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Starfish ETL VS AWS Glue

Compare Starfish ETL VS AWS Glue and see what are their differences

Starfish ETL logo Starfish ETL

The Starfish ETL (Extract Transform Load) Suite is a CRM integration and migration tool.

AWS Glue logo AWS Glue

Fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service
  • Starfish ETL Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21
  • AWS Glue Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-29

Starfish ETL features and specs

  • Flexibility
    Starfish ETL supports a wide variety of data sources and destinations, making it a versatile tool for data integration projects.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Offers a graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies the process of mapping data fields and creating integration workflows, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise.
  • Pre-Built Connectors
    Comes with a range of pre-built connectors for popular CRMs, ERPs, and databases, which can save time and reduce the complexity of setup.
  • Scalability
    Designed to handle both small and large data integration projects, allowing you to scale your operations as needed.
  • Support and Documentation
    Offers robust customer support and extensive documentation, which can help users troubleshoot issues and maximize the platformโ€™s capabilities.
  • Customization
    Provides the ability to create highly customized data transformations and workflows, catering to unique business requirements.

Possible disadvantages of Starfish ETL

  • Cost
    As a feature-rich, enterprise-level tool, Starfish ETL can be relatively expensive, potentially making it a less attractive option for smaller businesses with limited budgets.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, there is still a learning curve associated with mastering the toolโ€™s advanced features and capabilities.
  • Performance
    In some cases, users have noted that performance can degrade with very large data sets or highly complex transformations.
  • Dependency on Vendor
    Relying on a third-party tool for critical data integration can result in dependency on the vendor for updates, support, and feature enhancements.
  • Customization Complexity
    While customization is a strength, it can also be complex and time-consuming to implement, particularly for users who are not highly technical.

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.

Analysis of Starfish ETL

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Starfish ETL is considered a good solution for businesses looking to integrate multiple systems efficiently. Its user-friendly interface and wide range of connectors make it a reliable option for companies of various sizes.

Why this product is good

  • Starfish ETL is a popular integration platform that is known for its flexibility and ease of use. It provides a range of features that help businesses seamlessly connect different applications and systems. The platform supports cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments, and offers pre-built connectors, making it easier to integrate various systems without extensive coding. Users appreciate its drag-and-drop interface, and the tool is particularly praised for good customer support and effective data transformation capabilities.

Recommended for

  • Businesses seeking a user-friendly ETL solution with robust integration capabilities.
  • Organizations that require flexibility between cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.
  • Companies that value strong customer support and need assistance during integration processes.
  • Teams looking for pre-built connectors to save time and reduce complexity in system integration.

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.

Starfish ETL videos

Connector Overview

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Starfish ETL and AWS Glue)
Data Integration
42 42%
58% 58
ETL
40 40%
60% 60
Web Service Automation
45 45%
55% 55
Cloud Storage
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 Starfish ETL and AWS Glue

Starfish ETL Reviews

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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.

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.

Starfish ETL mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Starfish ETL yet. Tracking of Starfish ETL recommendations started around Mar 2021.

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
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Starfish ETL and AWS Glue, 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.

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.

Talend Data Integration - Talend offers open source middleware solutions that address big data integration, data management and application integration needs for businesses of all sizes.

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

Stitch - Consolidate your customer and product data in minutes

Software AG webMethods - Software AGโ€™s webMethods enables you to quickly integrate systems, partners, data, devices and SaaS applications