Amazon MWAA vs Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow)

Updated November 2026 · AppBreakup editorial

Amazon MWAA

AWS's managed Apache Airflow service, with provisioned and serverless options.

Paid

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Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow)

Google Cloud's fully managed Apache Airflow service, formerly called Cloud Composer.

Paid

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The short answer

Both run standard Apache Airflow as a managed service, so the choice mostly follows your cloud. Amazon MWAA fits teams on AWS and adds a serverless option billed per task. Google Cloud Composer, being renamed Managed Service for Apache Airflow, fits teams on Google Cloud working with BigQuery and Dataflow. Moving clouds just to switch Airflow hosts rarely makes sense.

Amazon MWAA or Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow): our take

MWAA and Cloud Composer solve the same problem: running Apache Airflow without installing, patching or scaling it yourself. Both take ordinary Python DAGs from object storage (an S3 bucket for MWAA, a Cloud Storage bucket for Composer) and run them on managed schedulers and workers. The differences come from the clouds around them. MWAA uses IAM for access and CloudWatch for logs, and pipelines reach Glue, EMR, Redshift, Lambda and SageMaker through Airflow's standard operators. Composer integrates with BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc and Cloud Storage plus Google's identity and networking, and can still orchestrate jobs on other clouds or on-premises.

Pricing works differently. MWAA's provisioned environments are billed by the hour for their size, for example $0.49 per hour for a small environment and $0.99 per hour for a large one in US East, plus $0.055 per hour for each extra small worker and $0.10 per GB-month for metadata storage. MWAA Serverless instead runs YAML or Python workflows on demand and bills per task, with a 1-minute minimum. Composer bills pay-as-you-go on compute units, starting at $0.06 per DCU-hour for Composer 3 in us-central1; the older Gen 2 environments have an environment fee of $0.35 per hour (small) to $0.85 per hour (large). Neither charges a licence fee.

The drawbacks are similar too. Always-on environments on both cost money even when idle, and each ties you to its cloud. MWAA setup involves VPC and IAM configuration, and Composer gets new Airflow versions later than upstream. MWAA Serverless is the main option here for small or bursty workloads that would otherwise pay for an idle environment.

Pick MWAA if your data and services are on AWS, or if per-task serverless billing suits light workloads. Pick Composer if your warehouse is BigQuery and your platform is Google Cloud. Teams spread across several clouds may prefer a vendor-neutral managed Airflow over either.

Choose Amazon MWAA if…

AWS-based data teams who want stock Apache Airflow without running it
Standard Apache Airflow, managed inside your AWS account
Serverless option billed per task

Choose Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow) if…

Data teams on Google Cloud who want managed Airflow next to BigQuery and Dataflow
Runs standard Apache Airflow DAGs
Close integration with BigQuery and other Google Cloud services

What is Amazon MWAA?

Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA) runs Apache Airflow inside your AWS account so you don't have to install, patch or scale it. You put Python DAGs in an S3 bucket and MWAA runs them on managed schedulers and workers, with access controlled through IAM and logs in CloudWatch. Pipelines can call other AWS services such as Glue, EMR, Redshift, Lambda and SageMaker through Airflow's standard operators. There are two models: a provisioned environment billed by the hour for its size plus extra workers when it scales, and MWAA Serverless, which runs YAML or Python workflows on demand and bills per task for its running time. There are no upfront commitments or licence fees. It suits teams whose data platform is already on AWS and who want stock Airflow; teams on several clouds or wanting faster access to new Airflow releases may look at vendor-neutral managed Airflow instead.

What is Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow)?

Cloud Composer, which Google is renaming Managed Service for Apache Airflow, runs Apache Airflow for you inside Google Cloud. You write the same Python DAGs you would for open-source Airflow, upload them to a Cloud Storage bucket, and Google provisions and scales the scheduler, workers, web server and metadata database. It integrates with BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Cloud Storage and Google's identity and networking, so pipelines can reach your data without extra plumbing, and it can still orchestrate jobs on other clouds or on-premises. Billing is pay-as-you-go based on the compute units an environment has provisioned plus storage, with no separate licence fee. It suits data teams already on Google Cloud who want Airflow without running it themselves; teams on several clouds may prefer a vendor-neutral managed Airflow, and small workloads can find an always-on environment costly.

Side by side

Attribute	Amazon MWAA	Google Cloud Composer (Managed Airflow)
Pricing	Paid	Paid
Open source	No	No
Self-hostable	No	No
Platforms	Web	Web
Best for	AWS-based data teams who want stock Apache Airflow without running it	Data teams on Google Cloud who want managed Airflow next to BigQuery and Dataflow
Status	Active	Active