# Apache NiFi vs Kestra

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Apache NiFi

| Attribute | Apache NiFi | Kestra |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 67.8 (39% (low)) | 61.2 (55% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 93 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 6,208 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"air_gapped":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | An open-source platform designed for orchestrating complex, long-running workflows across data pipelines, AI systems, and infrastructure operations. Supports multiple languages and deployment models (cloud, self-hosted, air-gapped), with built-in reliability features like retries, backfills, and comprehensive observability. |
| features.capabilities | `{"cdc":true,"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"both","data_quality":true,"elt_pushdown":false,"connector_count":"200+","self_hosted_oss":true}` | `{"cdc":false,"role":"orchestrator","lineage":true,"paradigm":"both","iso_27001":false,"dbt_native":true,"data_quality":true,"elt_pushdown":true,"python_first":true,"soc2_type_ii":false,"managed_cloud":true,"connector_count":"1900+","self_hosted_oss":true,"incremental_runs":true,"distributed_executor":true,"builder_ui_architecture":"visual_node_canvas","custom_http_webhook_catch_and_triggering":true,"native_llm_nodes_anthropic_openai_gemini":true,"on_premise_self_hosted_deployment_option":true,"bring_your_own_key_byok_for_llm_inference":true,"web_scraping_and_browser_automation_nodes":false,"sub_workflow_calling_and_reusable_templates":false,"human_in_the_loop_approval_steps_via_slack_email":true,"dynamic_conditional_routing_via_llm_classification":true,"unstructured_document_extraction_pdf_image_to_json":true}` |
| integrations.count | 200 | 1,900 |
| integrations.list | `[{"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"}]` | `[{"name":"Ansible"},{"name":"dbt"},{"name":"Spark"},{"name":"Airbyte"},{"name":"Dremio"},{"name":"Arrow Flight SQL"},{"name":"Git"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"GitHub Actions"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Terraform"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"Azure Data Lake Storage"},{"name":"Postgres"},{"name":"JDBC databases"},{"name":"HTTP APIs"},{"name":"Polars"},{"name":"Python"},{"name":"Bash"},{"name":"Node.js"},{"name":"Go"},{"name":"Apache Kafka"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Google Gemini"},{"name":"Perplexity"},{"name":"Google Analytics"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Facebook Ads"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"Yahoo Finance"},{"name":"AWS Secrets Manager"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Google BigQuery"},{"name":"R"},{"name":"Java"},{"name":"Julia"},{"name":"Ruby"},{"name":"Shell"}]` |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://nifi.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T23:04:43.895Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","summary":"Free, open-source","features":["Workflow design & execution","Scheduling & event triggers","Real-time processing","Embedded code editor","Git integration & versioning","Multi-cloud & air-gapped deployment"],"description":"Self-hosted open-source version with core orchestration features","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Kestra Cloud","summary":"Managed cloud orchestration","features":["Fully managed hosting","Built-in security and governance","Role-based access control","Audit logs","Asset lineage","Secrets management","Production-ready observability"],"description":"Fully managed cloud platform","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Enterprise self-hosted with dedicated support","features":["Annual subscription model","Customer success program with SLA","24-hour response time","Audit logs and governance","Multi-tenancy support","Advanced RBAC and secrets management","Dedicated support channel"],"commitment":"annual","description":"Self-hosted enterprise edition with advanced support","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open-source tier; managed and self-hosted enterprise options available","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://kestra.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T12:42:20.781Z","billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| release.cadence_days | 40 | - |
| release.history | `[{"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.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |

## Capabilities (Data Engineering Tools)

| Capability | Apache NiFi | Kestra |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Tool role | Orchestrator | Orchestrator |
| Processing paradigm | Batch + streaming | Batch + streaming |
| **Connectivity** |  |  |
| Connector count | 200+ | 1900+ |
| 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 2026-09-01T16:17:18.277Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*