# Apache Airflow vs Prefect

| Attribute | Apache Airflow | Prefect |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 73 (66% (medium)) | 69.8 (76% (high)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 189 | 767 |
| adoption.github_stars | 46,610 | 23,691 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 3,883,451 | 2,710,819 |
| 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 workflow orchestration platform that enables teams to build resilient automated processes using Python, with features like automatic retries, state tracking, and run observability. Supports flexible deployment options ranging from managed cloud infrastructure to self-hosted environments on Kubernetes or user-provided compute. |
| 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}` | `{"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"batch","dbt_native":true,"python_first":true,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"Not specified","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true,"distributed_executor":true}` |
| integrations.count | 100 | 5 |
| 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":"Pydantic AI"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"AWS Secrets Manager"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"dbt"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Python |
| 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}` |
| 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":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Hobby","summary":"Free forever","features":["workflow scheduling","workflow observability","logging & alerting"],"minSeats":2,"description":"Starter tier for individual workflows","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"2","deployments":"5","run_retention":"7 days","serverless_compute":"500 min/mo"}},{"free":false,"name":"Starter","summary":"$100/mo","features":["bring your own compute","webhooks","API access"],"minSeats":3,"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For teams bringing their own compute infrastructure","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"3","deployments":"20","serverless_compute":"75 hours/mo","api_requests_per_min":"1250"}},{"free":false,"name":"Team","summary":"$100/user/mo","features":["service accounts","audit logging","team collaboration"],"minSeats":4,"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"seat","amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Multi-user collaboration with governance features","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"users":"4-8","deployments":"100","serverless_compute":"225 hours/mo","audit_log_retention_hours":"24"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["SSO (SAML/OIDC)","RBAC with object-level ACLs","multiple workspaces","directory sync (SCIM)","IP allowlisting","PrivateLink private networking"],"minSeats":5,"description":"Custom deployment with advanced security and compliance","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"deployments":"unlimited","serverless_compute":"custom"}}],"summary":"Free tier. Starter from $100/mo. Team at $100/user/mo. Enterprise custom pricing.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.prefect.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:26:09.793Z","startingPrice":{"amount":100,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | high |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 13 | 1 |
| 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/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4","date":"2026-08-25T17:15:13Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev7","date":"2026-08-25T08:17:08Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev7"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev6","date":"2026-08-22T08:08:27Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev6"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev5","date":"2026-08-21T08:15:17Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev5"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev4","date":"2026-08-20T08:14:17Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev4"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev3","date":"2026-08-19T08:12:16Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev2","date":"2026-08-18T08:12:04Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.4.dev1","date":"2026-08-14T08:31:14Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.4.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.3","date":"2026-08-13T18:53:23Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.3.dev3","date":"2026-08-13T08:33:56Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.3.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.3.dev2","date":"2026-08-12T08:32:30Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.3.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.3.dev1","date":"2026-08-11T08:23:35Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.3.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2","date":"2026-08-07T21:15:48Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev6","date":"2026-08-07T08:27:11Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev6"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev5","date":"2026-08-06T08:59:18Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev5"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev4","date":"2026-08-05T08:58:55Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev4"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev3","date":"2026-08-04T09:00:27Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev3"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev2","date":"2026-08-03T09:13:20Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev2"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.2.dev1","date":"2026-08-01T08:49:58Z","type":"prerelease","version":"3.8.2.dev1"},{"url":"https://github.com/PrefectHQ/prefect/releases/tag/3.8.1","date":"2026-07-30T21:15:25Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.1"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.3 | 6.9 |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| 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":8,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=prefect&per_page=100","last_12m":6,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` |

## Capabilities (Data Engineering Tools)

| Capability | Apache Airflow | Prefect |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Tool role | Orchestrator | Orchestrator |
| Processing paradigm | Batch | Batch |
| **Connectivity** |  |  |
| Connector count | 100+ | Not specified |
| 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 2026-09-01T14:39:57.148Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*