# Apache Airflow vs Apache NiFi

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Apache Airflow

| Attribute | Apache Airflow | Apache NiFi |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 73 (66% (medium)) | 67.8 (39% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 93 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 189 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 46,610 | 6,208 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 3,883,451 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A community-built orchestration system that enables users to define data pipelines and tasks in Python, execute them on distributed workers, and monitor progress through a web-based interface. It supports dynamic pipeline generation, extensive third-party integrations, and operates best for batch-oriented workflows. | Apache NiFi is an open-source data orchestration platform that enables reliable, guaranteed-delivery processing and routing of data flows with complete tracking and provenance. It provides visual pipeline design, real-time configuration changes, and extensive integrations with enterprise systems, cloud services, and data platforms. |
| features.capabilities | `{"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"batch","dbt_native":true,"python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"100+","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true,"distributed_executor":true}` | `{"cdc":true,"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"both","data_quality":true,"elt_pushdown":false,"connector_count":"200+","self_hosted_oss":true}` |
| integrations.count | 100 | 200 |
| 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":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Amazon SQS"},{"name":"Amazon DynamoDB"},{"name":"Amazon Lambda"},{"name":"Amazon Kinesis"},{"name":"Amazon Polly"},{"name":"Amazon Transcribe"},{"name":"Amazon Translate"},{"name":"Amazon Textract"},{"name":"CloudWatch"},{"name":"Azure Blob Storage"},{"name":"Azure Data Lake Storage"},{"name":"Azure Event Hub"},{"name":"Azure Cosmos DB"},{"name":"Azure Data Explorer"},{"name":"Azure Queue Storage"},{"name":"Google Cloud Pub/Sub"},{"name":"Google BigQuery"},{"name":"Google Cloud Vision"},{"name":"Google Drive"},{"name":"Apache Kafka"},{"name":"Apache MQTT"},{"name":"Apache JMS"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Splunk"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"HubSpot"},{"name":"Shopify"},{"name":"Zendesk"},{"name":"Workday"},{"name":"Box"},{"name":"Dropbox"},{"name":"SFTP"},{"name":"FTP"},{"name":"SMB"},{"name":"HTTP"},{"name":"IMAP"},{"name":"POP3"},{"name":"SMTP"},{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"JDBC"},{"name":"Airtable"},{"name":"SNMP"},{"name":"Syslog"},{"name":"Iceberg"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Java |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Free, open-source project. Managed cloud versions available through third parties.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://airflow.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:28:12.780Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://nifi.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T23:04:43.895Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 13 | 40 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.3.1","date":"2026-08-12T09:50:17Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/java-sdk/1.0.0-beta1","date":"2026-07-13T18:14:58Z","type":"prerelease","version":"java-sdk/1.0.0-beta1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.3.0","date":"2026-07-06T15:16:00Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/helm-chart/1.22.0","date":"2026-06-13T23:37:21Z","type":"stable","version":"helm-chart/1.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/airflow-ctl/0.1.5","date":"2026-06-03T20:29:33Z","type":"stable","version":"airflow-ctl/0.1.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.2.2","date":"2026-05-29T06:27:24Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/helm-chart/1.21.0","date":"2026-04-24T20:54:43Z","type":"stable","version":"helm-chart/1.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.2.1","date":"2026-04-22T09:27:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.2.0","date":"2026-04-07T14:51:49Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/helm-chart/1.20.0","date":"2026-03-22T22:34:36Z","type":"stable","version":"helm-chart/1.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/airflow-ctl/0.1.3","date":"2026-03-19T10:35:06Z","type":"stable","version":"airflow-ctl/0.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.8","date":"2026-03-11T22:16:16Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/airflow-ctl/0.1.2","date":"2026-02-25T21:45:45Z","type":"stable","version":"airflow-ctl/0.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/helm-chart/1.19.0","date":"2026-02-17T19:54:34Z","type":"stable","version":"helm-chart/1.19.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.7","date":"2026-02-04T12:20:25Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.6","date":"2026-01-13T11:08:29Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/airflow-ctl/0.1.1","date":"2026-01-13T21:57:27Z","type":"stable","version":"airflow-ctl/0.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.5","date":"2025-12-10T09:11:07Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.3","date":"2025-11-14T14:47:34Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/airflow/releases/tag/3.1.2","date":"2025-11-05T16:03:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.2"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/nifi/releases/tag/rel/nifi-2.11.0","date":"2026-08-03T08:51:21Z","type":"stable","version":"rel/nifi-2.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/nifi/releases/tag/rel/nifi-2.10.0","date":"2026-06-23T11:05:48Z","type":"stable","version":"rel/nifi-2.10.0"}]` |
| security.scorecard | 7.3 | 7 |
| 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"}` | - |

## Capabilities (Data Engineering Tools)

| Capability | Apache Airflow | Apache NiFi |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Tool role | Orchestrator | Orchestrator |
| Processing paradigm | Batch | Batch + streaming |
| **Connectivity** |  |  |
| Connector count | 100+ | 200+ |
| 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: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:05:40.686Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*