Apache AirflowOpen-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows.

ZenMLAI orchestration, on the infra you choose

Comparison · MLOps Platforms · weekly run Nov 2

Apache Airflow vs ZenML

Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?

The short answer

ZenML is the stronger AI pick in MLOps Platforms: it has a visibility score of 6 versus 5.2 for Apache Airflow, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.

Choose Apache Airflow if…

You need more native integrations (98+ vs 66+)
free and open-source under Apache 2.0 license
recommended as orchestration in practical vendor-neutral stacks

Choose ZenML if…

You want the brand AI engines rank higher (6 vs 5.2)
AI answers describe it more positively (55% vs 40% positive)
You need SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 coverage
Free and fully transparent open-source option

AI visibility side by side

Latest weekly run · Nov 2

Metric	Apache Airflow	ZenML
Visibility score	5.2%	6%
Change vs last week	New	New
Rank in MLOps Platforms	#18	#14
Share of voice	1.5%	1.5%
Mentions this run	10	11
Positive in AI answers	40%	55%

The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.

Visibility score trend

Weekly runs over the last 60 days

Apache Airflow 0pp · ZenML 0pp over 0 weekly runs.

Engine by engine

ZenML leads on 2 of 3 engines

ChatGPT

5.9%

11.7%

AI Mode

4.3%

6.3%

Perplexity

5.6%

Apache AirflowZenML

Head to head in AI answers

1 engine answers name both brands

0Apache Airflow ranked higher

1ZenML ranked higher

Prompt	Engine	Apache Airflow	ZenML
What are the best MLOps Platforms tools in 2026?	ChatGPT	#14	#9

Features, pricing & fit

Dimension	Apache Airflow	ZenML
Pricing model	—	Flat tiers
Entry price	—	Free; paid from $39 / mo
Free plan	—	Yes
Deployment	Self-hosted, installed via PyPI as the apache-airflow package or deployed from Docker images.	Self-hosted open source, or ZenML's cloud. Enterprise runs on-prem or air-gapped in the customer's cloud, with data and compute staying in the customer's VPC.
Integrations	98+	66+
Compliance	—	SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001
Support	—	Community Slack, Email, Dedicated support with SLA on Enterprise, Workshops and architecture reviews on Enterprise
Founded	2015	2021
Headquarters	Wilmington, Delaware	Munich, Germany
Employees	—	11–50
Funding	—	Seed extension · $6M raised
Best for	Teams that run both data engineering and data science workflows and want to define them in Python.	Data science and ML engineering teams that want pipelines and AI agents run on their own infrastructure, and agent teams that want to find the evals they are missing.