AWS Database Migration Service vs AWS Glue comparison

AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Glue are both solutions in the Cloud Data Integration category. AWS Database Migration Service is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while AWS Glue is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.6. AWS Database Migration Service holds a 15.5% mindshare in CDI, compared to AWS Glue’s 18.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of AWS Database Migration Service users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of AWS Glue users who would recommend it.

AWS Database Migration Service

Read 32 AWS Database Migration Service reviews

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2,728 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

AWS Glue

Read 49 AWS Glue reviews

5,643 Views
2,804 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

AWS Database Migration Service

AWS Glue

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Glue operate in the field of data management and transformation within the AWS ecosystem. AWS Glue holds an advantage with its comprehensive integration and ETL features, making it suitable for complex workflows, despite AWS Database Migration Service's appealing simplicity and cost.

Features: AWS Database Migration Service provides essential database migration capabilities, such as minimal downtime, automatic failovers, and reliable service stability. AWS Glue offers advanced ETL capabilities, extensive integration with AWS services, and a robust data cataloging system, positioning it for complex data workflows.

Room for Improvement: AWS Database Migration Service could benefit from enhanced flexibility for custom migration requirements and expanded support for additional database systems. AWS Glue would improve from simplifying its initial setup process and offering cost-effective solutions for smaller-scale operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Database Migration Service is praised for its straightforward deployment and configuration, simplifying database transitions. AWS Glue offers extensive automation but has a steeper learning curve. Both services provide strong customer support, but the simplicity of AWS Database Migration Service makes it more user-friendly initially.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Database Migration Service is typically more cost-effective for straightforward database migrations due to its pay-as-you-go pricing model. AWS Glue may involve higher costs due to its extensive features but offers significant ROI for data transformation and preparation needs. Pricing varies based on specific usage scenarios, making the choice largely dependent on the complexity and scale of the workload involved.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Database Migration Service vs. AWS Glue Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Database Migration Service vs. AWS Glue

June 2025

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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

AWS Database Migration Service

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

AWS Glue

Ranking in Cloud Data Integration

1st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of AWS Database Migration Service is 15.5%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Glue is 18.6%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Avinash Gangu

Lead Architect at Fracral

Centralizing database tables enhances workflow efficiency for ease of use

I was looking for some content as part of a comparison analysis. However, one of the pain points is that it is way too free-flowing. I have to skim through all the security pages to get to the crux of it. I was looking for a table that suggests which facets such services address with proofs of reference from professional conferences. The document is a 63-page read, making it very difficult to navigate without a summary. I was looking for a summary at the start, however, if I have to do it myself, I might as well integrate from AWS Docs and then Informative Exchange. The current document contains a lot of information, which is great, but there needs to be a summary indicating the story's essence. Unless there's a correction, it is not present in the document.

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Saurabh Jaiswal

Python AWS & AI Expert at a tech consulting company

Enables seamless integration and data preparation with robust transformation capabilities

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS Database Migration Service is affordable and cheaper."

"The product is cheaper than all platforms"

"The initial setup is very straightforward."

"Support is helpful."

"It's scalable."

"The initial setup is simple. Not that much complex."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Database Migration Service is it catches all the history changes, such as inset, observe, and delete. It tracks everything."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to get all the changes in our data and store that in an S3 bucket."

More AWS Database Migration Service pros

"One aspect that I would like to highlight is the Glue Crawler, which we utilize when working with large datasets to ensure the schema updates seamlessly without requiring end-team knowledge."

"I like that it's flexible, powerful, and allows you to write your own queries and scripts to get the needed transformations."

"The best thing about AWS Glue is its scalability and how easy it is to process a large amount of data."

"The most valuable features currently are glue studio, jobs, and triggers."

"AWS Glue is very quick to start without cold starts, unlike AWS Lambda."

"For ETL, I feel the performance is excellent."

"I like its integration and ability to handle all data-related tasks."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Glue is its ease of use and good documentation. Additionally, we can do all the transformations that we need."

More AWS Glue pros

Cons

"More endpoints need to be supported by AWS Database Migration Service. There's also a need for more control and transparency on the product, including better technical support."

"The product's performance could be a little bit better."

"The live duplication has a delay of two minutes, which can be an issue."

"Whatever solution worked today can not be reused in the next migration."

"What needs improvement in AWS Database Migration Service is that it lacks a log file validation feature. If the solution could provide more details about a particular transaction, that would be helpful. The stability of AWS Database Migration Service for online CDC records also needs to be improved."

"If they had some sort of functionality where, at a specific point in time, if I want to start a new job, it should automatically pick up from where it has been left rather than having people worry about the exact job number and the timing."

"There is no connectivity to the source database or the target database."

"There could be enhancements in the product intelligently covering more scenarios to prevent crashes or failures."

More AWS Database Migration Service cons

"Improvements in the UI are needed, as it is challenging to understand some functionalities."

"The drawbacks associated with the product stem from the fact that, based on the data volume, it can become very costly."

"Setting up pipelines is challenging, especially with version control and testing requirements."

"The mapping area and the use of the data catalog from Glue could be better."

"The product is expensive for data streaming. This area needs improvement."

"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."

"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The interesting thing we found is that it was a little strange at the beginning. The way Glue works is not very straightforward. After trying different things, for example, we used just the console to create jobs. Then we realized that things were not working as expected. After researching and learning more, we realized that even though the console creates the script for the ETL processes, you need to modify or write your own script in Spark to do everything you want it to do. For example, we are pulling data from our source database and our application database, which is in Aurora. From there, we are doing the ETL to transform the data and write the results into Redshift. But what was surprising is that it's almost like whatever you want to do, you can do it with Glue because you have the option to put together your own script. Even though there are many functionalities and many connections, you have the opportunity to write your own queries to do whatever transformations you need to do. It's a little deceiving that some options are supposed to work in a certain way when you set them up in the console, but then they are not exactly working the right way or not as expected. It would be better if they provided more examples and more documentation on options."

"I would like to see stable libraries at the moment they are not there."

More AWS Glue cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost is the only factor that is challenging."

"The pricing is per hour, though I do not have the exact figures. If you have specific questions about the service, a personal support team from Amazon is available, but this will bring in additional costs."

"AWS Database Migration Service is the least expensive solution, but is still expensive."

"Pricing for the solution is reasonable, but could still be reduced."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"For Egypt, the product's prices are high, making it a specific problem in one region and not globally."

"Pricing can be improved."

"In terms of pricing, I'd rate it an eight out of ten, considering it's a well-priced solution."

More AWS Database Migration Service pricing and cost advice

"Its price is good. We pay as we go or based on the usage, which is a good thing for us because it is simple to forecast for the tool. It is good in terms of the financial planning of the company, and it is a good way to estimate the cost. It is also simple for our clients. In my opinion, it is one of the best tools in the market for ETL processes because of the fact that you pay as you use, which separates it from other big tools such as PowerCenter, Pentaho Data Integration, and Talend."

"AWS Glue is a high-priced solution that bills the client $150,000 to $250,000 annually."

"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten."

"If you are using the solution for an enterprise business, it will be expensive."

"It is not expensive. AWS Glue works on the serverless architecture. We get charged for the time the server is up. For our use case, we have to use it once in a day, and it is not expensive for us."

"AWS Glue is quite costly, especially for small organizations."

"The solution's pricing is based on DPUs so it is a good idea to optimize use or it can get expensive."

"AWS Glue is a paid service that doesn't come under the free trial of AWS."

More AWS Glue pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What resources can you use to learn how to utilize AWS Database Migration Service?

As with all AWS products, you are given very useful documentation with AWS Database Migration Service. Before we started using this product, we went over it and we were able to learn the basics an...

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Would you recommend AWS Database Migration Service as a cloud data integration tool?

My current company started using AWS Database Migration Service upon my recommendation, and I continue telling people how good of a product it is. However, users should keep in mind a few things. ...

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Is AWS Database Migration Service an affordable solution?

Compared to similar solutions, AWS Database Migration Service falls somewhere in the middle price-wise, at least from my experience. This being said, it is not a very affordable solution, especial...

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How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?

AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.

See all answers

How does Talend Open Studio compare with AWS Glue?

We reviewed AWS Glue before choosing Talend Open Studio. AWS Glue is the managed ETL (extract, transform, and load) from Amazon Web Services. AWS Glue enables AWS users to create and manage jobs in...

See all answers

What are the most common use cases for AWS Glue?

AWS Glue's main use case is for allowing users to discover, prepare, move, and integrate data from multiple sources. The product lets you use this data for analytics, application development, or ma...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Talend Open Studio vs AWS Glue

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Integration Cloud Service vs AWS Glue

Compared 5% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs AWS Glue

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Database Migration Service

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

AWS Glue

July 2025

Download AWS Glue product report

Also Known As

AWS Data Migration Service

No data available

Overview

AWS Database Migration Service, also known as AWS DMS, is a cloud service that facilitates the migration of relational databases, NoSQL databases, data warehouses, and other types of data stores. The product can be used to migrate users' data into the AWS Cloud or between combinations of on-premises and cloud setups. The solution allows migration between a wide variety of sources and target endpoints; the only requirement is that one of the endpoints has to be an AWS service. AWS DMS cannot be used to migrate from an on-premises database to another on-premises database.

AWS Database Migration Service allows users to perform one-time migrations, as well as replications of ongoing changes to keep sources and targets in sync. Organizations can utilize the AWS Schema Conversion Tool to translate their database schema to a new platform and then use AWS DMS to migrate the data. The product offers cost efficiency as a part of the AWS Cloud, as well as speed to market, flexibility, and security.

The main use cases of AWS Database Migration Service include:

Migrating from legacy or on-premises databases to managed cloud services through a simplified migration process.
Reliable replication of backup files to minimize downtime and data loss.
Improvement of integration through building of data lakes and performing real-time processing on change data from users' data stores.

AWS Database Migration Service Components

AWS Database Migration Service consists of various components which function together to achieve users’ data migration. A migration on AWS DMS is structured in three levels: a replication instance, source and target endpoints, and a replication task. The components include the following actions:

Replication instance: AWS Database Migration Service provides users with a variety of replication instances, allowing them to select the optimal configuration for their use case. Depending on the instance class an organization selects, their replication instance provides a different amount of data storage.
Endpoint: AWS DMS uses an endpoint to access users' source or target data stores. The connection information is different and depends on the specific data store, but it usually consists of the following information: endpoint type, engine type, server name, port, encryption, and credentials. This information can easily be managed through the AWS DMS console.
Replication tasks: AWS Database Migration Service replication tasks can be used to move a set of data from the source endpoint to the target endpoint. The creation of a replication task is the last required step before starting a migration. Each replication task requires the following settings to be set: replication instance, source endpoint, target endpoint, and migration type options.
Ongoing replication or change data capture (CDC): AWS DMS also has the capacity to capture ongoing changes to the source that is stored while users migrate their data to a target.
Schema and code migration: The product requires assistance from tools such as MySQL Workbench, pgAdmin III, and Oracle SQL Developer to perform schema or code conversion, as it cannot do it on its own.

AWS Database Migration Service Benefits

AWS Database Migration Service offers its users a wide range of benefits. Among them are the following:

The solution ensures minimal downtime, as it continuously replicates the changes to the user’s source database during migration.
AWS DMS provides users with flexibility, as it supports many commonly used databases, including commercial and open-source ones.
The product is user friendly, as it offers an easy set of tasks in the AWS Management Console.
Users of Aurora, Redshift, DocumentDB, and DynamoDB can benefit from the free use of AWS DMS.
AWS Database Migration Service is very reliable because it is a self-healing service that automatically restarts in cases of interruptions.
The product supports both homogenous migrations and heterogenous migrations.
AWS DMS accelerates business growth, as it scales businesses at an affordable price.

Reviews from Real Users

Vishal S., an infrastructure lead at a computer software company, likes AWS Database Migration Service because it is easy to use and set up.

Vinod K., a data analyst at AIMLEAP, describes AWS DMS as an easy solution to save and extract data.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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.

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Veoci, Trimble, Nasdaq, shaadi.com, Hotelbeds, SysAid, Verizon, Expedia, Pega

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday

Buyer's Guide

AWS Database Migration Service vs. AWS Glue

June 2025

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