Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Talend VS Apache Airflow

Compare Talend VS Apache Airflow and see what are their differences

Talend logo Talend

Talend Cloud delivers a single, open platform for data integration across cloud and on-premises environments. Put more data to work for your business faster with Talend.

Apache Airflow logo Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.
  • Talend Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-20
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17

Talend features and specs

  • Open-Source Components
    Talend offers open-source tools, which provides flexibility and cost savings for organizations that prefer or require open-source solutions.
  • Integration Capability
    Talend excels in its ability to integrate with a variety of data sources, applications, and platforms, making it versatile for different data integration needs.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Talend provides a drag-and-drop interface that simplifies the process of designing and managing data integration workflows, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise.
  • Comprehensive Data Management
    The platform offers a suite of tools for data quality, data profiling, and master data management, helping organizations ensure high-quality and consistent data.
  • Scalability
    Talend can handle both small-scale and large-scale data integration projects, making it a robust solution as organizational data needs grow.

Possible disadvantages of Talend

  • Learning Curve
    Although Talend is user-friendly, it has a steep learning curve for users who are new to data integration tools, requiring considerable time to master.
  • Performance Overhead
    Talend may introduce some performance overhead, especially in complex workflows, which can impact the speed and efficiency of data processing.
  • Cost for Advanced Features
    While Talend offers open-source components, more advanced features and enterprise-level support come with a premium price tag, which can be a barrier for smaller organizations.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    The initial setup and configuration of Talend can be complex and time-consuming, requiring careful planning and execution to avoid potential issues.
  • Limited Real-Time Processing
    Talend can be less effective for real-time data processing scenarios compared to some of its competitors, limiting its use in environments where real-time data integration is critical.

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.

Analysis of Talend

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Talend is generally considered a good data integration and data management tool.

Why this product is good

  • Talend offers a comprehensive suite of tools for data integration, data quality, and data governance. It is known for its open-source roots and has a large community of users and contributors. The platform provides a flexible and scalable solution that can handle complex data pipelines and seamlessly integrate with various data sources and destinations. Additionally, its user-friendly interface and extensive library of connectors make it accessible for both technical and non-technical users.

Recommended for

  • Organizations looking for a powerful ETL (extract, transform, load) tool for data integration.
  • Data professionals who need to handle large volumes of data across different systems.
  • Businesses looking to improve their data quality and ensure compliance with data governance standards.
  • Teams that favor open-source solutions and community support.
  • Companies in need of real-time data processing and analytics capabilities.

Analysis of Apache Airflow

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Apache Airflow is a good choice for managing complex workflows and data pipelines, particularly for organizations that require a scalable and reliable orchestration tool.

Why this product is good

  • Apache Airflow is considered good because it provides a robust and flexible platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring workflows. It is open-source and has a large community that contributes to its continuous improvement. Airflow's modular architecture allows for easy integration with various data sources and destinations, and its UI is user-friendly, enabling effective pipeline visualization and management. Additionally, it offers extensibility through a wide array of plugins and customization options.

Recommended for

    Apache Airflow is recommended for data engineers, data scientists, and IT professionals who need to automate and manage workflows. It is particularly suited for organizations handling large-scale data processing tasks, requiring integration with various systems, and those looking to deploy machine learning pipelines or ETL processes.

Talend videos

Talend Software Review

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Talend ETL Tutorial | Talend Tutorial For Beginners | Talend Online Training | Edureka
  • Tutorial - What is Talend | Talend Tutorial for Beginners | Talend Online Training | Edureka

Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Talend and Apache Airflow)
Data Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Workflow Automation
0 0%
100% 100
ETL
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 Talend and Apache Airflow

Talend Reviews

Best ETL Tools: A Curated List
Limited connectors: Talend claims 1000+ connectors. But it lists 50 or so databases, file systems, applications, messaging, and other systems it supports. The rest are Talend Cloud Connectors, which you create as reusable objects.
Source: estuary.dev
Top 11 Fivetran Alternatives for 2024
Talend, also now part of Qlik, has two main products—Talend Data Fabric and Stitch (covered under Stitch.) Talend Data Fabric is a data integration platform that, like Informatica, is broader than ETL. It also offers data quality and data governance features, ensuring that your data is not only integrated but also reliable and well-managed.
Source: estuary.dev
Top 14 ETL Tools for 2023
While some users will find the open-source version of Talend (Talend Open Studio) sufficient, larger enterprises will likely prefer Talend’s paid Data Integration platform. This version of Talend includes additional tools and features for design, productivity, management, monitoring, business intelligence, and data governance.
Top 10 AWS ETL Tools and How to Choose the Best One | Visual Flow
Talend is one of the best AWS RedShift ETL tools. It allows you to quickly build integration processes by moving components into the graphical workspace, defining connections and relationships, and setting specific properties. This approach helps to create jobs and monitor the progress of their execution.
Source: visual-flow.com
Top ETL Tools For 2021...And The Case For Saying "No" To ETL
Talend also has Master Data Management (MDM) functionality, which allows organizations to have a single, consistent and accurate view of key enterprise data. This can create better transparency across a business, and lead to better operational efficiency, marketing effectiveness and compliance.
Source: blog.panoply.io

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 Talend. While we know about 75 links to Apache Airflow, we've tracked only 1 mention of Talend. 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.

Talend mentions (1)

  • Couldn't parse value for column 'ID' in 'row1'
    Hello all im new to talend and im trying to do the tutorials provided by talend.com here:. Source: almost 3 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 / 3 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 / 4 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 / 5 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 / 6 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

Matillion - Matillion is a cloud-based data integration software.

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

Talend Data Services Platform - Talend Data Services Platform is a single solution for data and application integration to deliver projects faster at a lower cost.

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

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.

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.