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AWS Database Migration Service vs AWS Glue comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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 Database Migration Service
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Glue
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of AWS Database Migration Service is 17.1%, up from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Glue is 21.3%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Avinash Gangu - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralizing database tables enhances workflow efficiency for ease of use
I was looking for some content as part of a comparison analysis. However, one of the pain points is that it is way too free-flowing. I have to skim through all the security pages to get to the crux of it. I was looking for a table that suggests which facets such services address with proofs of reference from professional conferences. The document is a 63-page read, making it very difficult to navigate without a summary. I was looking for a summary at the start, however, if I have to do it myself, I might as well integrate from AWS Docs and then Informative Exchange. The current document contains a lot of information, which is great, but there needs to be a summary indicating the story's essence. Unless there's a correction, it is not present in the document.
Muthuvel Sivaraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles a huge volume of data and is serverless, but it can be considered costly by some users
We use Amazon's services to provide technical support for the product. If you want to have support, Oracle and others offer a single support, and other tools have a direct support window. For Amazon, we need to pay 10 percent of my billing amount for the tool to get support services. Whether to raise a support ticket or not is an issue since ten percent is a huge amount. My company ends up using all the options without help from support. It is very difficult for any common man to understand why there is a need to pay ten percent for support. If I find an issue in the product, and I need to get support from AWS to fix it, then I need to pay ten percent of the tool's bill amount to Amazon. AWS is a very tricky tool because everything is evolving nowadays. AWS engineers are getting hired from other places, and even after that, if I am not getting any technical support, then things will be very nasty. There are some good engineers who help users outside the normal support cycle, but it doesn't meet their needs. I rate the technical support a four out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the features, I find most valuable is its ability to apply rules and transformations to data during real-time integration. This includes changing schema names or table structures on AWS without delaying the data flow. Initially, full migrations can vary widely in time depending on the source system; for instance, a large Magento database might take up to six months, while smaller databases like IBM DB2 could migrate within hours. Once set up, AWS DMS ensures real-time synchronization using Change Data Capture (CDC), maintaining data integrity throughout the process."
"I like that I can focus on the logic and I don't have to worry about the administration stuff. AWS handles that for me."
"AWS Database Migration Service is good for smaller workloads and provides compatibility."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"We have the ability to bring data for all tables of a database in one go, as long as the tables follow a particular naming convention."
"Support is helpful."
"If your infrastructure is already on Amazon, it simply makes the most sense to use a tool officially provided by them as an additional service, rather than having to rely on a third-party solution."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"You do not need many frameworks to run Glue."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"I like its integration and ability to handle all data-related tasks."
"I like that it's flexible, powerful, and allows you to write your own queries and scripts to get the needed transformations."
"Our entire use case was very easily handled or solved using this solution."
"Its user interface is quite good. You just need to choose some options to create a job in AWS Glue. The code-generation feature is also useful. If you don't want to customize it and simply want to read a file and store the data in the database, it can generate the code for you."
"AWS Glue is fast and managed by AWS. Hence, you don't have to worry about capacity and the performance of Glue jobs. It has integrations with other data stores of AWS. The product offers metadata management, logging, and ETL processing capabilities. It comes with a powerful feature, Glue Studio, which helps to do queries interactively within the community. It is a managed service and very secure. Another popular and mature service is S3."
"I appreciate AWS Glue for its cost-effectiveness."
 

Cons

"There are a set of complexities and challenges when a user wants to integrate AWS products with Microsoft products."
"Migrating from here and pushing the data from on-premise to AWS cloud is a big challenge and a few more services from AWS would be helpful. For example, we are currently using ILDB internet tools which move data from on-premise to the AWS cloud. A few more services would be really helpful for me to move the master data."
"Sometimes we encounter errors, and the error messages from DMS are very ambiguous and sometimes misleading."
"The cost is a concern. We use DMS because of its simplicity, but the price could definitely be more competitive."
"The names of the services need improvement since AWS doesn't indicate what the function of the product is presently. You need to read a lot to find the service that you want in the product."
"We would like to see some improvement in the performance of large scale procedures, such as when we migrate from Oracle to csSQL."
"I was looking for a table that suggests which facets such services address with proofs of reference from professional conferences."
"It would be helpful if the bandwidth could be independent of the network or if we could have a dedicated bandwidth for this product."
"Only people who can code, either in Java or Python, can use the product freely. Those who don't know Java or Python might find using AWS Glue difficult."
"It is not clear how the partition discovery would have been affected by more data coming in."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The interesting thing we found is that it was a little strange at the beginning. The way Glue works is not very straightforward. After trying different things, for example, we used just the console to create jobs. Then we realized that things were not working as expected. After researching and learning more, we realized that even though the console creates the script for the ETL processes, you need to modify or write your own script in Spark to do everything you want it to do. For example, we are pulling data from our source database and our application database, which is in Aurora. From there, we are doing the ETL to transform the data and write the results into Redshift. But what was surprising is that it's almost like whatever you want to do, you can do it with Glue because you have the option to put together your own script. Even though there are many functionalities and many connections, you have the opportunity to write your own queries to do whatever transformations you need to do. It's a little deceiving that some options are supposed to work in a certain way when you set them up in the console, but then they are not exactly working the right way or not as expected. It would be better if they provided more examples and more documentation on options."
"It fails to handle massive databases acquired from various sources."
"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."
"We face performance issues when using AWS Glue for data transformation and integration."
"The solution should offer features for streaming data in addition to batching data."
"The drawbacks associated with the product stem from the fact that, based on the data volume, it can become very costly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of pricing, I'd rate it an eight out of ten, considering it's a well-priced solution."
"The pricing can be better and it should be more competitive."
"AWS Database Migration Service is very inexpensive."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Pricing for the solution is reasonable, but could still be reduced."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Pricing can be improved."
"AWS Database Migration Service is the least expensive solution, but is still expensive."
"If you are using the solution for an enterprise business, it will be expensive."
"AWS Glue is a paid service that doesn't come under the free trial of AWS."
"AWS Glue uses a pay-as-you-go approach which is helpful. The price of the overall solution is low and is a great advantage."
"This solution is affordable and there is an option to pay for the solution based on your usage."
"The overall cost of AWS Glue could be better. It cost approximately $1,000 a month. There is paid support available from AWS Glue."
"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is based on DPUs so it is a good idea to optimize use or it can get 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What resources can you use to learn how to utilize AWS Database Migration Service?
As with all AWS products, you are given very useful documentation with AWS Database Migration Service. Before we started using this product, we went over it and we were able to learn the basics an...
Would you recommend AWS Database Migration Service as a cloud data integration tool?
My current company started using AWS Database Migration Service upon my recommendation, and I continue telling people how good of a product it is. However, users should keep in mind a few things. ...
Is AWS Database Migration Service an affordable solution?
Compared to similar solutions, AWS Database Migration Service falls somewhere in the middle price-wise, at least from my experience. This being said, it is not a very affordable solution, especial...
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

AWS Data Migration Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Veoci, Trimble, Nasdaq, shaadi.com, Hotelbeds, SysAid, Verizon, Expedia, Pega
bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Database Migration Service vs. AWS Glue and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.