Microsoft Power Automate is an automation platform that integrates DPA, RPA, and process mining. It lets you automate your organization at scale using low-code and AI.

StatCounter - StatCounter is a simple but powerful real-time web analytics service that helps you track, analyse and understand your visitors so you can make good decisions to become more successful online.