Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

KNIME VS Apache Airflow

Compare KNIME VS Apache Airflow and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

KNIME logo KNIME

KNIME, the open platform for your data.

Apache Airflow logo Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.
  • KNIME Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-28
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17

KNIME features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    KNIME provides a visual workflow interface that makes it easy for users to design data processing, analysis, and machine learning workflows without needing to write code.
  • Extensibility
    KNIME supports various extensions and plugins, which enhance its functionality and allow integration with different data sources, tools, and programming languages like R and Python.
  • Open Source
    KNIME offers an open-source platform, which means users can access and modify the source code, contributing to its flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
  • Robust Community Support
    A strong community of users and developers around KNIME provides extensive documentation, forums, and shared workflows to help solve issues and improve the platform.
  • Scalability
    KNIME can handle large volumes of data and complex workflows, making it scalable for both small projects and large enterprise solutions.

Possible disadvantages of KNIME

  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, new users may initially find it challenging to understand all the features and capabilities, leading to a significant learning curve.
  • Performance
    For extremely large datasets or very complex workflows, KNIME can exhibit performance issues, including slower processing speeds and higher memory consumption.
  • Limited Advanced Machine Learning Capabilities
    While KNIME is powerful for basic and intermediate analytics, it may lack some of the advanced machine learning capabilities found in specialized tools like TensorFlow or PyTorch.
  • Dependency on Extensions
    A lot of KNIME’s advanced functionality relies on external extensions, which may not always be well-maintained or compatible with newer versions.
  • Commercial Licensing Costs
    While the core platform is open-source, advanced features, support, and enterprise-level tools require a commercial license, which can be costly.

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.

KNIME videos

What Is KNIME?

More videos:

  • Review - KNIME Analytics: a Review
  • Review - Should you learn KNIME for machine learning: My thoughts after a month of use (2019)

Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to KNIME and Apache Airflow)
Data Science And Machine Learning
Workflow Automation
0 0%
100% 100
Business & Commerce
100 100%
0% 0
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 KNIME and Apache Airflow

KNIME Reviews

Top 10 Tableau Open Source Alternatives: A Comprehensive List
Knime Analytics Platform is an open-source Business Intelligence software that has been developed as an integration platform for creating analytical reports. It is a software that might be difficult for a novice to use. However, for Data Scientists and other Data professionals, particularly those who want to work with R, Python, or other Predictive Machine Learning tools,...
Source: hevodata.com
Top 10 Data Analysis Tools in 2022
KNIME KNIME is an open-source tool that allows you to build or manipulate software to fit your company goals. KNIME is a free data analysis tool. KNIME is a valuable tool that is freely accessible and can be modified due to its open architecture. However, there is a paucity of learning materials and a need for better visualization.
15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Some platforms are also available in free open source or community editions -- examples include Dataiku and H2O. Knime combines an open source analytics platform with a commercial Knime Server software package that supports team-based collaboration and workflow automation, deployment and management.

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

Based on our record, Apache Airflow seems to be a lot more popular than KNIME. While we know about 75 links to Apache Airflow, we've tracked only 2 mentions of KNIME. 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.

KNIME mentions (2)

  • Replace SAP BI with what?
    I'd recommend to look into the free and open source KNIME tool (knime.com). It may not look easy to use right away, but if you stick with it for a little while and attend its learning guides, KNIME will grow on you. You can even have it scheduled using Microsoft Task Scheduler or CRON for free. For me, it has augmented the capabilities of Power BI, Looker Studio, Cognos, Excel, and other proprietary tools. Its... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • More "pythonic" way of writing my API query?
    That would cause a problem because ultimately this query will be scheduled to run multiple times a day on a KNIME server. Source: about 2 years ago

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 / 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 / 4 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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What are some alternatives?

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

datarobot - Become an AI-Driven Enterprise with Automated Machine Learning

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

RapidMiner - RapidMiner is a software platform for data science teams that unites data prep, machine learning, and predictive model deployment.

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

Montecarlito - MonteCarlito is a free Excel-add-in to do Monte-Carlo-simulations.

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.