Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS Lambda vs Apache NiFi comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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

Apache NiFi
Ranking in Compute Service
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Apache NiFi is 8.5%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 21.2%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Bharghava Raghavendra Beesa - PeerSpot reviewer
The tool enables effective data transformation and integration
There are some areas for improvement, particularly with record-level tasks that take a bit of time. The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process. Enhancing features related to alerting would be helpful, including mobile alerts for pipeline issues. Integration with mobile devices for error alerts would simplify information delivery.
Andrew-Wong - PeerSpot reviewer
Convenience in deployment process with room for code preview improvement
Having a better preview would be helpful. Sometimes, if my Lambda code is too big, it can be inconvenient as I'm unable to see my code when it exceeds a certain size. AWS has a limit, like a three-megabyte limit, beyond which I cannot view or edit the code easily.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apache NiFi is user-friendly. Its most valuable features for handling large volumes of data include its multitude of integrated endpoints and clients and the ability to create cron jobs to run tasks at regular intervals."
"It's an automated flow, where you can build a flow from source to destination, then do the transformation in between."
"It is highly effective for handling real-time data by working with APIs for immediate and continuous data extraction."
"We can integrate the tool with other applications easily."
"The user interface is good and makes it easy to design very popular workflows."
"Visually, this is a good product."
"The initial setup is very easy. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, where one point is difficult, and ten points are easy."
"The most valuable features of this solution are ease of use and implementation."
"We moved our users into the Amazon Cognito pool, so it helps us to standardize our security practices, approaches, etc. We can customize Lambda for authentication to integrate it with API Gateway and other services."
"Technical support has been great in general."
"The programming language and the integration with other AWS services are the most valuable features."
"Because AWS Lambda is serverless, server configuration is not required, and we can run it directly anywhere."
"The most valuable feature is that it scans the cloud system and if they are any security anomalies it triggers an email."
"Provides a good, easy path from when you're using an AWS cluster."
"The support from AWS Lambda is very good, they are responsive."
"AWS Lambda's most valuable feature is serverless architecture."
 

Cons

"The tool should incorporate more tutorials for advanced use cases. It has tutorials for simple use cases."
"There is room for improvement in integration with SSO. For example, NiFi does not have any integration with SSO. And if I want to give some kind of rollback access control across the organization. That is not possible."
"We run many jobs, and there are already large tables. When we do not control NiFi on time, all reports fail for the day. So it's pretty slow to control, and it has to be improved."
"I think the UI interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"The overall stability of this solution could be improved. In a future release, we would like to have access to more features that could be used in a parallel way. This would provide more freedom with processing."
"The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process."
"There should be a better way to integrate a development environment with local tools."
"The use case templates could be more precise to typical business needs."
"The security needs to be improved."
"AWS Lambda could be improved with better stability."
"Lambda would benefit from a debugging feature as well."
"Having a better preview would be helpful."
"The feature to attach external storage, such as an S3 or elastic storage, must be added to AWS Lambda. This is its area for improvement."
"The running time of AWS Lambda runs fine. It takes around five minutes but it would be great if that time could be extended."
"My engineers work with it on a daily basis. I just don't have enough depth of knowledge about what kinds of edge cases they may have tried and found lacking. There may be some issues with some language support at one point or another because we couldn't get the underlying libraries in there. A lot of what we do is either in JavaScript, Python, or some of the non-compiled languages. I'm not sure if we've ever tried building a C# solution, for instance, in Lambda or a Java solution in Lambda. It doesn't mean those aren't its capabilities. I would rather refer to my engineers for where the boundaries are."
"Its performance can be improved. There should also be more dynamic security permissions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open-source."
"We use the free version of Apache NiFi."
"It's an open-source solution."
"I used the tool's free version."
"The solution is part of the AWS subscription model that is paid annually."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and it is a pay-per-use model. It is very good for cost optimization."
"For licensing, we pay a yearly subscription."
"AWS Lambda is not expensive for micro testing but is expensive if used for long deployment or long services."
"The solution is free of cost for the first year, and after that, it becomes expensive."
"Lambda is a good and cheap solution and I would recommend it to those without a huge payload."
"We only need to pay for the compute time our code consumes."
"The cost is based on runtime."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Compute Service solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
7%
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache NiFi?
Apache NiFi is open-source and free. Its integration with systems like Cloudera can be expensive, but Apache NiFi itself presents the best pricing as a standalone tool.
What needs improvement with Apache NiFi?
The logging system of Apache NiFi needs improvement. It is difficult to debug compared to Airflow ( /products/apache-airflow-reviews ), where task details and issues are clear. With Apache NiFi, I ...
Which is better, AWS Lambda or Batch?
AWS Lambda is a serverless solution. It doesn’t require any infrastructure, which allows for cost savings. There is no setup process to deal with, as the entire solution is in the cloud. If you use...
What do you like most about AWS Lambda?
The tool scales automatically based on the number of incoming requests.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lambda?
The pricing of AWS Lambda is reasonable. It's beneficial and cost-effective for users regardless of the number of instances used.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Macquarie Telecom Group, Dovestech, Slovak Telekom, Looker, Hastings Group
Netflix
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lambda vs. Apache NiFi and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.