AWS Glue vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM are both solutions in the Cloud Data Integration category. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

AWS Glue

Read 50 AWS Glue reviews

9,204 Views
6,903 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Read 9 IBM InfoSphere Information Server reviews

2,948 Views
2,064 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS Glue

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS Glue and IBM InfoSphere Information Server based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Informatica, Palantir and others in Cloud Data Integration.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Data Integration Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Integration

August 2026

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Helped 911,039 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Integration (1st)

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (34th), Metadata Management (8th)

Featured Reviews

Nivas Srinivasan

Principal Consultant at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

The solution improves ETL performance but faces challenges with version upgrades

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. It is serverless, so I do not need to worry about other integrations. It runs on a serverless VM. Glue services from AWS are regularly upgraded with new properties and functions. We use PySpark and other frameworks, which help customize our ETL process in a standard way. During our process, we utilized the typical SQL ITIL process standard in Glue-oriented ETL services, which helped us improve performance and time. AWS running time, mostly during the morning, saved us time compared to the old ETL method. There are many email notifications once a job is successful or fails, and we get notifications using SES or AWS's Simple Notification Service. Glue is integrated with both email alerts, and we are responsible for managing the full data journey from end to end.

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MOHAMMAD-IQBAL

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.

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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

"The solution is serverless so it allows us to transform data while optimizing the cost and performance of Spark jobs."

"Its user interface is quite good; you just need to choose some options to create a job in AWS Glue, and the code-generation feature is also useful because if you don't want to customize it and simply want to read a file and store the data in the database, it can generate the code for you."

"You do not need many frameworks to run Glue."

"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 most valuable feature for me is the visual interface of AWS Glue."

"The solution integrates well with other AWS products or services."

"AWS Glue's best features are scalability and cloud-based features."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

More AWS Glue pros

"Reduces the loading and development time for Datawarehouse ETL."

"This solution has reduced the time it takes for ETL. We took an existing Teradata ETL application from three days to eight minutes."

"Deploying the solution is straightforward for me."

"The integration with different technologies is the most valuable feature."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."

"Data connections, data partitioning, flexibility, and performance are the most valuable features."

"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

More IBM InfoSphere Information Server pros

Cons

"If there's a cluster-related configuration, we have to make worker notes, which is quite a headache when processing a large amount of data."

"The solution's visual ETL tool is of no use for actual implementation."

"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."

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

"The monitoring is not that good."

"The interface for AWS Glue could improve, they do not put a lot of details. You can write the code, in PySpark or in Scala, which is a big advantage, it is only easy to use for a developer. It will be difficult for new users to enter the cloud environment."

"The crucial problem with AWS Glue is that it only works with AWS."

"AWS Glue's error handling is difficult."

More AWS Glue cons

"We have decided to decrease the usage of metadata management because we did not see any significant advantages."

"Their technical support needs improvement."

"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."

"Unlike other tools, IBM tools do not provide much help from the internet, so additional support should be available."

"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."

"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."

"Heavy use of scratch disk which sometimes leads to failure."

"Customer Service: It's poor."

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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The current cost is around forty to fifty thousand a month."

"It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."

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

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

More AWS Glue pricing and cost advice

"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

20%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Construction Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	34

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

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.

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

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Database Migration Service vs AWS Glue

Compared 42% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs AWS Glue

Compared 5% of the time

SSIS vs AWS Glue

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Data Firehose vs AWS Glue

Compared 3% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs AWS Glue

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Glue Competitors

Informatica PowerCenter vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 9% of the time

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 9% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle GoldenGate vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM InfoSphere Information Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Glue

August 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Data Integration

August 2026

IBM InfoSphere Information Server report

Download IBM InfoSphere Information Server product report

Also Known As

No data available

InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server

Overview

AWS Glue is a serverless data integration service offering seamless integration with AWS services like S3, Redshift, and Athena. Known for its flexibility with data formats and automation of ETL tasks, AWS Glue enhances data management and transformation.

AWS Glue facilitates seamless data extraction, transformation, and loading for businesses, integrating with key AWS services, allowing efficient data pipeline automation. It's valued for a user-friendly GUI, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, supporting PySpark for complex datasets and includes a robust data catalog, real-time backup capabilities, and code generation. Despite its strengths, improvements are needed in documentation, training, and broader programming language support. Users face challenges with its complex interface and integration with non-AWS products, driving demand for enhancements in its usability and performance.

What are AWS Glue's most important features?

Seamless AWS Integration: Connects effortlessly with services like S3, Redshift, and Athena.
Serverless Operation: Removes the need for infrastructure management.
Flexible Data Format Handling: Supports various data formats for comprehensive data management.
User-Friendly GUI: Simplifies the creation and management of ETL jobs.
Data Catalog: Provides an organized repository for metadata management.
Real-Time Data Backup: Ensures data integrity and availability.
Code Generation: Facilitates easy script generation for data processes.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Reduced operational costs through serverless architecture.
High Performance: Efficient data processing and transformation capabilities.
Scalability: Adapts to businesses' evolving data demands.
Ease of Use: Intuitive interface allowing streamlined ETL workflows.
Automation: Simplified data pipeline tasks saving time and effort.

Businesses leverage AWS Glue in industries for ETL processes, data integration, and transformation. It is used to optimize data lakes or warehouses integration, enhancing data cataloging and real-time integration. Its serverless feature enables efficient data processing in sectors like finance and healthcare, where handling complex data-intensive tasks is crucial.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

IBM InfoSphere Information Server integrates seamlessly with both structured and unstructured data environments, offering advanced ETL capabilities and efficient data handling for large-scale enterprise applications.

IBM InfoSphere Information Server is designed for enterprise-level data integration with a focus on efficient ETL processes. It excels in moving data between sources and data warehouses, particularly valuable in sectors such as retail banking. Users leverage its robust Parallel Extender for improved processing efficiency and DataStage administration for comprehensive task management. However, areas like technical support and scalability require growth, especially for cloud-based deployments. While the Cloud Pak for Data enables acceleration on the cloud, the on-premises approach often remains tied to traditional hardware configurations.

What are the crucial features?

Parallel Extender: Enhances data processing efficiency.
DataStage Administration: Facilitates comprehensive management of ETL tasks.
Change Capture: Monitors and tracks data modifications effectively.
Handling Partitioned Databases: Enables efficient data management across partitions.
Metadata Management: Despite limitations, offers basic insights and tracking.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Cloud Pak for Data: Accelerates data transformation in cloud environments.
ETL Capabilities: Provides robust extraction, transformation, and loading processes.
Versatility: Handles both structured and unstructured data efficiently.
Bulk Loads Parameter Sets: Enhances loading efficiency with bulk operations.

IBM InfoSphere Information Server is widely implemented in industries that require heavy data transformation, such as retail and financial services. Its robust ETL processes are essential for moving critical data between systems, ensuring streamlined data flow and integration across various platforms.

IBM

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

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Integration

August 2026

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