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Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow vs Astro by Astronomer comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

JAMS Scheduler
Sponsored
Ranking in Workload Automation
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon Managed Workflows fo...
Ranking in Workload Automation
21st
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Astro by Astronomer
Ranking in Workload Automation
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS Scheduler is 3.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Astro by Astronomer is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
JAMS Scheduler3.4%
Astro by Astronomer1.3%
Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow1.8%
Other93.5%
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

LV
Principal Data Base And Infrastructure Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Automation has replaced nightly monitoring and delivers reliable, unified job scheduling
We have really enjoyed working with JAMS in terms of notifications, alerts, and streamlining. There used to be a process with Automate, which is another product from Fortra, but even before that, the other division of the company that we were merging with had a tool that was built in-house called a file handler or file distributor. It was an in-house developed tool, but it was not as streamlined or as efficient as JAMS is. We literally had to have a dedicated nighttime person monitoring. Although we are 24/7, the divisions of the company that we were using JAMS for have been small scale. While we have automated it, we have streamlined it in such a way that notifications go out and alerts go out, but if there is anything, then we get paged and alerted, and if anything needs to happen at midnight, we can wake up. On the other hand, with the tool I mentioned, the file handler and distributor, we used to have a dedicated nighttime person that had to be sitting and monitoring it to see when a file arrived, whether it met the conditions, and then execute the next particular job. By using JAMS, we have gained a lot more efficiencies in terms of all of those to streamline it, and there is no necessary need for having an overnight engineer just keeping an eye on all of this.
IP
Business and Technology Strategy Lead at Cognix Inc
Operational workflows improve as we address needs but technical support costs affect resources
Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is easy to use and offers great scalability. The more we include and extend our capabilities, we can easily scale up according to our needs. When we compare it to other tools in the market, such as Control-M and other technologies, Airflow offers a lot of flexibility. Using this tool minimizes costs and maximizes efficiency.
FS
Data Platform Engineer at Babbel
Unified orchestration has reduced costs and improves governance for complex data workflows
I would say it would be much more helpful if Astro by Astronomer can provide an MCP to use and integrate with Astro by Astronomer and their AI agent Auto, so that we can use our tools like Claude, Code, or Cursor to have a central location where we integrate that MCP in Databricks via the AI gateway, and then we can have a place where we can connect to Astro by Astronomer, Databricks, other tools such as Jira and DataDog, and then have a much more comprehensive analysis and overview and monitoring of the entire data ecosystem. Having an MCP integration would tremendously help us to have a more comprehensive data platform that is more AI-ready. That is one of the features that I can think of. Another thought would be having an integration with Kubernetes instead of just scheduling everything on Astro by Astronomer workers. That would be helpful. One thing I can think of is that the Astro by Astronomer local developer environment can be improved further, but perhaps that is a very niche use case that I have in mind, and it may not be useful for others. There is room for improvement around having an improved UI and also integration with other tools. On governance, I would say we can have a more granular level of governance even inside workspaces. Having much more granular control over people belonging to the same team in Astro by Astronomer could have different access to different DAGs, depending upon our tagging strategy. That is one of the areas I can suggest in terms of improvement. The AI capabilities can be improved further. I would compare the current AI capabilities to newer models provided by Claude such as Opus or Codex.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The dashboard is intuitive."
"The feature or capability to import a job is most valuable. We can import an existing job from different platforms, and all the configurations get migrated as well without modifying the code, job schedule, etc."
"This feature helps my team day-to-day by running hundreds and hundreds of jobs on JAMS in a timely fashion, which is extremely important and sensitive, providing a lot of reporting to the entire firm and beyond."
"It makes everything that we want to do so much easier. We have had a number of instances in the past where we have had developers who have been working on a project, and even though we have had JAMS for all these years, they will create some SQL Server Agent job, or something like that, to run a task. When it is in code review and development is complete, the question always comes around, "Can JAMS do this?" The answer has always been, "Yes." Pretty much anything we have ever developed could be run by JAMS."
"Fortra's JAMS helped us centralize job management across our platforms and applications. This is critical because we schedule tasks across multiple applications and operating systems, using triggers and start dates to coordinate their execution."
"JAMS has been a beneficial monitoring tool for our project in terms of being able to deliver data that is essential for users."
"The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."
"While I appreciate the other features, the agent stands out for its ease of installation and configuration for JAMS monitoring."
"One of the product's main strengths is that it is well-suited for a DevOps pattern, allowing us to automate our CI/CD pipeline."
"Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is easy to use and offers great scalability; the more we include and extend our capabilities, we can easily scale up according to our needs."
"Astro by Astronomer has positively impacted my organization by making work easier; tasks are getting completed in much less time than before."
"Astro by Astronomer has positively impacted our organization by reducing our toil and reducing the time by around twenty-five percent of what we had; before moving to Astro by Astronomer, we had to manage Airflow and manage the Kubernetes cluster as well when we were running the Kubernetes cluster locally, which saved almost one working person per month in total."
"Astro by Astronomer has many integrations out of the box, making it easy to use and to access documentation."
"Astro by Astronomer has had a positive impact on my organization mainly in terms of time savings and error reduction, since I seek to standardize all the processes within my framework."
"I think the possibility to save time developing DAG in a smarter way with Astro by Astronomer is a significant benefit because, as I mentioned before, it suggests the best operator for your use case."
"Astro by Astronomer has impacted my organization positively because all the automation that was done manually before is now automated and gives us more time to analyze and concentrate on important business matters."
"The best features Astro by Astronomer offers, in my opinion, are easy setup and good tutorials."
"I think that Astro by Astronomer is a good example of how data orchestration is important to the company when we think about big data and ingestion from many external companies or external institutions that bring to us data that is important to provide final products that can provide to the company the best decision-making in the future for the company regarding revenue, costs, and guidelines for the company that want to grow at a very fast pace."
 

Cons

"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."
"JAMS notifications for hung jobs could be improved."
"The documentation is not super... It's not as quick and slick as I'd like it to be."
"The JAMS automation code isn't so clean."
"For the most part, JAMS is very stable. Occasionally, if you leave multiple windows open over a period of time, it is necessary to end that task and restart."
"I would like to see the ability to interface with Microsoft group-managed service accounts, but they're still in the research phase. They need to ensure everything's legit and safe. The report designer and dashboards could also be improved. We're running 7.3, so I don't know if they have updated the reporting in 7.5, but I think the reports and dashboards could be better."
"All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing."
"JAMS doesn't allow us to implement SOC controls. We are a company that trades stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so all our transactions are audited. It has a feature that saves the file for only a month but doesn't segregate the data between finance and SOC-related compliance."
"The documentation provided is good."
"To be very honest, technical support from AWS is extremely expensive."
"There are some downsides to the event-driven scheduling features since it is new."
"There is room for improvement around having an improved UI and also integration with other tools."
"After using Astro by Astronomer for four years, I can say it has evolved significantly, which is positive; however, improving the debugging experience for complex workflows remains a pain point."
"I believe my experience with pricing, setup, cost, and licensing could be better."
"Overall, my experience with Astro by Astronomer was very positive, but there are a few areas where it could improve."
"I think Astro by Astronomer can be improved for newcomers, especially regarding the installation, making it more friendly for Windows users, as we use WSL update."
"I think there is an aspect of the tool that has caused me some difficulty, which is the scheduler, and I think it could be more intuitive or efficient."
"Also, if we wanted to import data from outside, the price that they shared with us was higher than the actual tool that we are using right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."
"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."
"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."
"It's expensive, to be honest, but it does the job."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."
"This is a good product at a fair price."
"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."
"It is not an inexpensive solution but it is less expensive than other options."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Educational Organization
13%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise23
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?
I was not really involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing at that level. I am more involved in the technica...
What needs improvement with JAMS?
In terms of improvements, I believe JAMS can enhance its user interface for better user experiences. I would like to ...
What is your primary use case for JAMS?
My primary use case for JAMS is enterprise workload automation and batch job orchestration. I use it to schedule and ...
What needs improvement with Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
Customization in general depends on the use cases that we are trying to address, but I don't have a specific thing ri...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
Custom Generalizations do not directly correlate with specific sections conventional to reviews. Less clarity on dire...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow?
Our use case for Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow is more focused on operational workflow. We created an o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Astro by Astronomer?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been very good.
What needs improvement with Astro by Astronomer?
Astro by Astronomer can be improved; they are doing a lot of progress on observability. How to see how all the pipeli...
What is your primary use case for Astro by Astronomer?
My main use case for Astro by Astronomer is to manage our data pipelines, to run DBT processes, and to run all data f...
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital
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Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow vs. Astro by Astronomer and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.