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What's the Difference Between Amazon EMR and AWS Glue?

Compare Amazon EMR and AWS Glue side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

Compare side-by-side

Comparisons
Amazon EMR
AWS Glue
Category

Analytics, Big data processing

Analytics, Data integration / ETL

Description

Easily run big data frameworks

Simple, scalable, and serverless data integration

Best for
  • Big data processing
  • Machine learning
  • ETL
  • Clickstream analysis
  • Genomics
  • ETL
  • Data cataloging
  • Data preparation
  • Data lake management
  • Event-driven ETL
Key features
  • Apache Spark
  • Apache Hive
  • Presto
  • EMR Serverless
  • EMR on EKS
  • Data Catalog
  • ETL engine
  • Crawlers
  • Job bookmarks
  • DataBrew
Pricing model

Pay per instance hour + EBS storage

Pay per DPU-hour

Free tier

No

Yes

Expert take

“EMR is the go-to for teams already invested in Spark, Hive, or Presto. EMR Serverless removes cluster sizing decisions entirely; you submit jobs and pay per vCPU-second. For teams that want SQL-only without Spark expertise, Athena or Redshift are simpler paths.”
— Didier Durand, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Glue Data Catalog is the metadata backbone for Athena, Redshift Spectrum, and EMR; it tells them where data lives and what it looks like. The ETL engine runs Spark under the hood but with serverless scaling. Use crawlers to auto-discover schemas and partitions in S3.”
— Giovanni Lauria, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

Product page

When to use Amazon EMR or AWS Glue

Use Amazon EMR when:

  • Big data processing
  • Machine learning
  • ETL
  • Clickstream analysis
  • Genomics

Learn more about Amazon EMR »

Use AWS Glue when:

  • ETL
  • Data cataloging
  • Data preparation
  • Data lake management
  • Event-driven ETL

Learn more about AWS Glue »

AWS product comparisons

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