Matillion vs. SolarWinds Task Factory

It is very well suited for ETL on the cloud. Whenever there is something that can be accomplished with no code or little code, Matillion is a good tool. However, if your pipeline requires a lot of customizations, Matillion should be avoided.

Incentivized

Since I started working with this great tool all data analysis programs have been running effectively. Implementation of projects and tasks have been effective and reliable. Data collected from each department gives us working plan on better management of various programs. The Dimension Merge SCD Transform helps us to load large volumes of data within a short period of time.

Incentivized

• We leveraged Matillion’s no-code principals to make data manipulation easy for our internal customers. People who don't know how to use SQL no longer need to. Everything in Matillion is self-explained with no or little coding.
• We connected Matillion to our data warehouse to allow people to read raw data, transform it, then write results back to their sandbox databases. The drag and drop component design allowed customers to create complex data models at the speed of thought without any risk to production data.
• With sharing capabilities between projects enabled, everyone was able to help each other when questions arose which instilled a strong sense of collaboration and community.

Incentivized

• The single most beneficial component to Task Factory is the Upsert component. If you're familiar with writing MERGE statements in T-SQL, you'll appreciate the Upsert component. Drag the component into your Data Flow and a few clicks later you have a MERGE without the code complexities.
• Where some native SSIS components leave you wanting more, Task Factory extends on many of these components as well as support for data sources not native to SSIS components.
• The number of extra components that come in the Task Factory tool kit will expand your tool belt to do just about anything you need or want to accomplish in SSIS.

Incentivized

• I think a non-CLI approach to installing and uninstalling python libraries would be nice. I mean, it isn't difficult to install a python library via Linux or CLI, but I imagine most companies don't feel comfortable allowing Matillion users to go on a virtual server and installing it themselves. Requirement.txt file for installing libraries would be simple, and maybe that could also be used to uninstall libraries as well......or maybe the library gets automatically downloaded if it is imported into a python script but the library doesn't exist.
• Python Component is lacking very much in terms of UI. It would be unrealistic for me to suggest Matillion build its own EDI, but it would be nice if a python component could connect to a local IDE. Right now, if you want to write any decent length python code, you are going to be stuck copying and pasting your code from your local IDE.
• It is also very difficult to debug in Matillion because you can't set breakpoints. Local IDE integration can resolve that.
• I would like to have more templates to copy from for certain simplistic scenarios. For instance, a template for a job that fails which sends an AWS SNS with the Job name, component it failed on, and the error message. It wasn't as simple as I thought it would be to figure out and having to use a shared job for such circumstances can be painful because you have to export a bunch of variables.
• There should be a drop down list for Global Matillion variables as it is difficult to remember at times.

Incentivized

• It was built by Pragmatic Works who sold it to SentryOne and now Solar Winds, concerned about future support. SolarWinds is discontinuing support for related products such as BiXpress.
• Had issues with connecting to certain versions of SQL Server - would fail when deploying one package - had to deploy the entire solutions.
• Occasional random failures observed with the Filter tranform.

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

Task Factory has become a key product for our use of doing ETL work in SSIS. Their custom SSIS components allow us to work simply on the data engineering side of things. We can ignore the lower level work needed to connect to disparate data sources. This allows us to work faster and provide more value to the business

Incentivized

It has been easy to train new employees who don't have previous experience with Matillion. It is quite self-explanatory. There are quite a few things that can be done with Python, however, we have not really looked into this feature much but likely will do in the future. Mostly, it is drag and drop of components and environments can be set up so easy to set up connections as well.

Incentivized

Compared to some of the other transformations I have worked with, it really is pretty simple for the type of functionality you get

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

Overall, the best vendor we currently have on the data side of the house. No issues, issues are resolved very quickly and upgrades go without any issues.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Overall it went smoothly. Had a couple of gotchas with licensing and upgrading but nothing that really stopped us.

Incentivized

Matillion ran circles around Stitch and Striim both in functionality, setup, and performance. There was no real comparison. Fivetran massively outperforms Matillion in pretty much every facet of the production from setup, maintenance, visibility, and usability. It already has the ability to connect any data source to a destination regardless of database type. Why we chose Matillion over Fivetran is that, for our current needs, Matillion provides us with the functionality that we need and a much more competitive price for a smaller company.

Incentivized

ZappySys is an alternative provider that we tested. However, we found the ease of use, set up and installation to be much simplier and quicker using Task Factory. ZappySys has a number of the same connectors but are more difficult to setup and the GUI is not as intuitive and simple to use.

Incentivized

I have been able to connect Matillion to AWS Aurora Databases, MySQL databases, Rest APIs, Files in AWS S3, etc. Being able to load all of that disparate data into one datalake has made data mining and reporting a lot simpler. I wish everything could be implemented as easily as Matillion.

Incentivized

• Saving us time reduces our need for headcount
• Allows us to collaborate on data-eng pipelines in a transparent way with non-technical stakeholders, ensuring accuracy and continuity
• Allows us a single platform to log and manage all of our pipelines to pin-point where something failed and why
• Always has a solution to very common data engineering tasks, i.e., real-time data, connectors, pre-built workflows, etc.

• We were able to support our developers with Task Factory features and reduce the development time by 40%.
• Recently Task Factory has changed their pricing module and it seems to be pretty costly for our process. Our business team has started to evaluate whether this is worth it going forward.

Incentivized