Software Alternatives & Reviews

Node-RED VS Apache Airflow

Compare Node-RED VS Apache Airflow and see what are their differences

Node-RED

Node-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.

Apache Airflow

Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.
  • Node-RED Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-23
  • Apache Airflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17

Node-RED

Categories
  • DevOps Tools
  • Automation
  • API Tools
  • CI
Website nodered.org  
Pricing URL Official Node-RED Pricing  
Details $

Apache Airflow

Categories
  • Workflow
  • Workflow Automation
  • Data Pipelines
  • ETL
  • Automation
Website airflow.apache.org  
Pricing URL-
Details $

Node-RED videos

Intro to Node-RED: Part 1 Fundamentals

Apache Airflow videos

Airflow Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course in 2 Hours 2022

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Node-RED and Apache Airflow)
Automation
42 42%
58% 58
Workflow Automation
0 0%
100% 100
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Web Service Automation
24 24%
76% 76

User comments

Share your experience with using Node-RED and Apache Airflow. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Node-RED and Apache Airflow

Node-RED Reviews

10 n8n.io Alternatives
Node-RED is a flow-based development and programming tool for visual programming presented in the market by IBM for wiring together online services and hardware devices as part of the internet of things. Web browser-based flow editor is available over this software to create JavaScript functions, and elements of apps can be saved or shared for using reprocess. Back in 2016,...
Open Source Internet of Things (IoT) Platforms
Node-RED is a visual tool for lining the Internet of Things, i.e., wiring together hardware devices, APIs, and online services in new ways. Built on Node.js, Node-RED describes itself as “a visual means for wiring the Internet of Things.”
9 Home Automation Open-Source Platforms for Your projects
If you would like to know how to build your own home automation system with Node-RED, Raspberry Pi, ESP8266 and Arduino, I’ve just released a new course on this subject: Build an Home Automation System for $100.

Apache Airflow Reviews

A List of The 16 Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose Them
Apache Airflow is an open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. The platform features a web-based user interface and a command-line interface for managing and triggering workflows.
15 Best ETL Tools in 2022 (A Complete Updated List)
Apache Airflow programmatically creates, schedules and monitors workflows. It can also modify the scheduler to run the jobs as and when required.
Python & ETL 2020: A List and Comparison of the Top Python ETL Tools
When does Apache Airflow make sense? If you're performing long ETL jobs or your ETL has multiple steps, Airflow will let you restart from any point during the ETL process. That being said, Apache Airflows IS NOT a library, so it has to be deployed and may make less sense on small ETL jobs.
Source: www.xplenty.com
Comparison of Python pipeline packages: Airflow, Luigi, Gokart, Metaflow, Kedro, PipelineX
Not designed to pass data between dependent tasks without using a database. There is no good way to pass unstructured data (e.g. image, video, pickle, etc.) between dependent tasks in Airflow.
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Node-RED should be more popular than Apache Airflow. It has been mentiond 119 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Node-RED mentions (119)

  • IFTTT is killing its pay-what-you-want Legacy Pro plan
    Https://n8n.io/, https://github.com/huginn/huginn, https://automatisch.io/, https://www.activepieces.com/ and theres a lot more... I've used n8n, node-red, and huginn (a while back), but imo n8n has been the simplest off the shelf. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Pipe Dreams: The life and times of Yahoo Pipes
    I skipped to chapter 9 in the article ("Clogged"), and it looked like Pipes failed because it didn't have a large enough team or a well-defined mission. As a result they couldn't offer a super robust product that would lure in enterprise users. "You could not purchase some number of guaranteed-to-work Pipes calls per month" is the quote from the article. The reason I think that interesting is because that's the... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • n8n.io - A powerful workflow automation tool
    I believe Node-RED (https://nodered.org/) the way to go. It's just an NPM package to install and you can run it how ever you wish (even on Windows). It has a friendly and helpful community with even the main developers tirelessly answering even beginner level questions. In fact the community forum its THE friendliest forum I've ever been a member of by a large margin. Node-RED's development is supported by the JS... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Loops and conditional branching (IF then else) in ComfyUI?
    Does anyone know if their are plans to implement something like this (or if there are already custom nodes out there). I'd like to experiment with things like looping and incrementing values (like a for loop) for a Ksampler for example. It's only an example though, so I am not looking for a ksampler specific solution; just a generic way to have a variable (e.g. Seed value), run some nodes that use that value,... Source: 6 months ago
  • Show HN: List (OPML) of Hacker News Users Personal Blogs
    I've been playing around with Node-RED[1] for a while and thought I would recreate this using Node-RED (also being a big fan of Node-RED). The flow[2], i.e. code, is online to have a look at (editable but not deployable) and the feed[3] is cached and updated every hour or so. It's only a small Heroku server so it might well be down or about to crash, I make no promises! Thanks to the OP for the inspiration, I did... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
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Apache Airflow mentions (65)

  • The 2024 Web Hosting Report
    For the third, examples here might be analytics plugins in specialized databases like Clickhouse, data-transformations in places like your ETL pipeline using Airflow or Fivetran, or special integrations in your authentication workflow with Auth0 hooks and rules. - Source: dev.to / 13 days ago
  • Best ETL Tools And Why To Choose
    Apache Airflow is an open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows. The platform features a web-based user interface and a command-line interface for managing and triggering workflows. Source: 4 months ago
  • Simplifying Data Transformation in Redshift: An Approach with DBT and Airflow
    Airflow is the most widely used and well-known tool for orchestrating data workflows. It allows for efficient pipeline construction, scheduling, and monitoring. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Share Your favorite python related software!
    AIRFLOW This is more of a library in my opinion, but Airflow has become an essential tool for scheduling in my work. All our ML training pipelines are ordered and scheduled with Airflow and it works seamlessly. The dashboard provided is also fantastic! Source: 5 months ago
  • Ask HN: What is the correct way to deal with pipelines?
    I agree there are many options in this space. Two others to consider: - https://airflow.apache.org/ - https://github.com/spotify/luigi There are also many Kubernetes based options out there. For the specific use case you specified, you might even consider a plain old Makefile and incrond if you expect these all to run on a single host and be triggered by a new file... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Node-RED and Apache Airflow, you can also consider the following products

n8n.io - Free and open fair-code licensed node based Workflow Automation Tool. Easily automate tasks across different services.

ifttt - IFTTT puts the internet to work for you. Create simple connections between the products you use every day.

Zapier - Connect the apps you use everyday to automate your work and be more productive. 1000+ apps and easy integrations - get started in minutes.

Microsoft Power Automate - Microsoft Power Automate is an automation platform that integrates DPA, RPA, and process mining. It lets you automate your organization at scale using low-code and AI.

Make.com - Tool for workflow automation (Former Integromat)

Huginn - Build agents that monitor and act on your behalf. Your agents are standing by!