dbt vs. IBM DataStage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
dbt
Score 9.0 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
IBM DataStage
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
IBM® DataStage® is a data integration tool that helps users to design, develop and run jobs that move and transform data. At its core, the DataStage tool supports extract, transform and load (ETL) and extract, load and transform (ELT) patterns. A basic version of the software is available for on-premises deployment, and the cloud-based DataStage for IBM Cloud Pak® for Data offers automated integration capabilities in a hybrid or multicloud environment.N/A
Pricing
dbtIBM DataStage
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
dbtIBM DataStage
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
dbtIBM DataStage
Considered Both Products
dbt

No answer on this topic

IBM DataStage
Chose IBM DataStage
IBM DataStage performes bettere than SSIS in every aspect. IBM DataStage performes better than SAP Data Services in terms of variables and job orchestration flexibility. It is as strong as ODI, but less complex to implement. It allows to write SQL queries as dbt and Glue, but I …
Features
dbtIBM DataStage
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
dbt
9.7
8 Ratings
19% above category average
IBM DataStage
7.7
11 Ratings
4% below category average
Simple transformations10.08 Ratings8.011 Ratings
Complex transformations9.48 Ratings7.511 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
dbt
9.1
8 Ratings
15% above category average
IBM DataStage
7.0
11 Ratings
11% below category average
Data model creation9.78 Ratings6.68 Ratings
Metadata management8.78 Ratings5.010 Ratings
Business rules and workflow9.08 Ratings7.010 Ratings
Collaboration10.06 Ratings7.011 Ratings
Testing and debugging8.08 Ratings6.511 Ratings
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
dbt
-
Ratings
IBM DataStage
8.2
11 Ratings
0% above category average
Connect to traditional data sources00 Ratings8.411 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
dbt
-
Ratings
IBM DataStage
5.5
10 Ratings
36% below category average
Integration with data quality tools00 Ratings5.510 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools00 Ratings5.510 Ratings
Best Alternatives
dbtIBM DataStage
Small Businesses
Skyvia
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
dbtIBM DataStage
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(10 ratings)
7.0
(11 ratings)
Usability
9.7
(3 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
dbtIBM DataStage
Likelihood to Recommend
dbt Labs
The prerequisite is that you have a supported database/data warehouse and have already found a way to ingest your raw data. Then dbt is very well suited to manage your transformation logic if the people using it are familiar with SQL. If you want to benefit from bringing engineering practices to data, dbt is a great fit. It can bring CI/CD practices, version control, automated testing, documentation generation, etc. It is not so well suited if the people managing the transformation logic do not like to code (in SQL) but prefer graphical user interfaces.
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IBM
DataStage is somewhat outdated for an ETL. I guess that's what makes it a bit lagged behind its competitors. It can be used for data processing, sure, but its performance seems to be lagging behind or quite slow given the server it is running from. I won’t depend on this application if it's handling a lot of mission-critical banking and business data.
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Pros
dbt Labs
  • dbt supports version control through GIT, this allows teams to collaborate and track the data transformation logic.
  • dbt allows us to build data models which helps to break complex transformation logic into simple and smaller logic.
  • dbt is completely based on SQL which allows data analyst and data engineers to build the transformation logic.
  • dbt can be easily integrated with snowflake.
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IBM
  • Connect to multiple types of data-sources including Oracle, Teradata, Snowflake, SQl Server.
  • Powerful tool to load large volumes of data.
  • Transformation stages allow us to reduce the amount of code needed to create ETL scripts.
  • Allow us to synchronize and refresh data as much as needed.
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Cons
dbt Labs
  • Field-level lineage (currently at table level)
  • Documentation inheritance - if a field is documented the downstream field of the same name could inherit the doc info
  • Adding python model support (in beta now)
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IBM
  • Technical support is a key area IBM should improve for this product. Sometimes our case is assigned to a support engineer and he has no idea of the product or services.
  • Provide custom reports for datastage jobs and performance such as job history reports, warning messages or error messages.
  • Make it fully compatible with Oracle and users can direct use of Oracle ODBC drivers instead of Data Direct driver. Same for SQL server.
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Usability
dbt Labs
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.
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IBM
Because it is robust, and it is being continuously improved. DS is one of the most used and recognized tools in the market. Large companies have implemented it in the first instance to develop their DW, but finding the advantages it has, they could use it for other types of projects such as migrations, application feeding, etc.
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Performance
dbt Labs
No answers on this topic
IBM
It could load thousands of records in seconds. But in the Parallel version, you need to understand how to particionate the data. If you use the algorithms erroneously, or the functionalities that it gives for the parsing of data, the performance can fall drastically, even with few records. It is necessary to have people with experience to be able to determine which algorithm to use and understand why.
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Support Rating
dbt Labs
No answers on this topic
IBM
IBM offers different levels of support but in my experience being and IBM shop helps to get direct support from more knowledgeable technicians from IBM. Not sure on the cost of having this kind of support, but I know there's also general support and community blogs and websites on the Internet make it easy to troubleshoot issues whenever there's need for that.
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Alternatives Considered
dbt Labs
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 there's a FREE version for 1 dev seat with no read-only access for anyone else, so you can always start with that and then buy yourself a seat later.
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IBM
With effective capabilities and easy to manipulate the features and easy to produce accurate data analytics and the Cloud services Automation, this IBM platform is more reliable and easy to document management. The features on this platform are equipped with excellent big data management and easy to provide accurate data analytics.
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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
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IBM
  • It’s hard to say at this point, it delivers, but not quite as I expected. It takes a lot of resources to manage and sort this out (manpower, financial).
  • Definitely, I don’t have the exact numbers, but given the data it processes, it is A LOT. So props to the developer of this application.
  • Again, based on my experience, I’d choose other ETL apps if there is one that's more user-friendly.
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ScreenShots