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AWS Glue vs SSIS 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
7.3
SSIS offers cost-effective data management with no extra fees, but some users prefer alternatives with a larger budget.
I advocate using Glue in such cases.
The tool has made us tremendously more efficient and saved us a significant amount of money.
Using SSIS has proven cost-effective as there are no additional fees outside the SQL Server license, and it significantly enhances data management efficiency.
 

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
6.0
Users find SSIS support mixed; many prefer online solutions and community forums over Microsoft’s challenging and costly support.
Upgrades occur every four months, and new developments coincide with version updates.
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.
The first line of support needs to be more knowledgeable.
 

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
6.8
SSIS is scalable for various enterprises, requiring proper configuration for optimal performance, but may lack compared to alternatives.
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
7.5
SSIS is stable and reliable, though occasional performance issues are noted; proper infrastructure enhances its effectiveness.
AWS Glue is highly stable, and I would rate its stability as nine.
It processes large volumes of data quickly.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS Glue faces challenges with startup times, interface complexity, language limitations, cost, performance, integration, and multi-cloud compatibility.
SSIS needs user interface, performance, compatibility, integration, error logging, scalability improvements, and better real-time, security, and API support.
Migrating jobs from version 3.0 to 4.0 can present compatibility issues.
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.
Within the South African context, if you are getting your enterprise agreement from First Technology, they don't provide support.
SSIS has a difficult learning curve when dealing with complex transformations.
The logging capabilities could be improved, particularly for error logging.
 

Setup Cost

AWS Glue offers flexible, efficient serverless architecture but can be costly and unpredictable, especially for smaller organizations.
SSIS is economical for SQL Server users, offering value without extra setup costs compared to pricier ETL tools.
Costing depends on resource usage, and cost optimization may involve redesigning jobs for flexibility.
AWS charges based on runtime, which can be quite pricey.
The smallest cost for a project is around €700, while the largest can reach up to €7,000 based on the scale of the usage.
Utilizing SSIS involves no extra charges beyond the SQL Server license.
It was included in our licensing for SQL server, and our licensing for SQL server was extremely cheap, making it a very good price point for us.
 

Valuable Features

AWS Glue excels with its easy interface, scalable ETL processing, seamless AWS integration, affordability, and serverless architecture.
SSIS is popular for its ease of use, scalability, integration, cost-effectiveness, and powerful ETL capabilities with Microsoft products.
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.
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 has reduced efforts by 60%, which is the main benefit.
I would rate it at a 10 as it is highly reliable; we have never had any problems with it.
One of the best aspects of SSIS is that it is built into Microsoft SQL Server, so there are no additional costs involved.
SSAS is included in the base installation of SQL Server.
 

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)
SSIS
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd)
 

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.
Sean Achim - PeerSpot reviewer
Building impactful organizational KPIs with ease and precision
Stability is rated at 10. One other important aspect I appreciate is that SSAS is included in the base installation of SQL Server. Obviously, it requires installation, but it is readily available, which is a major strength. It's all about setting it up, configuring it, and then using it. If there are additional costs associated with it or separating it as a second product, that would be a disadvantage. The area of improvement is really in education. Microsoft is trying to push everything as a Power BI solution or trying to get people to solve the problems which are solved with SSAS in another space in Power BI, or in Power Pivot, is not enough. There's not enough marketing, conversation, and support around that space. As a result, we end up with people not understanding that you need to build your models correctly, and then they try to model everything inside of Power BI, or another visualization tool, without first building the data model. That leads people to consider alternate solutions because SAP and others argue that their whole thing is in memory, and they disseminate misleading information. Additionally, what would be very helpful is local user group developments, so getting people around the table and teaching them how to use it. That is the biggest problem; it's not the technology itself. The challenge lies in Microsoft withdrawing a lot of the qualifications and watering down its emphasis, leading to a perception that this is supposed to be an elite product.
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Comparison Review

it_user90069 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2014
Informatica PowerCenter vs. Microsoft SSIS - each technology has its advantages but also have similarities
Technology has made it easier for businesses to organize and manipulate data to get a clearer picture of what’s going on with their business. Notably, ETL tools have made managing huge amounts of data significantly easier and faster, boosting many organizations’ business intelligence operations…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 Business26
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise57
 

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...
Which is better - SSIS or Informatica PowerCenter?
SSIS PowerPack is a group of drag and drop connectors for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, commonly called SSIS. The collection helps organizations boost productivity with code-free compo...
What do you like most about SSIS?
The product's deployment phase is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SSIS?
Utilizing SSIS involves no extra charges beyond the SQL Server license. It's an economical choice for my clients.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SQL Server Integration Services
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
1. Amazon.com 2. Bank of America 3. Capital One 4. Coca-Cola 5. Dell 6. E*TRADE 7. FedEx 8. Ford Motor Company 9. Google 10. Home Depot 11. IBM 12. Intel 13. JPMorgan Chase 14. Kraft Foods 15. Lockheed Martin 16. McDonald's 17. Microsoft 18. Morgan Stanley 19. Nike 20. Oracle 21. PepsiCo 22. Procter & Gamble 23. Prudential Financial 24. RBC Capital Markets 25. SAP 26. Siemens 27. Sony 28. Toyota 29. UnitedHealth Group 30. Visa 31. Walmart 32. Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Glue vs. SSIS and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,483 professionals have used our research since 2012.