AWS Glue Reviews

Name: AWS Glue
Brand: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Rating: 3.9 (49 reviews)

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

3.9 out of 5

49 reviews
90% willing to recommend

215 followers

Start review

What is AWS Glue?

AWS Glue is a serverless cloud data integration tool that facilitates the discovery, preparation, movement, and integration of data from multiple sources for machine learning (ML), analytics, and application development. The solution includes additional productivity and data ops tooling for running jobs, implementing business workflows, and authoring.

Get the AWS Glue Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about AWS Glue, Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC), MuleSoft Anypoint Platform and more!

AWS Glue is the #1 ranked solution in top Cloud Data Integration solutions. PeerSpot users give AWS Glue an average rating of 7.8 out of 10. AWS Glue is most commonly compared to Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC): AWS Glue vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). AWS Glue is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 70% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 21% of all views.

Helped 856,874 peers since 2012

Featured AWS Glue reviews

Saurabh Jaiswal

Python AWS & AI Expert at a tech consulting company

AWS Glue's most valuable features include its transformation capabilities, which provide data quality and shape for processing in ML or AI models. It offers transformation options on canvas or through ETL pipelines, notebooks, and code. Additionally, it supports data preparation, cleaning, and filtering seamlessly. AWS Glue also enhances job scheduling and orchestration capabilities, integrating with AWS Glue Studio for comprehensive data workflow management.

Read full review

Muthuvel Sivaraman

AVP at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We use Amazon's services to provide technical support for the product. If you want to have support, Oracle and others offer a single support, and other tools have a direct support window. For Amazon, we need to pay 10 percent of my billing amount for the tool to get support services. Whether to raise a support ticket or not is an issue since ten percent is a huge amount. My company ends up using all the options without help from support. It is very difficult for any common man to understand why there is a need to pay ten percent for support. If I find an issue in the product, and I need to get support from AWS to fix it, then I need to pay ten percent of the tool's bill amount to Amazon. AWS is a very tricky tool because everything is evolving nowadays. AWS engineers are getting hired from other places, and even after that, if I am not getting any technical support, then things will be very nasty. There are some good engineers who help users outside the normal support cycle, but it doesn't meet their needs. I rate the technical support a four out of ten.

Read full review

Rajesh Ramadoss

Technology Specialist at Cognizant

Glue is not a must-have tool. You can choose Glue if you have the capability to learn Glue as quickly as possible. There are other alternatives where you will find a lot of articles, study material, and certificates over the internet apart from Glue. If you do not have any other option, go for Glue. If Glue is not mandatory for you, go for something else because it is difficult to learn Glue and remember the syntaxes. You will need support whenever you have a bigger integration or connectivity with third-party libraries or services. You will not receive many articles or help over the internet. Although the community is available, you need to spend some time with them to make them understand the issue. It is not easy for a beginner to learn to use the solution for the first time. There are a few videos and courses available, but it's difficult. It's not as easy as other languages in terms of content. It's hard, but you can use it once you understand the concept. Overall, I rate the solution seven and a half out of ten.

Read full review

AWS Glue mindshare

As of June 2025, the mindshare of AWS Glue in the Cloud Data Integration category stands at 19.7%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Integration

PeerResearch reports based on AWS Glue reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Cloud Data Integration	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	AWS Glue vs AWS Database Migration Service	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	AWS Glue vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	AWS Glue vs MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	Jun 15, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)	4.0	5.7%	93%	185 interviews Add to research
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform	4.0	6.6%	92%	58 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

AWS Glue offers valuable features like a data catalog, ETL job orchestration, and seamless integration with AWS services. Its user-friendly interface and automated code generation excel in ease of use. Glue Studio enhances scripting flexibility, while Glue Crawler supports schema updates. Glue's serverless architecture ensures scalability and cost-effectiveness. It excels in managing data quality and transformation for AI-driven workflows, supporting dynamic scheduling, real-time backup, and managing diverse data formats efficiently. Scalability, integration, and security are highly appreciated.

"AWS Glue's most valuable features include its transformation capabilities, which provide data quality and shape for processing in ML or AI models."
"If I'm working with big data, common languages like Python work quite nicely, which is advantageous."
"For ETL, I feel the performance is excellent."

Room for Improvement

AWS Glue has prolonged start-up times, limited language support, and complex setup processes. Users find it challenging to manage database connections, and the interface is not user-friendly. Performance issues arise with large datasets, causing processing delays and cost concerns. The platform lacks sufficient documentation and connectors for non-AWS services. Technical support responsiveness needs enhancement, and the ETL process heavily depends on coding, posing barriers for those not proficient in programming languages like Python and Scala.

"In the building and deployment aspects, there is room for improvement. The current process is a bit complicated and could benefit from being more user-friendly and simpler, which would help speed up the deployment process."
"I am quite technical, yet when it comes to data pipelines, I prefer using GUIs over code-based calls. It might be easier with a different skill set."
"It is quite clunky and code-heavy, which is my biggest problem."

ROI

Many find an excellent return on investment with AWS Glue due to lower costs and increased efficiency. Some experience cost-saving benefits similar to alternatives. Efficiency and timely returns are notable advantages. A few suggest alternatives like ClickHouse when budget constraints arise. Limited pipeline scenarios justify AWS Glue over other tools, given the installation and operational overhead of other ETL options. Time-saving and efficiency gains are common themes among those expressing satisfaction.

Pricing

AWS Glue's pricing model is pay-as-you-go, encouraging flexibility based on resource usage. Users find it an average-to-high cost solution, with DPU charges and no separate licensing fees. Costs range from €700 to €150,000 annually, depending on scale and usage frequency. The technical support cost varies between $15,000 and $25,000 per year. While some consider it affordable due to its serverless architecture, others highlight the potential high expense for intensive or enterprise use.

"I rate the tool an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is expensive."
"AWS Glue is a paid service that doesn't come under the free trial of AWS."
"If you are using the solution for an enterprise business, it will be expensive."

Popular Use Cases

Organizations primarily use AWS Glue for ETL processes, where data is extracted, transformed, and loaded into various systems like Redshift or S3. They handle data ingestion from multiple sources, perform batch processing, migrate on-prem workloads to the cloud, and support data engineering tasks. AWS Glue is also used for building data lakes, data warehousing, metadata catalogs, and transforming unstructured data for analytics, providing seamless integration with AWS services.

Service and Support

AWS Glue's customer service and support are praised for being responsive and effective, often involving senior teams to ensure efficient resolution. Users mention that support can vary based on subscription level, with some noting delays but appreciating the high-quality assistance offered. Some rely on AWS communities for quick help. Despite some challenges, support is seen as reliable, with strong communication and problem-solving capabilities. Overall, AWS Glue support earns positive feedback.

Deployment

AWS Glue's initial setup is mostly straightforward and simple for many users, benefiting from extensive documentation, though some find it complex requiring knowledge or training. The process varies widely, taking from minutes to weeks, involving teams for larger deployments. Users appreciate its serverless nature and fast deployment but note challenges with advanced configuration and specific functionalities, highlighting the need for expertise, especially when handling more intricate use cases.

Scalability

AWS Glue demonstrates impressive scalability, offering the flexibility to adjust data processing units effortlessly. Widely regarded for its capacity to accommodate increasing workloads, Glue's serverless architecture allows automatic scaling. Its scalability is praised by numerous users, often rated eight or nine out of ten, highlighting its adaptability for larger datasets and capabilities in handling data loads efficiently. Glow's scaling ease is facilitated without infrastructure management, making it suitable for various enterprise needs.

Stability

AWS Glue is generally stable with high reliability and few issues. Many users rate its stability between eight and ten out of ten, noting excellent integration with other AWS services. While some mention minor performance issues under heavy workloads, most find it performs well without crashes. Its serverless architecture and AWS management contribute positively, though improvements in parallel computation scaling are suggested. Network-related issues are rare, keeping AWS Glue's stability strong and trusted.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our AWS Glue Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Insurance Company

Retailer

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

University

Energy/Utilities Company

Media Company

Comms Service Provider

Non Profit

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Transportation Company

Legal Firm

Hospitality Company

Performing Arts

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Consumer Goods Company

Pharma/Biotech Company

Logistics Company

Engineering Company

Compare AWS Glue with alternative products

Learn more about AWS Glue

AWS Glue allows users to connect to more than 70 diverse data sources and manage data in a centralized data catalog. The solution facilitates visual creation, running, and monitoring of extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines to load data into users' data lakes. This Amazon product seamlessly integrates with other native applications of the brand and allows users to search and query cataloged data using Amazon EMR, Amazon Athena, and Amazon Redshift Spectrum.

The solution also utilizes application programming interface (API) operations to transform users' data, create runtime logs, store job logic, and create notifications for monitoring job runs. The console of AWS Glue connects all of these services into a managed application, facilitating the monitoring and operational processes. The solution also performs provisioning and management of the resources required to run users' workloads in order to minimize manual work time for organizations.

AWS Glue Features

AWS Glue groups its features into four categories - discover, prepare, integrate, and transform. Within those groups are the following features:

Automatic schema discovery: AWS Glue crawlers connect to the organization's source or target data source through a prioritized list of classifiers to determine the schema for users' data. This feature creates metadata in companies' AWS Glue Data Catalog.
Schemas for data stream management: The AWS Glue Schema Registry enables users to validate and control the evolution of streaming data through registered Apache Avro schemas for no additional charge.
Automatic scaling based on workload: This feature dynamically scales resources up and down based on workload. The feature controls job resources, removing them depending on how much the workload can be split up.
FindMatches: This feature is for machine learning-based data deduplication and cleansing, and works by finding records that are imperfect matches of each other to remove useless data copies.
Edit, debug, and test ETL code: This feature helps users who have chosen to interactively develop their ETL code by providing development endpoints for editing, debugging, and testing the code it generates for them.
AWS Glue DataBrew: An interactive, point-and-click visual interface for specialists to clean and normalize data without the need to write any code.
AWS Glue Interactive Sessions: This feature simplifies the development of data integration jobs by enabling data engineers to interactively prepare and explore data.
AWS Glue Studio Job Notebooks: This AWS Glue feature provides serverless notebooks with minimal setup, allowing developers to start working in a timely manner.
Complex ETL pipeline building: This feature allows the product to be invoked on a schedule, on demand, or based on an event, allowing users to start multiple jobs in parallel or specify dependencies to build complex ETL pipelines.
AWS Glue Studio: This AWS Glue feature allows users to visually transform data through a drag-and-drop interface. The product automatically generates the code for ETL processes for users' data.

AWS Glue Benefits

AWS Glue offers a wide range of benefits for its users. These benefits include:

Users of other AWS products can easily onboard with AWS Glue, as it is integrated across a wide range of the company's services.
The solution is serverless, which allows for a lower total cost of ownership.
AWS Glue offers more power for users, as it automates much of the effort in building, maintaining, and running ETL jobs.
The product allows customers to easily discover and search across all their AWS datasets through AWS Glue Data Catalog.
AWS Glue does not require additional payment for managing and enforcing schemas for data streams.
The solution facilitates the authority of scalable ETL jobs for beginners and non-coding experts through a drag-and-drop interface.

Reviews from Real Users

Mustapha A., a cloud data engineer at Jems Groupe, likes AWS Glue because it is a product that is great for serverless data transformations.

Liana I., CEO at Quark Technologies SRL, describes AWS Glue as a highly scalable, reliable, and beneficial pay-as-you-go pricing model.