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AWS Lambda vs Apache NiFi comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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

Apache NiFi
Ranking in Compute Service
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Apache NiFi is 9.1%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 18.2%, down from 19.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS Lambda18.2%
Apache NiFi9.1%
Other72.7%
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Bharghava Raghavendra Beesa - PeerSpot reviewer
The tool enables effective data transformation and integration
There are some areas for improvement, particularly with record-level tasks that take a bit of time. The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process. Enhancing features related to alerting would be helpful, including mobile alerts for pipeline issues. Integration with mobile devices for error alerts would simplify information delivery.
Andrew-Wong - PeerSpot reviewer
Convenience in deployment process with room for code preview improvement
Having a better preview would be helpful. Sometimes, if my Lambda code is too big, it can be inconvenient as I'm unable to see my code when it exceeds a certain size. AWS has a limit, like a three-megabyte limit, beyond which I cannot view or edit the code easily.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is very easy. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, where one point is difficult, and ten points are easy."
"The most valuable features of this solution are ease of use and implementation."
"We can integrate the tool with other applications easily."
"It is highly effective for handling real-time data by working with APIs for immediate and continuous data extraction."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"Apache NiFi is user-friendly. Its most valuable features for handling large volumes of data include its multitude of integrated endpoints and clients and the ability to create cron jobs to run tasks at regular intervals."
"The most valuable feature has been the range of clients and the range of connectors that we could use."
"The user interface is good and makes it easy to design very popular workflows."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the API Gateway."
"By using Lambda, we can use Python code and the Boto3 solution."
"AWS Lambda is serverless."
"AWS Lambda is cost-effective, providing noticeable cost savings."
"It enables the launch of thousands of instances simultaneously,"
"We moved our users into the Amazon Cognito pool, so it helps us to standardize our security practices, approaches, etc. We can customize Lambda for authentication to integrate it with API Gateway and other services."
"Thanks to this solution, we do not need to worry about hardware or resource utilization. It saves us time."
"The utilization of containers is particularly beneficial in overcoming the size limitations imposed on Lambda functions which not only allows us to work around these constraints but also contributes to the improvement and maintenance of our code."
 

Cons

"The tool should incorporate more tutorials for advanced use cases. It has tutorials for simple use cases."
"More features must be added to the product."
"We run many jobs, and there are already large tables. When we do not control NiFi on time, all reports fail for the day. So it's pretty slow to control, and it has to be improved."
"I think the UI interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"There should be a better way to integrate a development environment with local tools."
"The use case templates could be more precise to typical business needs."
"The quality of JSON data processing could be improved, as JSON workloads require manual conversions without a specific process."
"The overall stability of this solution could be improved. In a future release, we would like to have access to more features that could be used in a parallel way. This would provide more freedom with processing."
"The running time of AWS Lambda runs fine. It takes around five minutes but it would be great if that time could be extended."
"Having a better preview would be helpful."
"AWS Lambda has some size limitations in the code line, you can't do a couple of functions to do the job."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"AWS Lambda should improve its compatibility with the language used to write the code."
"We don't have the inbuilt modules in AWS Lambda. If more modules were built into or integrated with AWS Lambda, that would help developers to code."
"We need to better understand Lambda for different scenarios. We need some joint effort between Amazon and the users to have the users identify how they can really leverage Lambda. It's not about Lambda itself; it's about the practice, the guidance. There needs to be very good documentation. From the user perspective, what exists now is not always enough."
"The automation with other Amazon products could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use the free version of Apache NiFi."
"I used the tool's free version."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is open-source."
"For licensing, we pay a yearly subscription."
"The solution is part of the AWS subscription model that is paid annually."
"It computes by the cycle, and it's very cheap."
"The solution is free of cost for the first year, and after that, it becomes expensive."
"The fees are volume-based."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"We only need to pay for the compute time our code consumes."
"This is a product that is pay-per-use, as opposed to a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache NiFi?
Apache NiFi is open-source and free. Its integration with systems like Cloudera can be expensive, but Apache NiFi itself presents the best pricing as a standalone tool.
What needs improvement with Apache NiFi?
The logging system of Apache NiFi needs improvement. It is difficult to debug compared to Airflow ( /products/apache-airflow-reviews ), where task details and issues are clear. With Apache NiFi, I ...
Which is better, AWS Lambda or Batch?
AWS Lambda is a serverless solution. It doesn’t require any infrastructure, which allows for cost savings. There is no setup process to deal with, as the entire solution is in the cloud. If you use...
What do you like most about AWS Lambda?
The tool scales automatically based on the number of incoming requests.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lambda?
The pricing of AWS Lambda is reasonable. It's beneficial and cost-effective for users regardless of the number of instances used.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Macquarie Telecom Group, Dovestech, Slovak Telekom, Looker, Hastings Group
Netflix
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Lambda vs. Apache NiFi and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.