# Apache Airflow

Source: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/product/airflow/

## Indicative from-price range

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Apache Airflow on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Scheduled DAGs: 100; Peak running tasks: 50; Executor mode: LocalExecutor; Schedule density: moderate-triggers). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west).

Reference workload:
- Scheduled DAGs: 100
- Peak running tasks: 50
- Executor mode: LocalExecutor
- Schedule density: moderate-triggers

Price snapshot: 2026-10-19. Currency: USD. FX snapshot: 2026-10-19.

Configuration: Low end: 1 x basic-2vcpu-4gb (DigitalOcean, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, about $24 per server per month). High end: 1 x rise-m (OVHcloud, 12 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, about $112 per server per month).

Methodology: This range is generated automatically from public provider price lists. It has not been reviewed by a person, it is not a quote, and it may differ from the total the calculator chooses for your own workload with its AI step. Method: the calculator's offer shortlist for the reference workload (the same ranking it builds before the AI step, up to 12 offers across providers; 12 here) is priced at its monthly list price in USD. The low end is the cheapest of the per-provider from-prices below and the high end is the median server of the combined shortlist, each multiplied by 1, the smallest baseline topology (scheduler-webserver). The from-price for each provider applies the same method to that provider's own shortlist (the calculator's ranking restricted to that provider), so it is the cheapest server that ranking offers there, not a recommendation. Prices are taken from the price snapshot dated 2026-10-19; prices quoted in EUR are converted with the ECB reference rate dated 2026-10-19. Servers with fewer than 2 vCPU or less than 4 GB RAM are not priced. Only server rental list prices for the product's own servers are counted: dependencies, licences, support, traffic charges, taxes and setup fees are not included.

Price sources:
- [Amazon Web Services](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/us-east-1/index.json)
- [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
- [Google Cloud](https://cloudbilling.googleapis.com/v1/services/6F81-5844-456A/skus)
- [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/_resources/app/data/app/live_data_en_EUR.json)
- [Microsoft Azure](https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices)
- [OVHcloud](https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/order/catalog/public/eco?ovhSubsidiary=FR)
- [Servers.com](https://www.servers.com/products/scalable-bare-metal)

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring data pipelines expressed as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of tasks. It originated at Airbnb and is now a top-level Apache Software Foundation project used to orchestrate ETL, ML, and infrastructure automation workflows.

## What gets deployed with it

- PostgreSQL HA Cluster (required): Airflow metadata database dependency. Stores DAG state, task instances, logs, and variables.

## Baseline topologies

- scheduler-webserver: 1 node minimum; roles: airflow-scheduler, airflow-webserver
- scheduler-webserver-workers: 3 nodes minimum; roles: airflow-scheduler, airflow-webserver, airflow-worker

## What drives the cost

- Scheduled DAGs: DAGs that are actively scheduled and contribute to scheduler and metadata DB load.
- Peak running tasks: Maximum task instances expected to run at the same time. Primary driver for worker capacity.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does it cost to self-host Apache Airflow?

Indicative from-price range for self-hosting Apache Airflow on 1 server: about $24 to $112 per month (USD), as of 2026-10-19, for the reference workload (Scheduled DAGs: 100; Peak running tasks: 50; Executor mode: LocalExecutor; Schedule density: moderate-triggers). From-price by provider, each the cheapest server in that provider's own shortlist: $24 on DigitalOcean (basic-2vcpu-4gb, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, fra1); $49 on Google Cloud (e2-standard-2, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, us-central1); $63 on Amazon Web Services (c9g.large, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, us-east-1); $64 on OVHcloud (rise-1, 6 vCPU, 32 GB RAM, eu-west); $66 on Microsoft Azure (D2as_v7, 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, eastus); $66 on Hetzner (AX41, 6 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-central); $262 on Servers.com (dl-01, 8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM, eu-west). This is an automatically generated indicative figure from public price lists (price snapshot 2026-10-19), not a quote.

### What drives the cost of self-hosting Apache Airflow?

The sizing inputs the calculator uses for Apache Airflow are: Scheduled DAGs; Peak running tasks. Cost also depends on the number of servers and the provider chosen.

### What is the minimum number of servers for Apache Airflow?

The smallest baseline topology in the calculator's profile for Apache Airflow is scheduler-webserver (1 server). Other baseline topologies: scheduler-webserver-workers (3 servers minimum). The reference range above is computed for 1 server.

Size Apache Airflow for your own workload: https://calc.onpremeasy.com/?product=airflow

## Sources

- https://airflow.apache.org/
- https://airflow.apache.org/docs/
- https://github.com/apache/airflow