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Case Study: LIQID cuts orchestration costs 63% with managed Airflow on Astro

LIQID Case StudySourced & dated by Case Study Desk
Key facts · TL;DR
Company
LIQID
Industry
Financial Services
Challenge
High fixed Cloud Composer costs and operational rigidity for a one-person data team
Headline result
German wealth manager LIQID reduced orchestration costs by 63% and pipeline runtime by up to 98% after moving from Cloud Composer to Astro

Key results

63%
Reduction in orchestration costs
After migrating from Cloud Composer to Astro
2x
Higher compute throughput
Up to 98%
Reduction in pipeline runtime
From over an hour to under a minute

The challenge

LIQID, a German fintech managing digital wealth portfolios, ran its orchestration on Google Cloud Composer, which carried high fixed costs despite limited daily pipeline runs. The single-person engineering team also faced operational rigidity, maintenance risk, and a growing backlog.

The solution

LIQID migrated to Astronomer's managed Airflow platform (Astro) with partner Untitled Data Company, standardizing ingestion with dlt and Airbyte, introducing cost-aware micro-workers, and enabling scheduled hibernation of idle infrastructure.

“Astronomer gave us confidence in our orchestration layer. We no longer worry about upgrades or restarts, and our data pipelines just run.”

JL
Jeffrey Lek
Head of Data, LIQID

The results, in context

After migrating to Astro, LIQID reported a 63% reduction in orchestration costs and 2x higher compute throughput. Pipeline runtimes fell by up to 98%, dropping from over an hour to under a minute.

Products used

Astronomer AstroAstronomer Apache Airflow