Alternatives to Apache NiFi
A visual dataflow system for automating the movement and transformation of data between systems. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Apache NiFi
A visual dataflow system for automating the movement and transformation of data between systems.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Apache NiFi.
Apache Airflow
A self-hosted platform for writing, scheduling and monitoring workflows defined as Python code.
Apache Airflow defines pipelines as Python code instead of a visual flow designer, and focuses on scheduling and monitoring tasks rather than runtime flow changes.
Kestra
An open-source declarative orchestration platform for scheduled and event-driven workflows, self-hosted or in the cloud.
Kestra uses declarative workflows with more than 2,000 plugins and scheduled or event-driven triggers, with a cloud option alongside self-hosting and some enterprise-only features.
Dagster
An open-source orchestrator for building, scheduling and monitoring data pipelines, with a hosted Dagster+ option.
Dagster uses an asset-based model with lineage tracking written in code, adds a hosted Dagster+ option, and has an uncertain roadmap after its announced merger with Prefect.
Prefect
A workflow orchestration tool for scheduling, retrying and observing Python data and ML pipelines.
Prefect defines flows with plain Python decorators and adds built-in retries, with some features belonging to its paid hosted platform instead of a visual designer.
Node-RED
Visual flow-based programming tool for wiring together automations and APIs.
Node-RED keeps a visual drag-and-drop flow editor but is aimed at wiring automations and APIs rather than tracking data provenance between systems.
Luigi
A Python tool from Spotify for building, scheduling and visualising pipelines of batch jobs.
Luigi chains Python batch jobs with automatic dependency resolution and Hadoop support, but has no visual flow designer and is not built for event-driven flows.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Flyte
An open-source orchestration platform for durable data, machine learning and AI agent workflows written in Python.
Windmill
An open-source, self-hostable platform for turning scripts into workflows, internal apps and scheduled jobs.
n8n
Source-available workflow automation platform with AI nodes and self-hosting.
Conductor
An open-source, event-driven workflow engine for durable execution of application and AI agent workflows.
huginn
Build self-hosted agents that watch for events and trigger actions.
