dbt vs. Matillion vs. SAS Data Management

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.

Incentivized

Great: Need to query simpler APIs, or utilize well known services such as GSheets etc.? Matillion has got some of the best and easiest to use connectors out there. Not so great: Do you need have a competent CI/CD flow that you will be able to update / compare from Matillion as well as other sources at the same time? Good luck, you will need to be extra careful, as you might have to have a deeper dive into your servers Terminal each time you have a git conflict.

Incentivized

When data is in a system that needs a complex transformation to be usable for an average user. Such tasks as data residing in systems that have very different connection speeds. It can be integrated and used together after passing through the SAS Data Integration Studio removing timing issues from the users' worries. A part that is perhaps less appropriate is getting users who are not familiar with the source data to set up the load processes.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The user interface of your data pipelines makes it easier for people who aren’t as techy as data engineers to observe what's going on.
• Customer support is quick, not always as efficient as you would want it to be, but still.
• Nice documentation available.

Incentivized

• SAS/Access is great for manipulating large and complex databases.
• SAS/Access makes it easy to format reports and graphics from your data.
• Data Management and data storage using the Hadoop environment in SAS/Access allows for rapid analysis and simple programming language for all your data needs.

Incentivized

• 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)

Incentivized

• Matillion is brilliant at importing data -- it would be amazing to have more ways to export data, from emailed exports to API pushes.
• Any Python that takes more than a few lines of code requires an external server to run it. It would be great to have more integration (perhaps in a connected virtual environment) to easily integrate customized code.
• Troubleshooting server logs requires quite a bit of technical expertise. More human readable detailed error handling would be greatly appreciated.

Incentivized

• Requires third-party drivers to connect to common data sources like SFDC, MS SQL, Postgres.
• Debugging errors from the logs is a complicated process.
• E-mail alert system is very primitive and needs customization to make it more modern,
• Cannot send SMS alerts for jobs.

Incentivized

With the current experience of Matillion, we are likely to renew with the current feature option but will also look for improvement in various areas including scalability and dependability. 1. Connectors: It offers various connectors option but isn't full proof which we will be looking forward as we grow. 2. Scalability: As usage increase, we want Matillion system to be more stable.

Incentivized

We are happy with the software and its functionality. As a SAS-shop, DataFlux is a logical choice for complex data integration.

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

We are able to bring on new resources and teach them how to use Matillion without having to invest a significant amount of time. We prefer looking for resources with any type of ETL skill-set and feel that they can learn Matillion without problem. In addition, the prebuilt objects cover more than 95% of our use cases and we do not have to build much from scratch.

The main negative point is the use of a non-standard language for customizations, as well as the poor integration with non-SAS systems. However, there is no doubt that it is a high-performance and powerful product capable of responding optimally to certain requirements.

Incentivized

It worked as expected.

Incentivized

Overall, I've found Matillion to be responsive and considerate. I feel like they value us as a customer even when I know they have customers who spend more on the product than we do. That speaks to a motive higher than money. They want to make a good product and a good experience for their customers. If I have any complaint, it's that support sometimes feels community-oriented. It isn't always immediately clear to me that my support requests are going to a support engineer and not to the community at large. Usually, though, after a bit of conversation, it's clear that Matillion is watching and responding. And responses are generally quick in coming.

Incentivized

With SAS, you pay a license fee annually to use this product. Support is incredible. You get what you pay for, whether it's SAS forums on the SAS support site, technical support tickets via email or phone calls, or example documentation. It's not open source. It's documented thoroughly, and it works.

Incentivized

We were able to control on access and built various enviroment for implementation

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Fivetran offers a managed service and pre-configured schemas/models for data loading, which means much less administrative work for initial setup and ongoing maintenance. But it comes at a much higher price tag. So, knowing where your sweet spot is in the build vs. buy spectrum is essential to deciding which tool fits better. For the transformation part, dbt is purely (SQL-) code-based. So, it is mainly whether your developers prefer a GUI or code-based approach.

Incentivized

Because of ease of using SAS DI and data processing speed. There were lots of issues with AWS Redshift on cloud environment in terms of making connections with the data sources and while fetching the data we need to write complex queries.

Incentivized

We're using Matillion on EC2 instances, and we have about 20 projects for our clients in the same instance. Sometimes, we're struggling to manage schedules for all projects because thread management is not visible, and we can't see the process at the instance level.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• Matillion has been the backbone of my company's analytical functionalities for 10+ years, so it has a good ROI.
• The price is ok for what our company built with it, but it starts to be less competitive if the tool is not used at its fullest.

Incentivized

• We have more users who can connect to the many different data sources.
• Our users do have existing SAS programming knowledge and that can carry over.
• Business functions are starting to rely on SAS Data Integration Studio work product shortly after introduction.

Incentivized