Software Alternatives & Reviews

AWS Step Functions VS Apache Airflow

Compare AWS Step Functions VS Apache Airflow and see what are their differences

AWS Step Functions logo AWS Step Functions

AWS Step Functions makes it easy to coordinate the components of distributed applications and microservices using visual workflows.

Apache Airflow logo Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.
  • AWS Step Functions Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-29
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17

AWS Step Functions videos

Orchestrating Distributed Business Workflows with AWS Step Functions - AWS Online Tech Talks

More videos:

  • Review - AWS Step Functions: Parallelism and concurrency in Step Functions and AWS Lambda
  • Review - AWS Step Functions: Workflows for development and testing

Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Step Functions and Apache Airflow)
Project Management
100 100%
0% 0
Workflow Automation
11 11%
89% 89
Web Service Automation
14 14%
86% 86
Automation
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 Step Functions and Apache Airflow

AWS Step Functions Reviews

Top 8 Apache Airflow Alternatives in 2024
This service suits for many use cases, such as building ETL pipelines, orchestrating microservices, and managing high workloads. AWS Step Functions is particularly efficient when combined with other AWS solutions: Lambda for computing, Dynamo DB for storage, Athena for Analytics, SageMaker for machine learning, etc.
Source: blog.skyvia.com
10 Best Airflow Alternatives for 2024
AWS Step Functions enable the incorporation of AWS services such as Lambda, Fargate, SNS, SQS, SageMaker, and EMR into business processes, Data Pipelines, and applications. Users and enterprises can choose between 2 types of workflows: Standard (for long-running workloads) and Express (for high-volume event processing workloads), depending on their use case.
Source: hevodata.com

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.

Social recommendations and mentions

Apache Airflow might be a bit more popular than AWS Step Functions. We know about 65 links to it since March 2021 and only 57 links to AWS Step Functions. 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 Step Functions mentions (57)

  • Serverless Data Processor using AWS Lambda, Step Functions and Fargate on ECS (with Rust 🦀🦀)
    There are a few ways to solve this of course but one solution I wanted to explore is using AWS Step Functions (https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/) to drive the whole process. Step Functions is a serverless workflow orchestration system. One part of it is support for a distributed map mode where you can run many parallel operations over a set of data. There are different approaches you can use to get the list... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • The Energy Drink Episodes 3: The Step Function Awakens
    If you have ever spoken to me, read anything I've written or listened to any talks I’ve done in relation to Serverless or infrastructure as code, there is a high likelihood that I have confessed my love for Step Functions. Even when unprompted. Putting my biases aside, however, there are some legitimate reasons we can consider using them in our app. If you are new to Step Functions or just fancy a refresher, have... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Testing Serverless Applications on AWS
    For context; the web application is built with React and TypeScript which makes calls to an AppSync API that makes use of the Lambda and DynamoDB datasources. We use Step Functions to orchestrate the flow of events for complex processing like purchasing and renewing policies, and we use S3 and SQS to process document workloads. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Customizing error handling in Step Functions
    If we have to coordinate multiple function calls, we can use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate the workflow. Step Functions integrates with many other AWS services, but here I'll focus on Lambda functions. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Amazon Ditches Microservices for Monolith: Decoding Prime Video's Architectural Shift
    Amazon's tool was broken into three main components: the media converter, defect detectors, and orchestration. The media converter ran as an AWS Lambda function, converted audio and video streams, and stored the data in an S3 bucket. The defect detectors, also running as an AWS Lambda function, would pull the parsed data from the S3 bucket and analyze the frames and audio for any issues. Finally, the orchestration... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
View more

Apache Airflow mentions (65)

  • The 2024 Web Hosting Report
    For the third, examples here might be analytics plugins in specialized databases like Clickhouse, data-transformations in places like your ETL pipeline using Airflow or Fivetran, or special integrations in your authentication workflow with Auth0 hooks and rules. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose
    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. Source: 6 months ago
  • Simplifying Data Transformation in Redshift: An Approach with DBT and Airflow
    Airflow is the most widely used and well-known tool for orchestrating data workflows. It allows for efficient pipeline construction, scheduling, and monitoring. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Share Your favorite python related software!
    AIRFLOW This is more of a library in my opinion, but Airflow has become an essential tool for scheduling in my work. All our ML training pipelines are ordered and scheduled with Airflow and it works seamlessly. The dashboard provided is also fantastic! Source: 7 months ago
  • Ask HN: What is the correct way to deal with pipelines?
    I agree there are many options in this space. Two others to consider: - https://airflow.apache.org/ - https://github.com/spotify/luigi There are also many Kubernetes based options out there. For the specific use case you specified, you might even consider a plain old Makefile and incrond if you expect these all to run on a single host and be triggered by a new file... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Step Functions and Apache Airflow, you can also consider the following products

Zapier - Connect the apps you use everyday to automate your work and be more productive. 1000+ apps and easy integrations - get started in minutes.

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

Nintex - Cloud-based digital workflow management automation platform

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.

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

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