# Apache Airflow vs dlt

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Apache Airflow

| Attribute | Apache Airflow | dlt |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 73 (66% (medium)) | 66.1 (49% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 52 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 189 | 23 |
| adoption.github_stars | 46,610 | 5,779 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 3,883,451 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":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. | A hosted service combining the open-source dlt Python library with managed infrastructure, observability, data quality testing, and team collaboration features for building and running data pipelines. |
| 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":"elt","lineage":true,"paradigm":"both","data_quality":true,"elt_pushdown":true,"python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"5,000+","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true}` |
| integrations.count | 100 | 28 |
| 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":"Salesforce"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"HubSpot"},{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"Databricks"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"MotherDuck"},{"name":"DuckDB"},{"name":"SQLite"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Google Cloud Storage"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure"},{"name":"SFTP"},{"name":"Parquet"},{"name":"Apache Delta"},{"name":"Apache Iceberg"},{"name":"DuckLake"},{"name":"Pydantic Logfire"},{"name":"Arize"},{"name":"Langfuse"},{"name":"LangChain"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Apache Airflow"},{"name":"Dagster"},{"name":"AWS Lambda"},{"name":"Marimo"},{"name":"Hugging Face"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Python |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"DE","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":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":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"dlt","summary":"Free, Apache 2.0 licensed","features":["Apache 2.0 open-source license","Code-first ingestion library","Reliable ingestion and loading","Limited verified OSS connectors","AI help and community support","Self-managed runtime","Unlimited pipelines and notebooks"],"description":"Open-source Python library for data ingestion","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"dltHub","summary":"$1,190/month base + $0.80–$1.00/credit for usage beyond 500 credits/month. 5% discount on annual commitment.","features":["Everything in dlt, plus:","Managed runtime","Hosted Marimo notebooks","AI Workbench (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor)","Data quality metrics and checks","Observability dashboard","Collaboration workflows for teams","Role-based access control (RBAC)","Audit logs","Source-available capabilities (AI workbench, CDC, Iceberg, transformations)","Eligible for volume discounts"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":1190,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"credit"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.8,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Managed runtime and collaboration platform","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"credits":"500/month"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing. Contact sales.","features":["Custom credits and volume pricing","Enterprise security and governance controls","Role-based access control (RBAC) and audit logs","SLA and tailored support options","Custom onboarding and architecture guidance"],"description":"Custom pricing and governance for security-focused organizations","contactSales":true}],"summary":"From $1,190/month with 500 included credits. Free open-source tier. 14-day free trial with $30 credits.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://dlthub.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T22:25:32.490Z","freeTrialDays":14,"startingPrice":{"amount":0.8,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 13 | 12 |
| 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/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.30.0","date":"2026-08-11T13:23:00Z","type":"stable","version":"1.30.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.29.1","date":"2026-07-24T11:32:31Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.29.0","date":"2026-07-13T09:31:54Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.28.2","date":"2026-07-10T12:29:18Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.28.1","date":"2026-06-19T19:48:03Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.28.0","date":"2026-06-15T16:14:02Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.27.2","date":"2026-05-29T17:13:29Z","type":"stable","version":"1.27.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.27.0","date":"2026-05-19T12:55:55Z","type":"stable","version":"1.27.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.26.0","date":"2026-04-28T18:49:52Z","type":"stable","version":"1.26.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.25.0","date":"2026-04-15T07:41:56Z","type":"stable","version":"1.25.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.24.0","date":"2026-03-19T11:59:54Z","type":"stable","version":"1.24.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.23.0","date":"2026-03-06T14:47:17Z","type":"stable","version":"1.23.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.22.2","date":"2026-03-01T18:44:08Z","type":"stable","version":"1.22.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.22.1","date":"2026-02-23T20:59:59Z","type":"stable","version":"1.22.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.22.0","date":"2026-02-17T16:55:47Z","type":"stable","version":"1.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.21.0","date":"2026-01-20T12:11:39Z","type":"stable","version":"1.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.20.0","date":"2025-12-09T23:13:14Z","type":"stable","version":"1.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.19.1","date":"2025-12-02T22:02:07Z","type":"stable","version":"1.19.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.19.0","date":"2025-12-01T15:52:25Z","type":"stable","version":"1.19.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/dlt-hub/dlt/releases/tag/1.18.2","date":"2025-11-03T16:04:35Z","type":"stable","version":"1.18.2"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.3 | - |
| 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=pypi&package_name=dlt&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Data Engineering Tools)

| Capability | Apache Airflow | dlt |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Tool role | Orchestrator | ELT / ingestion |
| Processing paradigm | Batch | Batch + streaming |
| **Connectivity** |  |  |
| Connector count | 100+ | 5,000+ |
| 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 2026-09-01T16:35:11.364Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*