Airflow Local Development Sucks

Apache Airflow 3 presents significant challenges for local development due to its complex setup requirements, including multiple services and extensive configuration, which can be resource-intensive and time-consuming. Despite being a major release, it continues to prioritize production deployment over development ease, complicating the iterative process and debugging. In contrast, Prefect offers a more streamlined approach that eliminates the need for elaborate infrastructure by allowing workflows to run as standard Python processes without additional setup, thereby enhancing development speed and reducing costs. Prefect supports direct task execution and flexible parametrization, making it simpler for developers to test and deploy workflows seamlessly across different environments. Teams transitioning from Airflow to Prefect report substantial improvements in development speed and cost efficiency, illustrating Prefect's focus on optimizing the developer experience and reducing operational overhead.