Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Prefect.io VS Apache Airflow

Compare Prefect.io VS Apache Airflow and see what are their differences

Prefect.io logo Prefect.io

Prefect offers modern workflow orchestration tools for building, observing & reacting to data pipelines efficiently.

Apache Airflow logo Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.
  • Prefect.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-11-14
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17

Prefect.io

Website
prefect.io
$ Details
Release Date
2018 January
Startup details
Country
United States
Founder(s)
Jeremiah Lowin
Employees
50 - 99

Prefect.io features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

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.

Prefect.io videos

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Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Prefect.io and Apache Airflow)
Workflow Automation
12 12%
88% 88
Workflows
20 20%
80% 80
Automation
12 12%
88% 88
Data Integration
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

Prefect.io Reviews

Top 8 Apache Airflow Alternatives in 2024
Prefect, similarly to Airflow, is designed to help user orchestrate their workflows using Python. This service is web-based and could be easily set up with containerization tools, such as Docker, and deployed on the Kubernetes clusters. As a result, Prefect offers a high grade of scalability to its users, which might be of particular value to rapidly growing companies.
Source: blog.skyvia.com
10 Best Airflow Alternatives for 2024
Prefect blends the ease of the Cloud with the security of on-premises to satisfy the demands of businesses that need to install, monitor, and manage processes fast. It has helped businesses of all sizes realize the immediate financial benefits of being able to swiftly deploy, scale, and manage their processes. Unlike Apache Airflow’s heavily limited and verbose tasks,...
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

Based on our record, Apache Airflow seems to be more popular. 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.

Prefect.io mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Prefect.io yet. Tracking of Prefect.io recommendations started around Mar 2024.

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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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Prefect.io and Apache Airflow, you can also consider the following products

Kestra.io - Infinitely scalable, event-driven, language-agnostic orchestration and scheduling platform to manage millions of workflows declaratively in code.

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

Dagster - The cloud-native open source orchestrator for the whole development lifecycle, with integrated lineage and observability, a declarative programming model, and best-in-class testability.

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

n8n.io - Free and open fair-code licensed node based Workflow Automation Tool. Easily automate tasks across different services.

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.