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AWS AppSync vs AWS Glue comparison

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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 AppSync
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Glue
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of AWS AppSync is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Glue is 7.7%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Glue7.7%
AWS AppSync1.1%
Other91.2%
Cloud Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Akil Saji - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Cloud Developer at Mobil80 Solutions and Services Pvt. Ltd.
Ease of creating APIs with ongoing updates needed for automation
AWS has made it easy for developers like me to create and manage GraphQL APIs. The ease of use is a main advantage, allowing even beginners to start from scratch and learn through AppSync. Before AWS, developing and managing APIs was quite complex. AWS provided AppSync, which assists developers and startup founders. Startups blooming everywhere benefit from this service, welcoming those who lack prior knowledge. When working on AWS, I notice that Amazon regularly implements new features. For instance, with the Lambda service, AWS is transitioning from an old editor to a new one. Similarly, AppSync frequently introduces updates and changes. This trend is making the user interface more accessible, even for individuals without a technical background. Additionally, the cost is attractive, as AWS operates on a pay-as-you-go basis. These factors make AppSync both easy to use and cost-effective.
NS
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS has made it easy for developers like me to create and manage GraphQL APIs."
"Support for multiple data sources and formats is a fantastic feature."
"It's fairly straightforward as a product; it's not very complicated."
"The AWS Glue Data Catalog provides metadata management and schema discovery. AWS Glue simplifies data transformation with automatic schema detection, incremental data updates, and integration with other AWS services."
"AWS Glue's most valuable features include its transformation capabilities, which provide data quality and shape for processing in ML or AI models."
"One aspect that I would like to highlight is the Glue Crawler, which we utilize when working with large datasets to ensure the schema updates seamlessly without requiring end-team knowledge."
"For ETL, I feel the performance is excellent."
"The solution is highly user-friendly, and its features are easy to use. The new addition of AWS Glue Data Catalog is also very beneficial, making the tool even more helpful for its users."
"We no longer had to worry much about infrastructure management because AWS Glue is serverless, and Amazon takes care of the underlying infrastructure."
"AWS Glue is a stable and easy-to-use solution."
 

Cons

"In AppSync, assigning roles and permissions to APIs is necessary for accessing other AWS services. Automating this task when creating APIs would be beneficial."
"Moving to other clouds is impossible without significantly rearchitecting your applications."
"The monitoring is not that good. We'd like to see job progress be more clear."
"It is very difficult to learn the tool and remember the syntaxes comparatively."
"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."
"It is quite clunky and code-heavy, which is my biggest problem."
"When there is a need to configure connections to different database sources in respect of the target, it would be good if it were easier to deal with roles."
"The start-up time is really high right now. For instance, when you start up a new job, you have to wait for five or eight minutes before it starts. If the start-up time is reduced to one or two minutes, it will be great. It will be better to have a direct linkage to Redshift in AWS. If we can use data catalogs from Redshift, it will be so easy to create some data catalogs. Currently, we can only use data catalogs from S3."
"In the building and deployment aspects, there is room for improvement. The current process is a bit complicated and could benefit from being more user-friendly and simpler, which would help speed up the deployment process."
"The setup and installation is a bit complex without advanced knowledge or training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, and it is a pay-as-you-go model."
"The current cost is around forty to fifty thousand a month."
"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is based on DPUs so it is a good idea to optimize use or it can get expensive."
"This solution is affordable and there is an option to pay for the solution based on your usage."
"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."
"I rate the tool an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
21%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Healthcare Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS AppSync?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was good and easy. About the pricing and setup cost, there is no major setup cost required for AWS AppSync, which is a really great thing becau...
What needs improvement with AWS AppSync?
The current features of AWS AppSync are enough for any developer, but it has some areas for improvement. AWS AppSync can provide first-class support for SQL RDS since writing SQL via VTL is clunky ...
What is your primary use case for AWS AppSync?
My main use case for AWS AppSync is to deploy the application by connecting my frontend and backend application. AWS AppSync serves as a GraphQL API Gateway that sits between my frontend and backen...
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...
 

Also Known As

AppSync
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACBL, Puresec, IDT, ASU, Public Good, cookpad, ALDO, ticketmaster
bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS AppSync vs. AWS Glue and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.