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AWS Glue vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.9
Organizations find AWS Glue efficient and cost-effective despite overhead costs, though some consider alternatives due to budget constraints.
Sentiment score
6.9
IBM InfoSphere DataStage ROI varies; optimization boosts performance 200%, enhancing project management despite some inefficiencies and manual interventions.
I advocate using Glue in such cases.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
AWS Glue customer service is praised for responsiveness and effectiveness, with mixed feedback on support speed, costs, and consistency.
Sentiment score
6.1
IBM InfoSphere DataStage support is 24/7 but inconsistent, with quality varying by region and needing efficiency improvements.
For complex Glue-related problems such as job failures or permission issues, their documentation is good, but having direct access to support helps cut down troubleshooting time significantly.
AWS's documentation is reliable, and careful reference often resolves missed upgrade details.
We also have the flexibility to submit a feature request to be included as part of the wishlist, potentially becoming a product feature in subsequent releases.
IBM tech support has allocated dedicated resources, making it satisfactory.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
AWS Glue is highly scalable and serverless, praised for easy resource management, but needs better parallel computation.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is praised for scalability and connectivity but some users find scaling resource-intensive.
It is beneficial to upgrade jobs, and we conduct extensive testing in development before migrating to production.
It can easily handle data from one terabyte to 100 terabytes or more, scaling nicely with larger datasets.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
AWS Glue is stable and reliable with minor issues, scaling well, and efficient due to serverless architecture and tool integration.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is generally stable, though newer versions and installation issues on certain OS may impact stability.
As a managed service, it reduces management burdens.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS Glue faces challenges with startup times, interface complexity, language limitations, cost, performance, integration, and multi-cloud compatibility.
IBM InfoSphere DataStage needs usability improvements, modern database support, better pricing, documentation, stability, and enhanced cloud integration and DevOps.
With AWS, I gather data from multiple sources, clean it up, normalize it, de-duplicate it, and make it presentable.
A more user-friendly and simpler process would help speed up the deployment process.
Learning the latest functionalities is crucial, and while challenging, it is a vital part of staying current and ensuring an efficient ETL process.
I wonder if it supports other areas, such as cloud environments with open source support, or EdgeShift.
The solution needs improvement in connectivity with big data technologies such as Spark.
 

Setup Cost

AWS Glue offers flexible, efficient serverless architecture but can be costly and unpredictable, especially for smaller organizations.
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is costly for small businesses but competitive for large enterprises, cheaper than Informatica yet pricey overall.
AWS charges based on runtime, which can be quite pricey.
Costing depends on resource usage, and cost optimization may involve redesigning jobs for flexibility.
Regarding AWS Glue's pricing, it is not more expensive; rather, it is very reasonable, but it is not cheap.
Pricing for IBM InfoSphere DataStage is moderate and not much expensive.
 

Valuable Features

AWS Glue excels with its easy interface, scalable ETL processing, seamless AWS integration, affordability, and serverless architecture.
IBM InfoSphere DataStage excels in parallel processing, scalability, robust data integration, and ease of use, enhancing data management efficiency.
AWS Glue has reduced efforts by 60%, which is the main benefit.
AWS Glue also enhances job scheduling and orchestration capabilities, integrating with AWS Glue Studio for comprehensive data workflow management.
For ETL, I feel the performance is excellent. If I create jobs in a standard way, the performance is great, and maintenance is also seamless.
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is very scalable, allowing us to extend it according to our processing needs.
The failure detection has been very useful for us, as well as the load balancing feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Glue
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (1st)
IBM InfoSphere DataStage
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Saurabh Jaiswal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Swetha S - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution streamlines design, development, and deployment with effective ETL features
The support has been really good. Typically, if we have any issues, we raise a ticket with IBM, and they help us resolve the issues if required. We also have the flexibility to submit a feature request to be included as part of the wishlist, potentially becoming a product feature in subsequent releases.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
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...
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...
Would you upgrade to more premium versions of IBM InfoSphere DataStage?
My company currently uses the free version of the product, and we are definitely switching to a paid one. We needed a tool that can help us not only integrate our data but use it effectively. For ...
Is IBM InfoSphere DataStage more difficult to use compared to other tools in the field?
I think the tool may cause some difficulties if you have not used other data integration solutions before. I have worked at companies that used different tools for data integration, and they work ...
Do you rely on IBM Cloud Paks for your data? Have you utilized this product, or do you use IBM InfoSphere DataStage without it?
IBM Cloud Paks makes a big difference in your data integration. My company has been using it alongside IBM InfoSphere DataStage and while the main product is good on its own, this one truly expands...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Dubai Statistics Center, Etisalat Egypt
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Glue vs. IBM InfoSphere DataStage and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,095 professionals have used our research since 2012.