Airbyte vs. dbt

I think Airbyte is well suited for any company that needs one tool that can move data from one or many sources into a consolidated warehousing solution. Even if it's just one source to target connection, Airbyte simplifies the ability to perform extract and load actions without having to get knee deep in python scripting.

Incentivized

If you can load your data first into your warehouse, dbt is excellent. It does the T(ransformation) part of ELT brilliantly but does not do the E(xtract) or L(oad) part. If you know SQL or your development team knows SQL, it's a framework and extension around that. So, it's easy to learn and easy to hire people with that technical skill (as opposed to specific Informatica, SnapLogic, etc. experience). dbt uses plain text files and integrates with GitHub. You can easily see the changes made between versions. In GUI-based UIs it was always hard to tell what someone had changed. Each "model" is essentially a "SELECT" statement. You never need to do a "CREATE TABLE" or "CREATE VIEW" - it's all done for you, leaving you to work on the business logic. Instead of saying "FROM specific_db.schema.table" you indicate "FROM ref('my_other_model')". It creates an internal dependency diagram you can view in a DAG. When you deploy, the dependencies work like magic in your various environments. They also have great documentation, an active slack community, training, and support. I like the enhancements they have been making and I believe they are headed in a good direction.

Incentivized

• Moves data
• open source
• connection development
• Has an expansive catalog of integrated connectors out of the box

Incentivized

• 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

• Logging can be a bit tricky

Incentivized

• 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

I was not at my company when we evaluated Airbyte

Incentivized

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 transforms - also dbt is pretty much free dependent on how you work it, also extremely scalable.

Incentivized

• Airbyte has allowed us to get away from complex python scripts and allowed us to consolidate to one tool.
• It's allowed us to cut costs and have better observability on data being moved into our environment

Incentivized

• Simplified our BI layer for faster load times
• Increased the quality of data reaching our end users
• Makes complex transformations manageable

Incentivized