Apache Airflow
The workflow-orchestration standard: 47k stars of battle-tested DAGs.
About
Apache Airflow is the industry-standard workflow orchestrator: define pipelines as DAGs in Python, schedule and monitor them at scale, with 100+ provider packages (AWS, GCP, dbt, Spark, Kubernetes...). 47.1k stars, Apache-2.0, with managed offerings on every major cloud (MWAA, Cloud Composer, Astronomer). It's the incumbent — less ergonomic than Prefect/Dagster for new Python teams, but unmatched in ecosystem, hiring pool, and production track record. If your org already runs Airflow, there's rarely a reason to leave.
What it can do
- **DAGs in Python**: version-controlled pipeline definitions
- **100+ providers**: AWS, GCP, Azure, dbt, Spark, K8s...
- **Scheduling**: cron, timetables, datasets, event triggers
- **Rich UI**: monitoring, logs, backfills, lineage
- **Managed everywhere**: MWAA, Cloud Composer, Astronomer
Setup
```bash
pip install "apache-airflow" --constraint <constraints-url>
airflow standalone # dev mode with UI at :8080
```
DAGs go in the dags/ folder. Production: Docker Compose or managed (MWAA/Composer/Astronomer). Docs: airflow.apache.org.
Prerequisites
Python 3.9+; a database (SQLite for dev, Postgres for prod). Managed service recommended for production.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 9/10
Scored 9/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: 47,149 GitHub stars (log-scaled vs catalog peers); last push 0d ago; 22 releases/12mo; 1854 open issues. Manual review: the orchestration standard, 47.1k stars, 100+ providers, managed everywhere; DAG ergonomics lag Prefect/Dagster. License: Apache-2.0.
★ 47,149 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.7/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.4/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 10.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 9.0/10
- · 47,149 GitHub stars (log-scaled vs catalog peers)
- · last push 0d ago; 22 releases/12mo; 1854 open issues
- · manual review: the orchestration standard, 47.1k stars, 100+ providers, managed everywhere; DAG ergonomics lag Prefect/Dagster
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.