Please note: Since I wrote this post, Wrangling Data Flows have been renamed to Power Queries, and there have been many updates in Azure Data Factory. I'm keeping this post as-is, please make sure you also read the official documentation.
In 2019, the Azure Data Factory team announced two exciting features. The first was Mapping Data Flows (currently in Public Preview), and the second was Wrangling Data Flows (currently in Limited Private Preview). Since then, I have heard many questions. One of the more common questions is “which should I use?” In this blog post, we will be comparing Mapping and Wrangling Data Flows to hopefully make it a little easier for you to answer that question.
Should you use Mapping or Wrangling Data Flows?
Now, we all know that the consultant answer to “which should I use?” is It Depends ™ 😄 But what does it depend on?
To me, it boils down to a few key questions you need to ask:
- What is the task or problem you are trying to solve?
- Where and how will you use the output?
- Which tool are you most comfortable using?
Before we dig further into these questions, let’s start with comparing Mapping and Wrangling Data Flows.