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AWS Glue vs FME 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)
FME
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (23rd)
 

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.
Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high
When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Glue is scalability."
"I also like that you can add custom libraries like JAR files and use them. So, the ability to use a fast processing engine and embed basic jobs easily are significant advantages."
"The solution integrates well with other AWS products or services."
"The two features I find most valuable in AWS Glue are its user interface and ease of use."
"It's fairly straightforward as a product; it's not very complicated."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Glue is its ease of use and good documentation. Additionally, we can do all the transformations that we need."
"AWS Glue is a good solution for developers, they have the ability to write code in different languages and other software."
"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."
"FME is spatially aware and understands how to deal with the conversion of spatial objects and their attributes."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"From my reseller perspective, the best features in FME are the ease of operation and the fact that it works."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
 

Cons

"Improvements in the UI are needed, as it is challenging to understand some functionalities."
"There is a learning curve to this tool."
"There could be an enhanced way of managing pure metadata management or data cataloging."
"There should be more connectors for different databases."
"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."
"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."
"AWS Glue would be improved by making it easier to switch from single to multi-cloud."
"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."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"We are looking at the possibility of using Glue instead of FME, using the native AWS product."
"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I rate the tool an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is expensive."
"I would rate the solution a six or seven on a scale of one to ten, with ten being very expensive. Specifically, I rate its pricing a six out of ten."
"I rate pricing an eight out of ten."
"AWS Glue follows a pay-as-you-go model, wherein the cost of the data you use will be counted as a monthly bill."
"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten."
"The overall cost of AWS Glue could be better. It cost approximately $1,000 a month. There is paid support available from AWS Glue."
"This solution is affordable and there is an option to pay for the solution based on your usage."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Government
33%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software 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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 do you like most about FME?
We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?
The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...
What needs improvement with FME?
I haven't had any input or requirements from any customers that are not currently covered, so I don't have any additional needs that were identified or raised to me. Regarding pricing, with the mod...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Glue vs. FME and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.