Mage AI : an alternative to Talend Open Studio?
Since the end of Talend Open Studio (TOS) support in early 2024, CIOs and data teams have been faced with a dilemma: continue with an obsolete solution or invest heavily in a pay-as-you-go offering.
Faced with this situation, 80% of our customers who were using the Open Source version turned to us to find a real alternative to Talend Open Studio. It was against this backdrop that TRIMANE decided to evaluate Mage AI as an alternative Open Source ETL solution. Our teams tested its functionality and efficiency to see how this solution could meet the needs of companies wishing to migrate from Talend Open Studio.
This research revealed that Mage AI can meet the needs of several companies looking to migrate from Talend Open Studio.
Why look for an alternative to Talend Open Studio?
Although users who downloaded the solution before its withdrawal date can still use it, it is essential to know that this version no longer benefits from technical support or updates, exposing them to various risks.
In the medium term, users could encounter compatibility issues with new components in their IT ecosystem and, without regular updates, be vulnerable to security flaws.
The paid version, Talend Data Fabric, represents a significant cost of around €30,000 per year, prompting companies to explore more affordable and reliable data integration solutions. Consequently, considering alternatives is essential to ensure secure and efficient data operations.
What is Mage AI?
A platform created in 2021, Mage AI is an open source solution dedicated to data integration and management. It has rapidly established itself as an alternative to Talend Open Studio, winning over a large community with over 8,000 stars on GitHub. Mage AI enables users to create, deploy and manage data pipelines intuitively, facilitating the data integration process.
What are the benefits of Mage AI?
Beyond its popularity, discover the technical elements taken into account by TRIMANE in its search for a free alternative to Talend Open Studio:
- Centralized, collaborative solution: Mage AI enables centralized management of data projects, promoting effective collaboration between users.
- Lightweight web interface: its intuitive interface offers a fluid user experience, unlike Talend Open Studio, which relies on an aging architecture based on Eclipse Java, resulting in a cumbersome runtime environment and excessive resource consumption.
- Flexible deployment: the platform supports deployment in Docker containers and Kubernetes clustering, offering great flexibility to adapt to various infrastructure environments.
- CI/CD compliance: the platform is compatible with continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) tools such as Jenkins and GitLab, facilitating the automation of data workflows.
- Controlled cost: while Talend Data Fabric, Talend’s paid version, can cost an average of €30,000 per year, Mage AI, as an open source solution, offers a free alternative for companies looking to integrate and manage their data without license fees.
- Advanced orchestration capabilities: whereas Talend’s open source version often requires integration with external tools such as Apache Airflow to manage complex workflows, Mage AI integrates these capabilities natively on its platform.
Comparison: Mage AI vs Talend
Here’s a table comparing Talend Open Studio, its paid counterpart (Talend Data Integration), and Mage AI:
Mage AI ETL features
Mage AI stands out in particular for its ETL capabilities, which are essential for developers:
- Code-oriented notebooks: jobs/pipelines are presented in notebook format, offering great flexibility.
- Programming language flexibility: Mage AI allows the use of Python, R and SQL, which can even coexist in the same pipeline.
- Block-by-block execution: During development, pipelines can be executed block-by-block, avoiding the need to restart the entire flow each time a change is made. This feature saves considerable time.
- Intuitive interface: Mage AI’s interface is designed to be pleasant to use, making it easy for teams to adopt.
- Modular logic: Mage AI’s modularity makes it easier to version pipelines within a GitLab project, simplifying versioning and deployment management.
Focus on Mage AI’s orchestration functionality
Another major strength of Mage AI is its advanced orchestration functionality, which is a real advantage over Talend Open Studio (TOS). With Mage AI, pipeline execution can be triggered in several ways:
- Immediately, on request.
- Programmed: with CRON-type programming, you can select a specific time (e.g. every Monday at 8:30 a.m.).
- Via API requests, facilitating integration with other systems.
- Via AWS events: AWS-triggered events can be used to launch pipelines automatically.
Visual pipeline management
In Mage AI, instead of creating a DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) in Python as with Airflow, where each task has to be manually defined in the code, it is possible to create a block of code for each pipeline to be launched. Organizing the execution order is a simple drag-and-drop action, offering an intuitive visual interface. This feature simplifies the process, while providing a clear representation of the execution order.
Benefits of orchestration in Mage AI
These orchestration features enable users to :
- Plan and manage workflows intuitively: workflows can be created, viewed and modified without programming skills.
- Automate recurring tasks: reducing the need for manual intervention and minimizing the risk of error.
- Monitor and manage processes in real time: a solution that helps to quickly identify problems and react accordingly.
- Facilitate collaboration: promoting a collaborative approach between teams working on complex data projects.
In short, Mage AI is a modern, effective solution for companies looking for an alternative to Talend Open Studio. With its flexibility, performance and advanced ETL and orchestration capabilities, Mage AI meets the growing needs of users while minimizing licensing costs.
Conclusion
In summary, Mage AI combines modernity, lightness and power to meet today’s data integration challenges.
Whether you’re just thinking about it, or are already facing limitations with TOS, it may be time to take the next step.
To help you do so, TRIMANE offers a 3-day Mage AI discovery workshop :
- Understanding your use cases
Creation of a customized workflow
Technical demo and personalized discussion.
Book your discovery session: I’m testing Mage AI
