dbt vs. Fivetran

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
dbt
Score 9.5 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.
$0
per month per seat
Fivetran
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Fivetran replicates applications, databases, events and files into a high-performance data warehouse, after a five minute setup. The vendor says their standardized cloud pipelines are fully managed and zero-maintenance. The vendor says Fivetran began with a realization: For modern companies using cloud-based software and storage, traditional ETL tools badly underperformed, and the complicated configurations they required often led to project failures. To streamline and accelerate…
$0.01
Pricing
dbtFivetran
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$0.01
per credit
Standard
$0.01
per credit
Enterprise
$0.01
per credit
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
dbtFivetran
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
dbtFivetran
Considered Both Products
dbt
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 …
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 …
Chose dbt
dbt is great because of its transformation capabilities
Fivetran
Chose Fivetran
Fivetran is a powerful data replication tool that supported use cases for organization-wide data platforms.
Chose Fivetran
Fivetran is more intuitive and easier to use than code-based ETL/ELT tools. The data modelling Fivetran performs makes the data more usable more quickly. Fivetran's dbt support and integration is unique.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
dbtFivetran
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
dbt
9.6
5 Ratings
13% above category average
Fivetran
7.1
7 Ratings
17% below category average
Simple transformations9.35 Ratings8.37 Ratings
Complex transformations9.85 Ratings5.95 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
dbt
9.0
5 Ratings
11% above category average
Fivetran
7.3
8 Ratings
10% below category average
Data model creation9.25 Ratings7.17 Ratings
Metadata management8.75 Ratings7.65 Ratings
Business rules and workflow8.05 Ratings6.86 Ratings
Collaboration9.73 Ratings8.35 Ratings
Testing and debugging9.35 Ratings7.14 Ratings
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
dbt
-
Ratings
Fivetran
7.6
8 Ratings
9% below category average
Connect to traditional data sources00 Ratings8.38 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL00 Ratings6.96 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
dbt
-
Ratings
Fivetran
6.6
7 Ratings
22% below category average
Integration with data quality tools00 Ratings6.96 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools00 Ratings6.34 Ratings
Best Alternatives
dbtFivetran
Small Businesses
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.5 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InfoSphere
InfoSphere
Score 10.0 out of 10
InfoSphere
InfoSphere
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
InfoSphere
InfoSphere
Score 10.0 out of 10
InfoSphere
InfoSphere
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
dbtFivetran
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(7 ratings)
7.8
(9 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
dbtFivetran
Likelihood to Recommend
dbt Labs
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.
Read full review
Fivetran
Mostly Fivetran can be useful for working with risk reduction operations during agile data analysis processes. I.e., in the short term the heaviest data movement operations would be safe. If you need to create an automated infrastructure for the data, the ability to create data list transformations in SQL is useful for keeping the work integrable or with schema changes. For situations that require a lot of speed: setting up the Fivetran platform is very easy, as you only need to authenticate the sources of the data to start working, and this is excellent for covering fast storage operations.
Read full review
Pros
dbt Labs
  • 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
Read full review
Fivetran
  • Easily connects to source data using delivered connectors
  • Transforms data into standard models and schemas
  • Has very good documentation to help quickly setup connectors
Read full review
Cons
dbt Labs
  • 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
Read full review
Fivetran
  • More detailed logging
  • More flexible choices for time range over which records are synced
  • More options for masking and excluding sensitive data
Read full review
Usability
dbt Labs
No answers on this topic
Fivetran
Just need to input connection info.
Read full review
Performance
dbt Labs
No answers on this topic
Fivetran
It runs pretty well and gets our data from point A to point cluster quickly enough. Honestly, it's not something I think about unless it breaks and that's pretty rare.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
dbt Labs
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.
Read full review
Fivetran
Fivetran came well with the connectors' availability and updates with the source changes. We had an idea on data requirements in our case which helped us to work out on cost implication and take a decision for Fivetran as a data provider for our organization. These were 2 places where Fivetran out-performed, other vendors.
Read full review
Return on Investment
dbt Labs
  • Simplified our BI layer for faster load times
  • Increased the quality of data reaching our end users
  • Makes complex transformations manageable
Read full review
Fivetran
  • Development cost have reduced for each connector
  • The pay-per-use model is still not out their which requires lot of overhead cost
Read full review
ScreenShots