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AWS Glue vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Glue
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (1st)
IBM InfoSphere Information ...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (32nd), Metadata Management (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

SC
application security engineer at Hyperspace IT India
Efficient data integration reduces operational time and enhances metadata management
For the initial setup with AWS Glue, I find it easy to set up the data catalog and create Glue jobs using the visual editor or the visual code. Setting permission sets via IAM rules can be a bit tricky at the start, but we ensure Glue has access to AWS S3, Redshift, and other services. Once the role is configured, it runs smoothly. For advanced configurations, connecting to VPCs and setting up connections with JDBC sources takes more time compared to my cloud experience, but overall, for someone with cloud and ETL experience, the setup is manageable and well done.
MI
Senior Data Engineer at Mohammed Mansour Alrumiah
Faced challenges with customer support and documentation but have benefited from reliable data integration over the years
As for utilizing the platform's metadata management feature, I have not worked on that feature yet, but personally, I have done that. To evaluate the effectiveness of IBM InfoSphere Information Server's data integration capabilities, if IBM is providing all the solutions we are using, then it is definitely a helpful thing. Mostly, the other thing is that it is a big area including data governance, data lineage, data management, and metadata, but every customer is not putting that much effort and money on that. They mostly migrate the data, use it, and forget it, but slowly things are changing. I am working in Saudi Arabia, so here also data governance, data management, and those kinds of things are getting attention. Regarding how scalable IBM InfoSphere Information Server is, I need to learn how to tune performance and scalability on the cloud. I am familiar with localized hardware, but on the cloud, I still have to do the work around it. In the beginning, we estimate the load and based on that, we put the hardware, but if there is continuous increase, I believe IBM also faces problems. Scalability needs to be improved because once the demand comes, you should be able to improve it, but for that, documentation on how to add hardware or resources to the software needs to be proper. I do not have much hands-on experience with that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best features of the solution is its ability to easily integrate with other AWS services."
"I also like that you can add custom libraries like JAR files and use them. So, the ability to use a fast processing engine and embed basic jobs easily are significant advantages."
"The facility to integrate with S3 and the possibility to use Jupyter Notebook inside the pipeline are the most valuable features."
"AWS Glue's most valuable features include its transformation capabilities, which provide data quality and shape for processing in ML or AI models."
"AWS Glue is quite better than other tools, but you have to learn it properly before you start using it."
"The key role of Glue is that it hosts our metadata before rolling out our actual data, which is a major advantage of using this solution and our clients have been very satisfied with it."
"If I'm working with big data, common languages like Python work quite nicely, which is advantageous."
"The product has a valuable feature for data catalog."
"Reduces the loading and development time for Datawarehouse ETL."
"Over the years of working with IBM InfoSphere Information Server, I see basically the strength of the tool, capability, and load balancing, which I see is really good."
"This solution has reduced the time it takes for ETL. We took an existing Teradata ETL application from three days to eight minutes."
"Data connections, data partitioning, flexibility, and performance are the most valuable features."
"The integration with different technologies is the most valuable feature."
"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."
"The initial IBM InfoSphere Information Server is straightforward and you can choose what type of installation you want, such as a customized installation, with clear-cut documentation that, if followed, works fine and the installation has not given us issues."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"AWS Glue would be improved by making it easier to switch from single to multi-cloud."
"The technical support for this solution could be improved. In future, we would like to connect more services like Athena or Kinesis to help control more loads of data."
"One area that could be improved is the ETL view. The drag-and-drop interface is not as user-friendly as some other ETL tools."
"When comparing to tools such as Airflow, Glue workflows are still relatively basic in terms of flexibility and complex branching."
"Beginners need additional support as it currently lacks some features required for complex transformations, often necessitating custom Python coding."
"The solution could be cheaper. The price of the solution is an area that 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."
"The product has only a few built-in transformations."
"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"We have decided to decrease the usage of metadata management because we did not see any significant advantages."
"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."
"Heavy use of scratch disk which sometimes leads to failure."
"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be more scalable. It should have the option to change the configuration to run on a single, non-multiple node, or multi-threading processing."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be more scalable. It should have the option to change the configuration to run on a single, non-multiple node, or multi-threading processing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"I would rate the solution a six or seven on a scale of one to ten, with ten being very expensive. Specifically, I rate its pricing a six out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is based on DPUs so it is a good idea to optimize use or it can get expensive."
"This solution is affordable and there is an option to pay for the solution based on your usage."
"Technical support is a paid service, and which subscription you have is dependent on that. You must pay one of them, and it ranges from $15,000 to $25,000 per year."
"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."
"I rate pricing an eight out of ten."
"The pricing is a bit higher than other solutions like Athena and EC2. If the pricing becomes more scaled or flexible, it will be good because you have to pay 44 cents just for one DPU for an hour. If you increase DPUs to 5 or 10, the pricing gets multiplied. There are also some time limits like 0 to 10 minutes or 10 to 20 minutes. If the pricing is according to the minutes, it would be better because you have to limit your job to 10 minutes or 20 minutes."
"The licensing cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Server depends on how many users there are."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are using the on-premises version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, but we feel that all new development is mainly for the cloud. We receive corrections of errors, but we do not see new func...
What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
My usual use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server is ETL, where we take data from one source to another data warehouse solution.
What advice do you have for others considering IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are about to change our platform from IBM AIX to SUSE Linux, as our whole platform is changing, so everyone should change from IBM to SUSE Linux. It would be very difficult for us to have a diff...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Canadian National Railway Company, Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce, Swedish Armed Forces, BG RCI, Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd., University of Arizona, Biogrid Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Glue vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.