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AWS Glue VS IBM DataStage

Compare AWS Glue VS IBM DataStage and see what are their differences

AWS Glue logo AWS Glue

Fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service

IBM DataStage logo IBM DataStage

Extract, transfer and load ETL data across multiple systems, with support forextended metadata management and big data enterprise connectivity.
  • AWS Glue Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-29
  • IBM DataStage Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-15

AWS Glue features and specs

  • Fully Managed
    AWS Glue is a fully managed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service, which means you don't need to manage any underlying infrastructure. This reduces the operational overhead and allows you to focus on the data processing tasks.
  • Scalability
    AWS Glue can automatically scale resources up or down based on the demand and workload, ensuring optimal performance without manual intervention.
  • Serverless
    Being serverless, there are no servers to manage or maintain. You only pay for the resources that you consume, which can result in significant cost savings.
  • Integrated Data Catalog
    AWS Glue comes with a built-in data catalog that helps you organize and discover your data. It automatically indexes and maintains metadata about your data, making it easier to manage.
  • Support for Multiple Data Sources
    AWS Glue supports a variety of data sources including Amazon S3, RDS, Redshift, and many external databases, providing flexibility in your ETL processes.
  • Developer Tools
    AWS Glue provides developer endpoints for custom ETL logic, and integrates with AWS SDKs, Boto3, and the AWS CLI, allowing for a flexible development experience.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Glue

  • Complex Pricing
    The pricing model for AWS Glue can be complicated, involving multiple components such as Data Processing Units (DPUs), data catalog storage, and crawler costs, which may make it hard to estimate costs.
  • Learning Curve
    There is a significant learning curve for developers who are new to AWS Glue, especially when it comes to understanding its various components and configurations.
  • Performance for Small Datasets
    AWS Glue is optimized for large-scale data processing, which may result in suboptimal performance and higher costs for smaller datasets.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Using AWS Glue ties you to the AWS ecosystem, making it harder to switch to another cloud provider without significant rework of your ETL pipelines and data catalog.
  • Limited Debugging Tools
    The debugging and troubleshooting tools for AWS Glue are somewhat limited compared to other mature ETL tools, which may complicate the development and maintenance of ETL jobs.
  • Job Run Delays
    There can be delays in job startup times, which can be problematic for certain time-sensitive applications requiring near real-time data processing.

IBM DataStage features and specs

  • Scalability
    IBM DataStage provides robust scalability, allowing organizations to process and transform large volumes of data efficiently. This makes it suitable for enterprises with extensive data integration needs.
  • Integration Capabilities
    DataStage offers comprehensive integration capabilities with a wide range of data sources and targets, including cloud-based and on-premises systems, facilitating seamless data movement and transformation.
  • High Performance
    The platform is optimized for high performance, supporting parallel processing and workload management, which helps in processing large datasets quickly and effectively.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    IBM DataStage provides an intuitive graphical interface that simplifies the design and management of data integration tasks, making it accessible to both technical and non-technical users.
  • Comprehensive Metadata Management
    It offers robust metadata management features, helping users maintain, analyze, and govern their data assets effectively, which enhances data quality and compliance.

Possible disadvantages of IBM DataStage

  • High Cost
    The licensing and operational costs of IBM DataStage can be relatively high, making it a less viable option for smaller businesses or organizations with budget constraints.
  • Complex Setup
    Setting up DataStage can be complex and time-consuming, requiring significant technical expertise, which might be challenging for organizations without skilled IT staff.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, mastering the full capabilities of DataStage can take time, and users may need extensive training to utilize all features effectively.
  • Resource Intensive
    The platform can be resource-intensive, demanding considerable hardware and system resources to perform optimally, which might not be feasible for all organizations.
  • Dependency on IBM Ecosystem
    Organizations heavily investing in IBM DataStage might find themselves increasingly reliant on IBM's ecosystem, which could limit flexibility in choosing other solutions without significant migration efforts.

Analysis of AWS Glue

Overall verdict

  • AWS Glue is generally considered a good option for organizations looking for a powerful, scalable, and cost-effective ETL solution within the AWS ecosystem. Its ease of integration with AWS services, managed nature, and capability to handle large volumes of data make it a strong choice, particularly for teams that are already using AWS services.

Why this product is good

  • AWS Glue is a fully managed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service that makes it easy to prepare and transform data for analytics, machine learning, and application development. It is particularly beneficial for its serverless architecture, which allows users to run data processing jobs without the need to manage any infrastructure. The service integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like S3, RDS, and Redshift, providing a robust ecosystem for data processing. It also supports a wide range of data sources and formats, and offers a graphical interface for easy job creation and monitoring.

Recommended for

  • Organizations already using AWS services and looking to streamline their ETL processes.
  • Data engineers and developers who need a scalable solution to handle large datasets without managing infrastructure.
  • Companies that require seamless integration with a wide array of data storage options and formats.

AWS Glue videos

Build ETL Processes for Data Lakes with AWS Glue - AWS Online Tech Talks

More videos:

  • Review - AWS re:Invent BDT 201: AWS Data Pipeline: A guided tour
  • Review - Getting Started with AWS Glue Data Catalog
  • Review - Bajaj Housing Finance Limited: Serverless Data Pipelines with AWS Glue and Amazon Aurora PGSQL

IBM DataStage videos

IBM InfoSphere DataStage Skill Builder Part 1: How to build and run a DataStage parallel job

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Glue and IBM DataStage)
ETL
77 77%
23% 23
Data Integration
76 76%
24% 24
Web Service Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Backup & Sync
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 AWS Glue and IBM DataStage

AWS Glue Reviews

Best ETL Tools: A Curated List
AWS Glue is a fully managed serverless ETL service from Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to automate and simplify the data preparation process for analytics. Its serverless architecture eliminates the need to manage infrastructure. As part of the AWS ecosystem, it is integrated with other AWS services, making it a go-to choice for cloud-based data integration for...
Source: estuary.dev
10 Best ETL Tools (October 2023)
AWS Glue is an end-to-end ETL offering intended to make ETL workloads easier and more integratable with the larger AWS ecosystem. One of the more unique aspects of the tool is that it is serverless, meaning Amazon automatically provisions a server and shuts it down following the completion of the workload.
Source: www.unite.ai
15+ Best Cloud ETL Tools
AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service designed to streamline analytics, machine learning, and app development tasks. It discovers, prepares, and moves data from a myriad of sources and offers a seamless integration experience. AWS Glue's inclusive toolset and automatic scaling let you focus on gaining insights from data instead of managing infrastructure.
Source: estuary.dev
Top 14 ETL Tools for 2023
Notably, AWS Glue is serverless, which means that Amazon automatically provisions a server for users and shuts it down when the workload is complete. AWS Glue also includes features such as job scheduling and โ€œdeveloper endpointsโ€ for testing AWS Glue scripts, improving the toolโ€™s ease of use.
A List of The 16 Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose Them
Better yet, when interacting with AWS Glue, practitioners can choose between a drag-and-down GUI, a Jupyter notebook, or Python/Scala code. AWS Glue also offers support for various data processing and workloads that meet different business needs, including ETL, ELT, batch, and streaming.

IBM DataStage Reviews

Best ETL Tools: A Curated List
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is an enterprise-level ETL tool that is part of the IBM InfoSphere suite. It is engineered for high-performance data integration and can manage large data volumes across diverse platforms. With its parallel processing architecture and comprehensive set of features, DataStage is ideal for organizations with complex data environments and stringent data...
Source: estuary.dev
10 Best ETL Tools (October 2023)
IBM DataStage is an excellent data integration tool that is focused on a client-server design. It extracts, transforms, and loads data from a source to a target. These sources can include files, archives, business apps, and more.
Source: www.unite.ai
A List of The 16 Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose Them
Infosphere Datastage is an ETL tool offered by IBM as part of its Infosphere Information Server ecosystem. With its graphical framework, users can design data pipelines that extract data from multiple sources, perform complex transformations, and deliver the data to target applications.
Top 10 AWS ETL Tools and How to Choose the Best One | Visual Flow
DataStage is an IBM proprietary tool that extracts, transforms, and loads data from a source to the destination storage. It is suitable for on-premises deployment and use in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Data sources that DataStage is compatible with include sequential files, indexed files, relational databases, external data sources, archives, enterprise applications,...
Source: visual-flow.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS Glue seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 16 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.

AWS Glue mentions (16)

  • Optimizing AWS Costs for AI Development in 2025
    Managed Services: This includes the per-token costs of using services like Amazon Bedrock, the hosting fees for SageMaker endpoints, and the costs associated with data pipelines using services like Glue or Lambda. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Introducing RisingWave's Hosted Iceberg Catalog-No External Setup Needed
    However, using any Iceberg engine traditionally requires a first, crucial step: setting up and configuring an Iceberg catalog. This catalog is responsible for managing the table metadata. While flexible, this often means provisioning and managing a separate service like AWS Glue, a dedicated PostgreSQL database for the JDBC catalog, or a REST service. This adds an extra layer of configuration and operational... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Vector: A lightweight tool for collecting EKS application logs with long-term storage capabilities
    In this article, we present an architecture that demonstrates how to collect application logs from Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) via Vector, store them in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for long-term retention, and finally query these logs using AWS Glue and Amazon Athena. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Build Your Movie Recommendation System Using Amazon Personalize, MongoDB Atlas, and AWS Glue
    AWS Glue is a fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service that makes it easy to prepare and load data for analysis. It helps bridge the gap between our MongoDB Atlas data and the services we'll use for recommendation. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Using Snowflake data hosted in GCP with AWS Glue
    AWS Glue is a fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is designed to make it easy for users to prepare and load their data for analysis. AWS Glue simplifies the process of building and managing ETL workflows by providing a serverless environment for running ETL jobs. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

IBM DataStage mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of IBM DataStage yet. Tracking of IBM DataStage recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Glue and IBM DataStage, you can also consider the following products

Xplenty - Xplenty is the #1 SecurETL - allowing you to build low-code data pipelines on the most secure and flexible data transformation platform. No longer worry about manual data transformations. Start your free 14-day trial now.

Azure Data Factory - Learn more about Azure Data Factory, the easiest cloud-based hybrid data integration solution at an enterprise scale. Build data factories without the need to code.

AWS Database Migration Service - AWS Database Migration Service allows you to migrate to AWS quickly and securely. Learn more about the benefits and the key use cases.

Striim - Striim provides an end-to-end, real-time data integration and streaming analytics platform.

Skyvia - Free cloud data platform for data integration, backup & management

Oracle Data Integrator - Oracle Data Integrator is a data integration platform that covers batch loads, to trickle-feed integration processes.