Luigi vs Prefect

Luigi is a free Python package for building and coordinating pipelines of batch jobs. It manages dependencies, workflow execution, visualization, failure handling and command-line integration. The documentation presents it as workflow plumbing for long-running work such as Hadoop jobs, database transfers and machine-learning jobs, including pipelines with thousands of tasks that can take days or weeks. Documented systems include Hadoop, Hive, Pig, Spark, HDFS, databases and local files. A Luigi server provides a web interface for searching and filtering tasks, while its HDFS and local filesystem abstractions support atomic file operations. The project instructs users to install the latest stable version with `pip install luigi`; TOML configuration is available through the optional `luigi[toml]` installation. The repository says Python 3.10 through 3.14 are tested and identifies Apache-2.0 as the license. Luigi is self-hosted, and Spotify's Data Team maintains the project. A mailing list is linked for discussion and questions. Its security policy directs people to report sensitive issues through Spotify's bug bounty program rather than GitHub.

Prefect is a workflow orchestration platform for data, machine learning and agent workflows written in Python. Its open-source framework lets users add decorators to existing Python code to create workflows, without a rigid DAG structure or custom DSL. Execution features include state tracking, automatic retries, caching and recovery from failures. For observability, Prefect provides run timelines, logs and alerts for failures, missed SLAs and late runs. Workflows can run on cron or event-driven schedules, support backfills, and be triggered by webhooks, cloud events or state changes. Deployment choices include managed serverless execution, hybrid execution in a customer’s infrastructure, and self-hosted orchestration. In hybrid mode, workers connect through outbound-only connections while code and data stay in the customer’s infrastructure; Prefect Cloud hosts the control plane and metadata. The free Hobby plan is limited to two users, five deployments, 500 minutes of monthly serverless credits and seven days of run retention. Paid plans start at $100/mo.