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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 (33rd), 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

"The solution is serverless so it allows us to transform data while optimizing the cost and performance of Spark jobs."
"AWS Glue is a highly stable solution."
"Our entire use case was very easily handled or solved using this solution."
"Transformations are valuable because you can modify or override complex data logic from an open source or Spark to solve issues."
"The best thing about AWS Glue is its scalability and how easy it is to process a large amount of data."
"Its ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and highly secure architecture are some of the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Glue is scalability."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Glue is that it provides a GUI format with a drag-and-drop feature."
"Data connections, data partitioning, flexibility, and performance are the most valuable features."
"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."
"Reduces the loading and development time for Datawarehouse ETL."
"Deploying the solution is straightforward for me."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."
"This solution has reduced the time it takes for ETL. We took an existing Teradata ETL application from three days to eight minutes."
"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

"I am quite technical, yet when it comes to data pipelines, I prefer using GUIs over code-based calls. It might be easier with a different skill set."
"Improvements in the UI are needed, as it is challenging to understand some functionalities."
"The monitoring is not that good."
"I would like to see a more robust interface on the no-code side. This would be nice to be able to split cells."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"The point for improvement in AWS Glue would be the dynamic allocation of resources while utilizing Lambda functions."
"There should be more connectors for different databases."
"In terms of improvement, the performance of AWS Glue could be faster."
"Customer Service: It's poor."
"Unlike other tools, IBM tools do not provide much help from the internet, so additional support should be available."
"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."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"Heavy use of scratch disk which sometimes leads to failure."
"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."
"We have decided to decrease the usage of metadata management because we did not see any significant advantages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This solution is affordable and there is an option to pay for the solution based on your usage."
"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."
"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."
"AWS Glue is quite costly, especially for small organizations."
"AWS Glue is a paid service that doesn't come under the free trial of AWS."
"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 the tool's pricing a four out of ten."
"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%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
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 Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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.
896,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.