Actian DataConnect vs. dbt

Actian DataConnect

dbt

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Actian DataConnect	Score 6.0 out of 10	Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)	HCL DataConnect (formerly Actian DataConnect) is a hybrid integration solution that enables users to integrate anything, anywhere, anytime. It can be deployed in on-premise, cloud, and/or hybrid environments and offers quick onboarding. With its emphasis data quality, data reuse, adaptability and self-service integration, DataConnect is designed to support rapid onboarding and deliver the fast time to value.	N/A
dbt	Score 9.1 out of 10	N/A	dbt is an SQL development environment, developed by Fishtown Analytics, now known as dbt Labs. The vendor states that with dbt, analysts take ownership of the entire analytics engineering workflow, from writing data transformation code to deployment and documentation. dbt Core is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and paid Teams and Enterprise editions are available.	N/A

Pricing

Actian DataConnect

dbt

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Actian DataConnect	dbt
Free Trial
No	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

Optional

No setup fee

Additional Details

—

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Actian DataConnect	dbt
Considered Both Products	Actian DataConnect David Byrd Sr Integration Engineer - Dual Certified in Dell Boomi Developer 1 & 2, and Actian DataConnect Chose Actian DataConnect As I stated earlier, DataConnect makes a head-to-head run against the others. It has advantages and disadvantages compared to the competitors. The choice really comes down to pricing and specific requirement needs for the project you are planning. Questions such as … Incentivized Helpful? Justin Duperre Data Management Support Specialist Chose Actian DataConnect Data Integrator was initially a part of a package deal for us with our new Student Information System. It was chosen prior to my arrival at the institution. Since I discovered we have SQL Server licenses, we have decided to use SSIS instead since I have a background in the MSBI … Incentivized Helpful?	dbt SI Sid Iyer BizOps Chose dbt dbt is very flexible and can fit into most data pipelines. This is a pro for most organizations that aren't fully bought into one platform (Google Cloud, etc.) Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose dbt Matillion is graphical versus dbt, which is SQL code-based (that, of course, is a matter of personal preference and not an objective advantage). The integrated testing, documentation generation, lineage, etc., were additional criteria that led us to choose dbt. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose dbt I actually don't know what the alternative to dbt is. I'm sure one must exist other than more 'roll your own' options like Apache Airflow, say, bu tin terms of super easy managed/cloud data transforms, dbt really does seem to be THE tool to use. It's $50/month per dev, BUT … Incentivized Helpful? Judy Campion Data Architect Chose dbt Snaplogic is great at the Extraction and Load processes of ETL. It can pull data from anywhere, even behind firewalls. So if you need to get data from various APIs, databases, files, S3, SFTP, etc it is easy to do so. However, it requires special knowledge in order to build … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose dbt I haven't come across anything like DBT before. Incentivized Helpful? YP Yoshlin Pillay Senior Data Entry Chose dbt Most ETL pipeline products have a T layer, but dbt just does it better. The transformation is on steroids compared to the others. Also, just allows much more Adhoc solutions for very specific projects. Those ETL tools are probably better on the T part if you don't need too many … Incentivized Helpful? Obed Espina Senior Data Engineer Chose dbt Airflow can accomplish the same work as dbt (data build tool), however, dbt's (data build tool) development workflow and UI can open up data transformation and modeling work to non-data engineering teams. Looker might also be able to define data models via LookML with a … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose dbt dbt is great because of its transformation capabilities Incentivized Helpful? DD Daniel Denunzio Data Architect Chose dbt dbt fits much better in our stack, where we're using specialized tools to support our ELT approach. Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Actian DataConnect

dbt

Data Source Connection

Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
	Actian DataConnect 9.5 Ratings 13% above category average	dbt - Ratings
Connect to traditional data sources	9.90 Ratings	00 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL	9.00 Ratings	00 Ratings

Data Transformations

Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
	Actian DataConnect 9.9 Ratings 20% above category average	dbt 9.7 Ratings 18% above category average
Simple transformations	10.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Complex transformations	9.90 Ratings	9.50 Ratings

Data Modeling

Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
	Actian DataConnect 9.9 Ratings 23% above category average	dbt 9.1 Ratings 15% above category average
Data model creation	10.00 Ratings	9.70 Ratings
Metadata management	10.00 Ratings	8.70 Ratings
Business rules and workflow	9.90 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Collaboration	9.80 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Testing and debugging	9.90 Ratings	8.00 Ratings

Data Governance

Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
	Actian DataConnect 9.5 Ratings 17% above category average	dbt - Ratings
Integration with data quality tools	9.00 Ratings	00 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools	10.00 Ratings	00 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Actian DataConnect	dbt
Small Businesses	Skyvia Score 10.0 out of 10	Skyvia Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	IBM InfoSphere Information Server Score 8.0 out of 10	IBM InfoSphere Information Server Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises	IBM InfoSphere Information Server Score 8.0 out of 10	IBM InfoSphere Information Server Score 8.0 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Actian DataConnect	dbt
Likelihood to Recommend	8.9 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Usability	- (0 ratings)	9.7 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Actian DataConnect	dbt
Likelihood to Recommend	I wouldn't recommend Data Integrator over SSIS, but it may be a better tool than other ETL offerings. Having a background in the Microsoft Stack, I am hesitant to recommend any other products especially in a Microsoft-centric company. If this was the only option to use, I think it does a good job at integrating systems after taking time to learn the approach. "Maps" in Data Integrator is definitely different than "process flow" philosophy in SSIS. Incentivized Justin Duperre Data Management Support Specialist Read full review	dbt (Data Build Tool) is best suited for doing the data transformation. dbt is just a transformation tool and it is not suitable for building a data pipeline which requires extraction of data and loading. dbt is well suited for SQL based transformation logic and it is less appropriate when transformation logic requires python. Incentivized Sahil Khan Data Analyst Read full review
Pros	Map multiple source and destination tables - what would be done in many steps in SSIS can be done in one or two "maps" in Data Integrator. Platform independent, cloud based, no client software. Conversion of data types, write flat files - this helps us with integrating systems. Fairly straightforward to use if the user has ETL experience. Incentivized Justin Duperre Data Management Support Specialist Read full review	user experience makes it easy to work with SQL and version control customer success team and the dbt (data build tool) community help establish best practices thorough and clear documentation Obed Espina Senior Data Engineer Read full review
Cons	Integration Manager needs better scheduling improvements. Like dependencies, and not running a process again if the prior run is still running. New connector development does not seem a priority. Incentivized David Byrd Sr Integration Engineer - Dual Certified in Dell Boomi Developer 1 & 2, and Actian DataConnect Read full review	Slow load times of the dbt cloud environment (they're working on it via a new UI though) More out-of-the-box solutions for managing procedures, functions, etc would be nice to have, but honestly, it's pretty easy to figure out how to adapt dbt macros Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Usability	No answers on this topic	dbt is very easy to use. Basically if you can write SQL, you will be able to use dbt to get what you need done. Of course more advanced users with more technical skills can do more things. Incentivized SI Sid Iyer BizOps Read full review
Alternatives Considered	As I stated earlier, DataConnect makes a head-to-head run against the others. It has advantages and disadvantages compared to the competitors. The choice really comes down to pricing and specific requirement needs for the project you are planning. Questions such as On-premise or Cloud, Security, and Specific Connectors available will drive your decision. Incentivized David Byrd Sr Integration Engineer - Dual Certified in Dell Boomi Developer 1 & 2, and Actian DataConnect Read full review	Matillion is graphical versus dbt, which is SQL code-based (that, of course, is a matter of personal preference and not an objective advantage). The integrated testing, documentation generation, lineage, etc., were additional criteria that led us to choose dbt. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Return on Investment	Our customer likes the consistent reliable integrations we have built so we [got] a definite return on investment. Problems are fairly easy to handle and rework. Incentivized David Byrd Sr Integration Engineer - Dual Certified in Dell Boomi Developer 1 & 2, and Actian DataConnect Read full review	In 3 months we re-wrote the data warehouse (15-20 sources) in dbt with 3 developers. We are using it continually for the past year with no issues. Sorry, I don't have ROI numbers but the impact was huge. Incentivized Judy Campion Data Architect Read full review
ScreenShots	Actian DataConnect Screenshots