Observed Signal · May 20, 2026 · Technical Guide · Source: DEV Community · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Neutral
Step Functions vs Glue Workflow for AWS Glue ETL
A technical guide by Aki (AWS Community Builder) comparing AWS Step Functions and AWS Glue Workflow for orchestrating ETL pipelines built around AWS Glue Jobs. The article describes both services’ architectures, features, advantages, disadvantages, and typical use cases: Glue Workflow is Glue-native, low-cost and easy to configure for Glue-only DAGs, while Step Functions offers broad AWS integration, advanced control flow (branching, parallelism), stronger observability and superior IaC support. The author explains caveats when combining the two (StartWorkflowRun lacks a .sync pattern, requiring custom polling and more complex error handling), migration considerations for moving from Glue Workflow to Step Functions, and practical decision criteria for choosing one or the other based on pipeline complexity, team structure, cost and future extensibility.
Provides practical guidance on orchestration choices for AWS-based ETL/data lake architectures; relevant to engineering decisions affecting scalability, observability, cost and future migration.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- The article compares AWS Step Functions and AWS Glue Workflow for Glue Job–based ETL orchestration.
- AWS Step Functions uses Amazon States Language (ASL), integrates with 200+ AWS services, and offers Standard and Express workflow types.
- AWS Glue Workflow is Glue-native, builds pipelines from Glue Jobs, Crawlers, and Triggers, and has no separate workflow charge beyond Glue Job costs.
- Invoking Glue Workflow from Step Functions is possible but StartWorkflowRun does not support the .sync integration pattern, so orchestration requires custom polling (GetWorkflowRun) and extra error-parsing logic.
- Migrating from Glue Workflow to Step Functions requires rewriting workflow definitions, redesigning IAM roles, and extensive testing.
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
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