Apache Airflow vs Oracle BPM comparison

Apache and Oracle are both solutions in the Business Process Management (BPM) category. Apache is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while Oracle is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0. Apache holds a 6.8% mindshare in BPM, compared to Oracle’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Apache Airflow

Read 38 Apache Airflow reviews

7,208 Views
5,580 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Oracle BPM

Read 25 Oracle BPM reviews

1,499 Views
1,196 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Apache Airflow

Oracle BPM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Oracle BPM and Apache Airflow compete in process management and automation. Oracle BPM appears stronger for complex business processes, whereas Apache Airflow's flexibility makes it ideal for data workflows.

Features: Oracle BPM offers business process modeling with BPMN 2.0, integration with Oracle's SOA platform, and comprehensive analytics through advanced reporting tools. Apache Airflow, as a Python-based open-source platform, provides flexibility, a wide range of connectors, and excels in orchestrating ETL processes.

Room for Improvement: Oracle BPM has a steep learning curve, lacks native microservices support, and has costly pricing. Apache Airflow's dependency on DAGs limits workflow cyclicity, its UI needs updating, and it could improve on stateful step management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle BPM requires complex deployment, often on-premises, and has notable customer service delays. Apache Airflow offers cloud deployment versatility and community support, though it lacks formal technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Oracle BPM is expensive but can deliver high ROI for large enterprises, with a focus on cloud migration incentives. Apache Airflow is open-source and cost-effective, appealing to budget-conscious entities, although operational costs may arise from infrastructure needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Airflow vs. Oracle BPM Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Airflow vs. Oracle BPM

April 2025

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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 Airflow

Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle BPM

Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)

15th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Process Management (BPM) category, the mindshare of Apache Airflow is 6.8%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle BPM is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Process Management (BPM)

Featured Reviews

Kemal Duman

Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com

Enables efficient orchestration of batch processes with very good reliability

I am using Apache Airflow to orchestrate my jobs, projects, and batch ETL jobs. It manages tasks, orchestrates jobs, and helps in handling batch processes effectively, incorporating integrations like DBT and Great Expectations Apache Airflow is easy to scale and its UI improves with each release.…

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SatyajitSethy

Architect at Netcracker

Provides a complete workflow from testing to production and can handle a million concurrent requests

The user interface is very good. Once you understand it, it's easy to define rules and do any configurations. It comes with an embedded WebLogic application server, which you have to deploy automatically. Once you run the given binary, it will automatically keep everything on the backend. You'll have to create an instant database, and maintain or manage it based on the rules engine. After that, your system is ready to test. The most valuable feature is the complete workflow through the BPM, from making it available as a generated code based on the backend, deploying it in the test environment, and then going to production. Throughout the testing, everything was good. Many customers are interested in the rules engine. A lot of requests pass through BPM because it's integrated with a lot of other applications or sub-applications.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reason we went with Airflow is its DAG presentation, that shows the relationships among everything. It's more of a configuration-driven workflow."

"Apache Airflow is in Python language, making it easy to use and learn."

"Development on Apache Airflow is really fast, and it's easy to use with the newer updates. Everything is in Python, so it's not hard to understand. They also have a graphical view, so if you are not a programmer and you are just an administrator, you can easily track everything and see if everything is working or not."

"Every feature in Apache Airflow is valuable. The number of operators and features I've used are mainly related to connectivity services and integrated services because I primarily work with GCP."

"The best part of Airflow is its direct support for Python, especially because Python is so important for data science, engineering, and design. This makes the programmatic aspect of our work easy for us, and it means we can automate a lot."

"The product integrates well with other pipelines and solutions."

"Apache Airflow is easy for us to use to build machine learning models, transport data, and manage our infrastructure."

"The most valuable feature of Apache Airflow is creating and scheduling jobs. Additionally, the reattempt at failed jobs is useful."

More Apache Airflow pros

"It is easy to use in a business processing suite."

"It is quite scalable and can be applied to enterprise-level organizations effectively."

"The default Workspace does not meet all our needs and sometimes you need to create your own custom Workspace."

"The support is good."

"Currently, we define the tasks, and based on certain decision rules, the tool decides the task priorities and the time frame of the task."

"One of the most valuable features of Oracle BPM is the workflow itself. It is quite intuitive."

"What I found most valuable in Oracle BPM is that it has a lot of out-of-the-box integrations. The solution also provides a lot of adapters which is very helpful."

"It has developmental accelerators, which allow for virtually any customization needs which you may require."

More Oracle BPM pros

Cons

"The documentation must be improved."

"I would like to see it more friendly for other use cases."

"Apache Airflow could be improved with the addition of more frameworks."

"There is a minor issue with the manual work in Airflow, as everyday activities are managed manually. There is no dashboard for us to check all the Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs); a dashboard would help us analyze the work better."

"Programmatically, it's very good, and it doesn't have any competitors, but you cannot develop anything in Airflow UI. You need to develop everything within the program. In the market, other tools have come up recently as competitors to Airflow, and they also give graphical programming options, whereas Airflow doesn't provide that feature currently. All the DAGs you want to build need to be coded in Python."

"There is a need for more features on experimental evolution steps."

"The UI is a little bit outdated according to modern standards."

"The in-built package dependencies in Python have some issues in Apache Airflow, making it an area that needs improvement."

More Apache Airflow cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing structure."

"The solution needs to offer better integration with third-party systems."

"Every time we roll out a new version of processes, we have to migrate to a new process. The process of this migration was not very smooth. We later decided that it would be easier for us to stop all processes, deploy a new version and then restart."

"From my knowledge of this solution, I don't see that the Oracle BPM includes features such as the growth of discovery and process mining."

"It could have easier administration. It takes time to configure and deploy."

"We have had some issues with version migration, from one version of processes to another. We would have to call Oracle Services but on a day to day, we didn't have any issues."

"Overall, the engine and the UI both have to be made lighter."

"There are delays in offering the latest technology, so there is a need to be more responsive to technological changes."

More Oracle BPM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is on the higher side."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"Apache Airflow is open-source and free. Hyperscalers like Google (with Composer), Azure, and AWS offer managed Airflow services."

"It's open source. You can install it locally on your own system. If you are deploying it in the production system, you normally deploy it on some cloud, such as EC2 service, which would have some cost. If you are setting up a Docker container or something for Apache Airflow yourself, which is quite easy, you can do pretty much everything online."

"The cost is quite affordable."

"Apache Airflow is a cheap solution."

"The pricing for the product is reasonable."

More Apache Airflow pricing and cost advice

"We received the product packaged into the Oracle database solution."

"I don't have information on the exact cost of Oracle BPM because a different team handles that, but it's pretty high. Oracle products are very costly. I would rate pricing for Oracle BPM three out of five. Though the pricing is high, the solution has a lot of features."

"The licensing for this product is very costly. We pay for a yearly license to use Oracle BPM."

"As with all Oracle products, the licensing over VMware is an issue."

"Oracle is good, but they're still expensive compared to other vendors."

"It's pried high, this solution is expensive."

"This solution is very expensive. You are charged per license and an additional 20% for support."

"The licensing model is good."

More Oracle BPM pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - Camunda Platform or Apache Airflow?

Camunda Platform allows for visual demonstration and presentation of business process flows. The flexible Java-based option was a big win for us and allows for the integration of microservices very...

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What do you like most about Apache Airflow?

Apache Airflow is easy to use and can monitor task execution easily. For instance, when performing setup tasks, you can conveniently view the logs without delving into the job details.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Airflow?

I prefer using the open-source version rather than the enterprise version, which helps manage costs.

See all answers

What do you like most about Oracle BPM?

The solution provides extensive functionalities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle BPM?

The licensing is expensive. It needs to be more affordable, especially in the Kenyan market.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle BPM?

Oracle BPM should ensure its product is aligned with current technology by keeping up with advancements like AI. There are delays in offering the latest technology, so there is a need to be more re...

See all answers

Comparisons

Camunda vs Apache Airflow

Compared 61% of the time

IBM BPM vs Apache Airflow

Compared 9% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Apache Airflow

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Business Automation Workflow vs Apache Airflow

Compared 4% of the time

Pega Platform vs Apache Airflow

Compared 2% of the time

More Apache Airflow Competitors

Camunda vs Oracle BPM

Compared 29% of the time

SAP Signavio Process Manager vs Oracle BPM

Compared 26% of the time

IBM BPM vs Oracle BPM

Compared 13% of the time

AWS Step Functions vs Oracle BPM

Compared 11% of the time

Pega Platform vs Oracle BPM

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle BPM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Airflow

April 2025

Download Apache Airflow product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle BPM

March 2025

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Also Known As

Airflow

Oracle Business Process Management

Overview

Apache Airflow is an open-source workflow management system (WMS) that is primarily used to programmatically author, orchestrate, schedule, and monitor data pipelines as well as workflows. The solution makes it possible for you to manage your data pipelines by authoring workflows as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of tasks. By using Apache Airflow, you can orchestrate data pipelines over object stores and data warehouses, run workflows that are not data-related, and can also create and manage scripted data pipelines as code (Python).

Apache Airflow Features

Apache Airflow has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Smart sensor: In Apache Airflow, tasks are executed sequentially. The smart sensors are executed in bundles, and therefore consume fewer resources.

Dockerfile: By using Apache Airflow’s dockerfile feature, you can run your business’s Airflow code without having to document and automate the process of running Airflow on a server.

Scalability: Because Apache Airflow has a modular architecture and uses a message queue to orchestrate an arbitrary number of workers, you can easily scale it.

Plug-and-play operators: With Apache Airflow, you can choose from several plug-and-play operators that are ready to execute your tasks on many third-party services.

Apache Airflow Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Apache Airflow. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

User friendly: Using Apache Airflow requires minimal python knowledge to get started.

Intuitive user interface: The Apache Airflow user interface enables you to visualize pipelines running in production, monitor progress, and also troubleshoot issues when needed.

Easy integration: Apache Airflow can easily be integrated with cloud platforms (Google, AWS, Azure, etc).

Visual DAGs: Apache Airflow’s visual DAGs provide data lineage, which facilitates debugging of data flows and also aids in auditing and data governance.

Flexibility: Apache Airflow provides you with several ways to make DAG objects more flexible. At runtime, a context variable is passed to each workflow execution, which is quickly incorporated into an SQL statement that includes the run ID, execution date, and last and next run times.

Multiple deployment options: With Apache Airflow, you have several options for deployment, including self-service, open source, or a managed service.

Several data source connections: Apache Airflow can connect to a variety of data sources, including APIs, databases, data warehouses, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Apache Airflow solution.

A Senior Solutions Architect/Software Architect says, “The product integrates well with other pipelines and solutions. The ease of building different processes is very valuable to us. The difference between Kafka and Airflow, is that it's better for dealing with the specific flows that we want to do some transformation. It's very easy to create flows.”

An Assistant Manager at a comms service provider mentions, “The best part of Airflow is its direct support for Python, especially because Python is so important for data science, engineering, and design. This makes the programmatic aspect of our work easy for us, and it means we can automate a lot.”

A Senior Software Engineer at a pharma/biotech company comments that he likes Apache Airflow because it is “Feature rich, open-source, and good for building data pipelines.”

Apache

The Industry's Most Complete and Unified BPM Solution A complete solution for all types of processes that provides a unified process foundation, user-centric design, and social BPM interaction. Reduces complexity and risk and increases business efficiency, visibility, and agility.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Agari, WePay, Astronomer

State Revenue Office Victoria, New South Wales Health, REDISA, Panduit, Total E&P Indonesie

Buyer's Guide

Apache Airflow vs. Oracle BPM

April 2025

Free Report: Apache Airflow vs. Oracle BPM

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