We use AWS Glue for data analytics.
Sr Associate at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
A stable and easy-to-use solution that can be used for data analytics
Pros and Cons
- "AWS Glue is a stable and easy-to-use solution."
- "The solution’s stability could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
AWS Glue is a stable and easy-to-use solution.
What needs improvement?
The solution’s stability could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using AWS Glue for the last three years.
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AWS Glue
January 2026
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate AWS Glue a seven out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
AWS Glue is a very scalable solution, and you can connect multiple databases.
How are customer service and support?
AWS Glue's technical support is very good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
AWS Glue is not a licensed solution. AWS Glue follows a pay-as-you-go model, wherein the cost of the data you use will be counted as a monthly bill.
What other advice do I have?
Currently, there are many ETL tools in the marketplace. Compared to other ETL tools, AWS Glue is a low-cost and serverless solution.
Overall, I rate AWS Glue a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Associate Director at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
A scalable tool to build data engineering pipelines
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's technical support is good. Whenever we raise a use case where we face an issue in our company, we get a response from the solution's technical team."
- "Only people who can code, either in Java or Python, can use the product freely. Those who don't know Java or Python might find using AWS Glue difficult."
What is our primary use case?
In my company, we use AWS Glue to build data engineering pipelines, so we ingest data from either S3 or other sources and put it back into Redshift, where we have a data lake or data warehouse.
What is most valuable?
With AWS Glue, there have been a lot of updates over the past couple of years. The feature which I like the most is that AWS Glue has now integrated Jupyter Notebook into it, causing AWS Glue to become interactive and develop new use cases. The fact that we don't have to worry about the resources required for any particular job since it gets taken care of by AWS Glue adds to the valuable feature set of the product.
What needs improvement?
AWS Glue Studio has undergone a lot of enhancements in the last couple of months. An improvement that can help the solution is if the user interface can become more user-friendly and allow for features like drag and drop, allowing it to build transformations. There can be a good improvement if the product itself supports different kinds of transformations so that the pipeline, which we want to create, can be done easily since right now, we have to write a code to do so in our company. Only people who can code, either in Java or Python, can use the product freely. Those who don't know Java or Python might find using AWS Glue difficult.
AWS has pricing for spot instances that reduces the cost substantially, but that is not available for AWS Glue AWS pricing for spot instances comes for products like EC2, and if the same gets introduced for AWS Glue, then the pricing can substantially reduce.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using AWS Glue for five years. I am an end user of the product.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a very scalable solution. In our company, we don't have to bother about the latest features implemented by the solution since the solution itself allocates resources, causing the product to scale up or down as the job progresses.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is good. Whenever we raise a use case where we face an issue in our company, we get a response from the solution's technical team.
How was the initial setup?
AWS Glue is a platform as a service from AWS, so there is no setup required. It's very simple since you can just go into the UI and start using it.
The solution is deployed on a private cloud.
I am a part of the development team, which doesn't have access to all the different sets of features and has a different backup. There is a team that does the initial setup, user access, and all those things. Once the product is ready, my team takes it over, so the setup is done by someone else.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the product's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
AWS Glue can be compared to the database provided by Azure which has a lot of extra features or capabilities compared to AWS Glue which is only useful for processing.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
AWS Glue
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about AWS Glue. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It has a real-time backup feature and records and backs up information every single moment, but its cost is high, and setting it up is complex
Pros and Cons
- "What I like best about AWS Glue is its real-time data backup feature. Last week, there was a production push, and what used to take almost ten days to send out around fifty-six thousand emails now takes only two hours."
- "Cost-wise, AWS Glue is expensive, so that's an area for improvement. The process for setting up the solution was also complex, which is another area for improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We're using GPU 0.2 in ten verticals and wanted to use AWS Glue only for one purpose: to optimize Amazon Redshift.
We have millions of data that we have to back up. Previously, we did it once every six months, but the client data have been very interactive, and we need spontaneous back and forth of data communication in real-time. In one second, we have almost one million records that come and go continuously. The client wanted to keep all data because they're using it for analytics and wanted to back up the data every second without delay. We tried to optimize Amazon Redshift and found out about AWS Glue, which comes with massive costs, but the client is willing to pay.
What is most valuable?
What I like best about AWS Glue is its real-time data backup feature. Last week, there was a production push, and what used to take almost ten days even to send out around fifty-six thousand emails now takes only two hours.
I also like that the data backup in AWS Glue is spontaneous, and data is recorded and backed up every single moment.
What needs improvement?
AWS Glue had some issues, which required optimization, particularly in terms of the number of workers you deploy, and that's where costing comes in. Cost-wise, AWS Glue is expensive, so that's an area for improvement. My company did some modifications, which turned out to be successful, so overall, the solution works fine.
Even though there is a backup, you need to know what's happening. You need to understand why there's a failure. AWS Glue doesn't provide the information, so my company uses its logs. The development team also doesn't have specific answers because the team is still playing around with the process, which means the company is still trying to figure out other areas for improvement in AWS Glue.
The process for setting up the solution was also complex, which is another area for improvement.
AWS should provide help during migration and assist its users. Otherwise, it's a nightmare.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using AWS Glue for one and a half months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
AWS Glue is stable, but stability depends on how many workers you deploy and the work that you do.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
AWS Glue is highly scalable. It can scale to almost one billion data per second.
How are customer service and support?
We did make some good friends in AWS, so they gave us technical support for AWS Glue for free. They were also new and were trying to evolve, so they provided us with free support, but they'll be charging other clients for the support moving forward.
How was the initial setup?
The setup for AWS Glue is highly complex. The company started with R&D four months ago and only completed the deployment last week.
My company used one and a half FTE resources for the deployment.
The deployment process for AWS Glue was normal and involved CI/CD, but it was mainly the backend dev ops engineers who did it. I'm more of a project manager, so I'm not involved in technical items. It's more of me helping the engineers with the R&D.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
AWS Glue is a high-priced solution that bills the client $150,000 to $250,000 annually. That's just the starting price because it's a small data sample, but if it hits over three hundred million users, the cost will probably go up almost thirty times more.
What other advice do I have?
I'm using the latest version of AWS Glue.
I'm not the end-user, as I work for a company that implements AWS Glue for clients.
My company has one client using AWS Glue, but that client has three hundred million users.
I recommend AWS Glue to others because it's an excellent solution. However, it lacks documentation. There's only a little documentation available. Even certified AWS practitioners struggle with the lack of documentation for AWS Glue. You'll find complicated processes or features, such as time series tables. Even if there's documentation, implementing the solution requires many trial and error methods, and revamping becomes a nightmare if you're using the old infrastructure.
My rating for AWS Glue is seven out of ten because of the complexity of the deployment, and the lack of information and documentation, that my company had to do some R&D. If AWS had complete documentation, or sent more than one person to assist my company, then it could have saved more time.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
AWS DATA ENGINEER at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Intuitive with a good user interface and ETL integration capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "The two features I find most valuable in AWS Glue are its user interface and ease of use."
- "Beginners need additional support as it currently lacks some features required for complex transformations, often necessitating custom Python coding."
What is our primary use case?
I have been working as a data engineer, where dealing with the ETL process is essential. We are using AWS Glue as a primary ETL tool to serve our organization's needs. I have implemented several Glue jobs still in production.
How has it helped my organization?
AWS Glue has enabled us to perform ETL processes efficiently, with ease of use for AWS cloud users, providing a serverless service that eliminates the need for infrastructure maintenance.
What is most valuable?
The two features I find most valuable in AWS Glue are its user interface and ease of use. The user interface is intuitive, and navigating through the Glue console is seamless.
Additionally, its ability to integrate with other AWS services is excellent, providing flawless coordination with services such as SNS, S3, and Lambda.
What needs improvement?
I see scope for improvement in the drag-and-drop feature of AWS Glue. Beginners need additional support as it currently lacks some features required for complex transformations, often necessitating custom Python coding.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Glue for more than five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Overall, the stability of AWS Glue is excellent. I would rate it a nine out of ten. Some network-related issues may arise. That said, they are rare and do not affect its functionality significantly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Regarding scalability, AWS Glue is nearly perfect. I would rate it a nine out of ten, although there is always room for improvement.
How are customer service and support?
AWS customer service is great, but there is room for improvement. The issue I face is the inconsistency in dealing with different customer service representatives for the same issue, which disrupts personal touch.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
On an organizational level, the pricing of AWS Glue does not pose a concern. It is in line with other ETL tools in the market. However, AWS Glue's cost to free-tier users is an issue because it is not entirely free, even for trial purposes.
What other advice do I have?
I advise potential users to adopt AWS Glue primarily due to its user-friendly interface, extensive documentation, and seamless integration with other AWS services, making it ideal for data engineers.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
VP- Cloud Data/ Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Offers metadata management, logging, and ETL processing capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "AWS Glue is fast and managed by AWS. Hence, you don't have to worry about capacity and the performance of Glue jobs. It has integrations with other data stores of AWS. The product offers metadata management, logging, and ETL processing capabilities. It comes with a powerful feature, Glue Studio, which helps to do queries interactively within the community. It is a managed service and very secure. Another popular and mature service is S3."
- "I have encountered challenges with multi-region support."
What is most valuable?
AWS Glue is fast and managed by AWS. Hence, you don't have to worry about capacity and the performance of Glue jobs. It has integrations with other data stores of AWS. The product offers metadata management, logging, and ETL processing capabilities. It comes with a powerful feature, Glue Studio, which helps to do queries interactively within the community. It is a managed service and very secure. Another popular and mature service is S3.
What needs improvement?
I have encountered challenges with multi-region support.
How are customer service and support?
AWS Glue has standard procedures for tech support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
AWS Glue is very user-friendly. However, if you are not a UI person, you can do IaaS. AWS provides a cloud automation service and a service catalog.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I rate AWS Glue an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Principal Data Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Scalable and lightweight option for migrating workloads
Pros and Cons
- "AWS Glue's best features are scalability and cloud-based features."
- "AWS Glue would be improved by making it easier to switch from single to multi-cloud."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use AWS Glue as a lightweight ETL to migrate our existing on-prem workloads to a cloud environment without looking at a lot of migration paths.
How has it helped my organization?
AWS Glue served the purpose of migrating our on-prem workloads to a cloud environment without involving a heavy load. It ensured that we were able to test every migrated component independently.
What is most valuable?
AWS Glue's best features are scalability and cloud-based features.
What needs improvement?
AWS Glue would be improved by making it easier to switch from single to multi-cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using AWS Glue for eighteen months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate AWS Glue's scalability eight out of ten, as it still has some room to improve.
How was the initial setup?
AWS Glue is straightforward to implement, and you won't see any technical complexity if you're from a development background.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also considered Airflow, but Glue was a better fit for our engineering-heavy workloads because we wanted a serverless option.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate AWS Glue eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
CEO - Founder / Principal Data Scientist / Principal AI Architect at a tech company with 1-10 employees
Straightforward, easy to set up, and needs little to no training
Pros and Cons
- "It's fairly straightforward as a product; it's not very complicated."
- "The mapping area and the use of the data catalog from Glue could be better."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to do the usual type of transformations that before required ETL. It's mostly transformation-type purposes that we have, including transforming data from source to target. Also, we are replacing the usual ETLs with Glue, for example.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has helped the organization mostly with migration. When we migrate from mostly on-premises to the cloud, Glue replaces a more expensive item that's also available in the cloud. Lots of programmers can understand Glue because they can write scripts in Python and PySpark, and there are quite a few programmers that know how to program in those languages. With the previous components that did similar things on-premise, you needed specialized knowledge.
What is most valuable?
The fact that we can use PySpark to program them is great.
It's fairly straightforward as a product; it's not very complicated.
The fact that Amazon offers it and it's a quick way of getting things done, and the fact that it doesn't require a lot of training is very positive attributes.
The initial setup is straightforward.
It can scale.
What needs improvement?
The mapping area and the use of the data catalog from Glue could be better. I would say those two are the main things we'd like to see improvements on.
The solution needs support for big data.
As I understand it, Glue is based on Lambdas and Lambdas have some limitations as far as running them continuously. Sometimes they get dropped, and they have to be reinitialized.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far, the solution has been stable. For everything that we've done, we didn't run into any problems, so it was fairly stable for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution can scale. I don't know exactly at what scale. I was using it for a medium-scale type solution. We never tested it with extremely large scales, so I don't know how expansive it can be. That said, since it's in the cloud, if you need more scale, it would be easy enough to add additional Glue components. At least, in theory, it should be fairly scalable.
Indirectly, we have hundreds of people on the solution.
At this time, I'm not sure if any clients plan to increase usage.
How are customer service and support?
Since the solution is so easy to use, we have not needed the help of technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've previously used many different solutions, including Informatica, Data Storage from IBM, and SSIS.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to set up. It's not overly complex.
At a minimum, a company would need one to two people to handle the deployment. If it is a larger scale of deployment, they might need more personnel.
What about the implementation team?
As a consultant, I assist with the implementation.
What was our ROI?
Likely, a company would receive an ROI as it's cheaper than the alternatives.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was not involved in the cost negotiation process.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our clients typically have chosen Glue from the start. I was not involved in the evaluation process.
What other advice do I have?
We are using one of the latest versions of the solution. It's about two years old.
Depending on the number of data sources, the variety of data sources, and the variety of targets they will have, I might recommend the solution. What they have and plan to do will dictate whether Glue is a good solution or whether they would require something more sophisticated - such as Databricks. For example, if you have big data, then Databricks is probably a better solution to do ETL.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Data Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Provides good scalability and has an easy setup process
Pros and Cons
- "The product has a valuable feature for data catalog."
- "The product is expensive for data streaming. This area needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We use AWS Glue for ETL batch processing purposes.
What is most valuable?
The product has a valuable feature for data catalog.
What needs improvement?
The product is expensive for data streaming compared to EMR. This area needs improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using AWS Glue for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the product's stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have five to six AWS Glue users. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Cloudera before. We switched to AWS Glue for better pricing, scalability, and innovation.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. I rate the process an eight or nine out of ten. It could be deployed on-premises and on the cloud as well. We have a team of five executives to carry out the implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I rate AWS Glue a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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