With close to 200 different solutions for data integration out there, choosing the right one is like stepping into a bustling market with a myriad of vendors—each promising seamless connectivity. Except, you have to do your own due diligence to identify the solution that caters to your organization’s needs most effectively. So, in this article, we’re going to compare Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera, three of the best data integration tools, to help you make an informed decision.

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Overview

Airbyte

Finally, Airbyte is primarily an open-source data replication solution that leverages ELT to replicate data between applications, APIs, data warehouses, and data lakes. Being an open-source solution means users can customize and extend their pipelines. Like other data integration platforms, Airbyte features a visual UI with built-in connectors.

Fivetran

Fivetran is a cloud-based data movement platform that relies solely on ELT to move data between two systems. It’s an automated data synchronization solution that syncs data from different databases, APIs, applications, and other structured data sources into data warehouses and lakes for analytical purposes. Fivetran can be an ideal solution for businesses that only need to move data between sources and destinations without massively transforming it.

Astera

Astera is an end-to-end data integration and management platform that features a 100% no-code UI that delivers a consistent user experience across its suite of applications. The result? A simple, easy-to-use platform that allows all users, regardless of their technical expertise, to build fully automated data pipelines based on ETL or ELT. These data pipelines enable users to establish native connectivity to a wide range of endpoints, including files such as PDFs, XML, Excel, etc., databases and data warehouses, whether on-premises or in the cloud, data lakes, cloud storages, web applications, as well as data visualization and BI tools, consolidating their company-wide data.

 

 

Comparing Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera

 

 

 

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Data Integration

Airbyte

Airbyte is primarily a data replication tool that enables its users to extract data from their source systems and load it into their target systems. In other words, Airbyte facilitates data extraction and loading between systems, with transformation being optional and only possible, via external services or integrations, after the data is loaded into the destination system.

Therefore, Airbyte can be a good solution for businesses that only need to sync data between their systems without substantially transforming it. It is certainly not the solution of choice for organizations looking for an end-to-end data integration solution, especially those that frequently need to transform their data before moving it to their data warehouses or lakes.

Related read: the best Airbyte alternatives in 2024.

Fivetran

Similar to Airbyte, Fivetran lacks broader data management capabilities as it relies on ELT to “move” data between systems. Put simply, the platform’s focus is on moving data from a data source to a target destination as quickly as possible. This means that the data can only ever be transformed once it’s in the destination system. While this can be beneficial in some scenarios, for example, for SaaS companies that want to analyze data from their applications, the solution is far from ideal for large enterprises that need to transform and integrate all their data to achieve a single source of truth.

Astera

Whereas Fivetran and Airbyte rely on ELT to replicate and sync data, Astera uses both the ETL and ELT data integration techniques to integrate data in the true sense. With Astera, users have the flexibility of choosing between either, depending on their requirements. Astera’s pre-built transformations simplify and accelerate the ETL pipeline development process significantly, enabling users to take charge of their own data integration projects without relying too much on IT.

TL;DR: If your business use case requires that you transform your data before loading it into the destination system, consider Astera. On the other hand, if the sequence of data transformation is not a major factor, it ultimately comes down to how much of a hassle your data teams are willing to get into and your budget. While both Fivetran and Airbyte support post-loading data transformation, you’ll have to use dbt, which can increase your costs significantly, especially if you have multiple developers working on your data integration pipelines. With Astera, however, there’s no need for any sort of external integrations for data transformation.

 

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Data Warehousing

Airbyte

As far as data warehousing is concerned, Airbyte only supports it in terms of providing connectivity to sources and destinations. This means that while Airbyte users can extract and load data into data warehouses supported by the platform, there’s no way to create a custom data warehouse using the platform.

Fivetran

Fivetran, being a data movement platform, majorly supports data warehouses as destinations. This means it doesn’t support all major data warehouses as sources, which can be a significant downside for many potential customers.

Astera

Not only does Astera offer native, bi-directional connectors for major data warehouses, but it also provides a platform to build a custom data warehouse from scratch without writing a single line of code. The user-friendly and intuitive UI keeps the process simple for business and technical users alike.

TL;DR: If your business requirements are limited to loading data into a data warehouse, then it’s mostly a question of how effectively and efficiently a solution caters to them. However, if you anticipate building a data warehouse in the future, choose Astera.

 

 

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Data Quality

Airbyte

Unlike other data integration tools, like Astera, Airbyte does not provide built-in functionality for data quality management. Instead, it relies on external services, such as dbt and re_data, to identify data quality issues on data ingestion pipelines. In some instances, users need to use multiple different dbt packages to transform their data the way they want, which can quickly become tedious.

Fivetran

Fivetran also relies on dbt for data transformation and, therefore, any improvements to data quality. The fact that it’s a simple data movement platform means that its users can only improve the quality of their data sets once they are in the destination systems.

While this may appeal to some users, this separation is not always an ideal solution. For instance, some data transformations require complex logic or intricate operations that are more efficiently handled closer to the source during the extraction or loading phase. Additionally, post-loading transformations consume resources in the destination system, which might lead to increased costs, especially when dealing with large data sets.

Astera

In contrast to both Airbyte and Fivetran, Astera offers comprehensive data quality features built right into its platform. This means that there’s no requirement for any external integrations to improve data quality. Users can easily clean, validate, and standardize data, apply custom data quality rules to their data sets even at the record level, and get insights into data quality issues via data profiling and by creating detailed logs for erroneous records.

TL;DR: If your organization requires improving data quality before loading data into its enterprise data warehouse, opt for a data management solution with built-in data quality management, such as Astera.

 

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Customer Support and Documentation

Airbyte

Airbyte offers varying levels of customer support for its offerings—community, professional, and enterprise. Airbyte’s users that opt for open-source version are mostly on their own when it comes to fixing bugs and finding workarounds. It offers its enterprise-level support only to its enterprise customers. Airbyte only offers limited support hours, i.e., 12 hours per day, 5 days a week.

While Airbyte does maintain documentation, it’s certainly not amongst the more extensive ones.

Fivetran

Compared to Airbyte, Fivetran offers 24/7 support for all its customers via a dedicated “team of technical specialists.” Fivetran support is available via email, call, and live chat. Additionally, Fivetran claims 1 hour response time for its customers using either the Standard, Enterprise, or Business Critical plans. However, Fivetran users on popular forums like Reddit frequently report subpar customer support from Fivetran.

Fivetran also maintains documentation on its website that can help users with their basic questions.

Astera

Astera is recognized for its outstanding customer support and has consistently received awards for its relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction. It offers the same level of 24/7 customer support to all its customers. Users can get support over the phone, via email, as well as through live chat. Astera also provides additional on-demand training highly tailored to its customers’ most immediate needs.

Additionally, business users can benefit from Astera’s Data Academy and hone their data skills as they continue to use its products. Astera’s documentation covers its entire suite of products, their functionalities, and use cases in detail.

TL;DR: With the growing reliance on third-party data integration solution providers, organizations expect proactive customer support. This means timely responses to queries, proactive issue resolution, and a customer-centric approach that aligns with their evolving needs. While all three offer varying levels of customer support, Astera stands out with its unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction, proven by its award-winning track record.

 

Airbyte vs Fivetran vs Astera: Pricing

Airbyte

Airbyte’s open-source version is free for basic use cases with limited volume and features, but users must pay for the infrastructure needed to operationalize the connectors. For Airbyte Cloud, the company uses volume-based pricing, which depends on the number of rows and the amount of data replicated. Finally, Airbyte Self-Managed will have users paying for support and enterprise features while hosting Airbyte on their own infrastructure.

Calculating the actual total cost of using Airbyte can be very difficult, given its use of “credits.” One credit costs $2.5; however, it’s not immediately clear how many rows or how much data synced from what kind of source will lead to the consumption of 1 credit.

Fivetran

Compared to Airbyte, and in addition to its free, albeit basic, version, Fivetran uses a different pricing mechanism—MAR or monthly active rows. MARs are, in fact, the unique identifiers, or primary keys, that Fivetran uses to track transfers from a user’s source system to their destination each month. These keys are counted separately for each account, destination, connector, and table. This means that users are charged for monthly distinct primary keys that are inserted, updated, or deleted via its connectors.

Additionally, Fivetran has multiple pricing plans, which vary by the number of connectors, the security and governance features, and sync frequency. Once again, the problem here is the formidable challenge of accurately estimating the actual cost of using the platform.

Astera

In contrast to Airbyte and Fivetran, Astera offers 100% transparency when it comes to pricing. It follows an annual license-based pricing model where the customers are fully aware of how much they will be charged. The cost of this license mostly depends on the number of connectors, the computing requirements, and number of users. The license can be renewed every year.

TL;DR: If you are associated with a small business with a limited number of rows and amount of data to integrate, volume-based pricing can be very cost-effective as long as you continue to monitor your usage. However, if you have multiple sources and destinations with frequent data movement, volume-based pricing can easily get out of hand. In this case, considering a solution with more scalable and predictable pricing, such as flat-rate or subscription-based options, will certainly be more economical.

 

 

The Astera Advantage

Compared to Airbyte and Fivetran, Astera offers a unique value proposition to businesses of all sizes. It’s an end-to-end data platform that caters to multiple aspects of data integration and management, covering diverse use cases. On the other hand, Airbyte and Fivetran only cater to a few use cases, all of which are based on ELT.

From data integration to API management to building a custom data warehouse, Astera provides a unified and 100% no-code platform for all your data management needs. Its ability to transform data and improve its quality without requiring any further integrations significantly simplifies the process of building data pipelines. All of this is complemented by Astera’s award-winning customer support.

If you’re looking to implement an end-to-end data integration solution for your organization, try Astera. Download a 14-day free trial or sign up for a demo.