Item: Matillion
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Matillion as a way to automate our manual ETL processes for getting a wide variety of data loaded into Snowflake on AWS. It is a core piece of our Data Engineering and works for us as it generates SQL (no lock-in) and works great for a startup given the low-cost profile (pay-as-you-go).

Pros and Cons

Transformation Jobs as a way to build up complicated SQL
Variety of data source connectors - we didn't think we'd need them but turns out we did
The ability to call out to bash or python as needed

Security (Auth/Azn) - auditing is really good
Difficult to structure job flow sometimes (unconditional vs failure-to-exit - which takes place first)
Management of Job variables and environments

Return on Investment

Very quickly lets us move from manual scripts to a more automated event-driven architecture
Ability to support multiple clients more easily
Integration to data sources that would take us a long time on our own

Usability

There are some aspects to developing transformation jobs (being able to sample and see the data / SQL) that are really helpful. But there are some other features that we know that they will improve upon.

Time to Value

Able to get it up and running very quickly. I did have to do a bit of reading to understand the big picture, but some of the online videos got me up and running instantly. We completely evaluated what it could and could not do in about 2-3 weeks.

Scalability

We've not pushed this but they also have the ability to scale to a cluster of servers.

Alternatives Considered

Talend Data Integration, Pentaho and SnapLogic

Talend has a much steeper learning curve. SnapLogic was too expensive but had the best set of features. We did not try Pentaho but that was next on our list.

Likelihood to Recommend

Matillion is great if you need a low-cost profile. It is extremely easy to learn and online documentation and videos are very helpful.

If you need something that fits a deeper level of integration (in terms of CI/CD), then it can add to cost (multiple instances) or just won't give you what you need.

Turned a Scrappy Startup into a Polished Engine

Overall Satisfaction with Matillion