# Apache Airflow vs Apache Beam

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Apache Airflow

| Attribute | Apache Airflow | Apache Beam |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 69 (66% (medium)) | 53.7 (42% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 189 | 1,425 |
| adoption.github_stars | 47,054 | 8,684 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 1,607,065 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"An open-source platform where you define workflows in Python, schedule their execution based on dependencies and timing, and monitor progress through a web interface. Widely used for data orchestration, ML operations, and infrastructure automation. It is indexed under Data Engineering Tools.","source":"https://airflow.apache.org","question":"What is Apache Airflow?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache Airflow is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://airflow.apache.org","question":"Is Apache Airflow free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache Airflow supports the web, Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://airflow.apache.org","question":"What platforms does Apache Airflow support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Airflow can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://airflow.apache.org","question":"Can Apache Airflow be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 56 integrations for Apache Airflow, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Databricks, Snowflake, dbt Cloud, Slack and Salesforce, plus 48 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://airflow.apache.org","question":"What does Apache Airflow integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Airflow is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/apache/airflow","question":"Is Apache Airflow open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"Apache Beam enables organizations to process data in both batch and streaming modes through a single unified model, with the flexibility to read from diverse data sources and write to popular data sinks across different deployment environments. It is indexed under Data Engineering Tools.","source":"https://beam.apache.org","question":"What is Apache Beam?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache Beam is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://beam.apache.org","question":"Is Apache Beam free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Beam can be deployed cloud / SaaS, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://beam.apache.org","question":"Can Apache Beam be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Beam is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/apache/beam","question":"Is Apache Beam open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Apache Airflow is a workflow orchestration platform that enables users to define data pipelines in Python and schedule their execution across distributed workers. It provides a web interface for visualization and monitoring, plus extensive integrations with cloud platforms and services. | Apache Beam is an open-source framework for processing data at scale using both batch and streaming paradigms. It enables users to write data transformation logic once and execute it across diverse deployment environments and data sources. |
| features.capabilities | `{"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"batch","dbt_native":true,"data_quality":true,"python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"100+","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true,"distributed_executor":true}` | `{"role":"orchestrator","paradigm":"both","managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"Multiple I/O connectors for diverse data sources and sinks","self_hosted_oss":true,"distributed_executor":true}` |
| integrations.count | 54 | 1 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Amazon Web Services"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud Platform"},{"name":"Databricks"},{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"dbt Cloud"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Tableau"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"Apache Kafka"},{"name":"Apache Cassandra"},{"name":"Apache Flink"},{"name":"Apache Druid"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Jenkins"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Cohere"},{"name":"Pinecone"},{"name":"Weaviate"},{"name":"Qdrant"},{"name":"Oracle"},{"name":"Teradata"},{"name":"SQLite"},{"name":"Presto"},{"name":"Trino"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"Neo4j"},{"name":"Airbyte"},{"name":"Informatica"},{"name":"Asana"},{"name":"Atlassian Jira"},{"name":"Discord"},{"name":"Telegram"},{"name":"Segment"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Opsgenie"},{"name":"Keycloak"},{"name":"Yandex"},{"name":"Zendesk"},{"name":"OpenLineage"},{"name":"New Relic","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Starrocks","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"OpenSearch","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"IBM Cognos TM1","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Marquez","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Nexla","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Vertica","native":true},{"name":"Microsoft SQL Server","native":true},{"name":"Influx DB","native":true},{"name":"Cloudant","native":true},{"name":"OpenFaaS","native":true}]` | `[{"name":"Apache Hop","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Java |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | - |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://airflow.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-09-07T13:08:28.227Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://beam.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T14:24:53.130Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 14 | 40 |
| release.history | 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| `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.77.0","date":"2026-10-07T14:33:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.77.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.76.0","date":"2026-08-11T11:18:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.76.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.75.0","date":"2026-07-08T06:42:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.75.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.74.0","date":"2026-05-22T16:19:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.74.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.73.0","date":"2026-04-17T14:27:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.73.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.72.0","date":"2026-03-16T19:01:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.72.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.71.0","date":"2026-01-08T14:41:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.71.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.70.0","date":"2025-12-09T09:59:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.70.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.69.0","date":"2025-10-17T11:50:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.69.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.68.0","date":"2025-09-15T14:08:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.68.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.67.0","date":"2025-08-01T06:31:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.67.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.66.0","date":"2025-06-18T19:05:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.66.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.65.0","date":"2025-05-12T19:13:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.65.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.64.0","date":"2025-03-31T14:35:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.64.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.63.0","date":"2025-02-18T15:31:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.63.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.62.0","date":"2025-01-13T15:35:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.62.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.61.0","date":"2024-11-14T14:46:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.61.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.60.0","date":"2024-10-16T17:47:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.60.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.59.0","date":"2024-08-24T17:16:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.59.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/beam/releases/tag/v2.58.1","date":"2024-08-16T18:44:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.58.1"}]` |
| security.scorecard | 7.3 | 7.8 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=apache-airflow-providers-common-sql&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fapache%2Fbeam&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Data Engineering Tools)

| Capability | Apache Airflow | Apache Beam |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Tool role | Orchestrator | Orchestrator |
| Processing paradigm | Batch | Batch + streaming |
| **Connectivity** |  |  |
| Connector count | 100+ | Multiple I/O connectors for diverse data sources and sinks |
| CDC / log-based replication | - | - |
| **Transformation** |  |  |
| In-warehouse transformation (push-down) | - | - |
| dbt-native orchestration | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Self-hosted / open-source available | ✓ | ✓ |
| Managed cloud available | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Governance** |  |  |
| Data lineage / asset catalog | ✓ | - |
| **Authoring** |  |  |
| Python-first authoring | ✓ | - |
| **Execution** |  |  |
| Incremental / partition-aware runs | ✓ | - |
| **Quality** |  |  |
| Built-in data quality / tests | ✓ | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Horizontal scale (distributed executor) | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:14:50.202Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*