DataFlow programming[1] (which NiFi) is created to do is <i>NOT</i> the same as your typical extraction&#x2F;transform&#x2F;load (ETL) tool with a nice user interface!<p>Wikipedia says <i>Dataflow programming languages share some features of functional languages, and were generally developed in order to bring some functional concepts to a language more suitable for numeric processing.</i><p>The thing closest to Dataflow that is most commonly used is the concept of DAG operations in Spark, but Dataflow usually makes time windowing a first level concept. Spark Streaming is moving towards this type thing.<p>It is true that there is overlap with ETL tools, but that undersells what Dataflow is.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dataflow_programming" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dataflow_programming</a>