Avoiding Over-Engineering: Discovering Apache NiFi
By Jaime Meza • Feb 17, 2025
I recently found myself at risk of over-engineering a solution for a new project. Initially, I planned to design and develop the entire application from scratch, thinking it would take a severa months. At one point, I even considered outsourcing parts of the project to a third party, which would have added extra costs but possibly saved development time.
After a few days, I realized there are existing tools that do exactly what I need. Even better, they’re open-source. One of these tools is Apache NiFi, which can handle the data flow requirements I’m dealing with. This week, I plan to test NiFi to ensure it supports all the features I need, including:
- API authentication
- Pagination handling
- Field mapping between systems
- Data flow conditions and transformations
- Database connections
- Error handling and retries
- Monitoring and alerting
If Apache NiFi meets all these requirements, I will have saved months of development time by not reinventing the wheel. Additionally, I will explore MuleSoft and other similar platforms to compare their capabilities and pricing.
Lesson Learned
Before jumping into building a complex system from scratch, it’s crucial to evaluate existing solutions—both open-source and proprietary. Taking time to analyze trade-offs like cost, development effort, and feature sets can prevent unnecessary complexity. Sometimes, the best solution is already available, ready to use, and far more refined than anything you could build from scratch.