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Azure Data Factory vs dbt comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.5
Users praise Azure Data Factory for improved ROI through cost savings, enhanced integration, and increased operational efficiency and satisfaction.
Sentiment score
3.9
Migrating to dbt improved efficiency, reduced costs, and enhanced data quality and governance without needing more staff.
Our stakeholders and clients have expressed satisfaction with Azure Data Factory's efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
There is operational efficiency achieved, and data quality and governance have also been achieved with modular SQL and version controlling, which reduced duplication of data and data errors.
Senior Data Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
I have seen a return on investment as it means we don't have to employ as many people.
Head of Data & AI engineering at One NZ
Since we migrated from SSIS to dbt model architecture, it takes around four hours only to complete a full refresh.
Manager - Projects at Cognizant
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Azure Data Factory support is mixed; praised for responsiveness and documentation, but some find it slow and inadequate.
Sentiment score
7.1
Users praise dbt's responsive support and active community, with satisfaction varying by service tier and resource availability.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as nine.
Senior Consultant Oracle Technologies at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The technical support from Microsoft is rated an eight out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
The technical support is responsive and helpful
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
If you type your question, you will likely find that someone has already asked it, so we do not need to contact their support directly.
Lead Software Engineer at Momentus
I would rate the technical support a nine out of ten.
Manager - Projects at Cognizant
We ran dbt Core, which is open-source, so there is no direct vendor support.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Azure Data Factory is praised for its scalability and flexibility, despite some integration issues in older tiers.
Sentiment score
7.5
dbt is scalable and effective for complex transformations, integrating well with Snowflake, and valued for handling large data sets.
Azure Data Factory is highly scalable.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
I did not experience scalability issues.
Principal Data Engineer at Oracle
The bottlenecks that we have are not coming from dbt; they are coming from Snowflake.
Principal Data Engineer at Integrant, Inc.
We were processing large volumes of financial documents, hundreds of trial balances, balance sheets, and invoice sets, and dbt handled the transformation layer without issues.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
dbt is quite scalable since it has its own feature set for incorporating business logic.
Data Architect at Envision Pharma, Inc.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Azure Data Factory is stable and dependable, despite occasional connection issues and challenges with SQL query optimization.
Sentiment score
7.8
Users praise dbt's stability, noting reliable data processing and comparing it favorably to industry leaders like Informatica and Alteryx.
The solution has a high level of stability, roughly a nine out of ten.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
I have been using Azure Data Factory for a very long time, and I did not find too many issues.
Principal Data Engineer at Oracle
Comparing it to tools I have seen in the past, such as Informatica and Alteryx, dbt can easily match up to that rating, specifically for stability.
Lead Software Engineer at Momentus
Every upgrade is a little bit of a risk for us because we do not know if the workarounds that we developed will be available for the next version.
Principal Data Engineer at Integrant, Inc.
When I conduct dbt tests, the data processed in the data warehouse performs exactly as expected.
Data Architect at Envision Pharma, Inc.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Data Factory users experience setup complexity, connectivity issues, and seek improved performance, automation, and integration with other platforms.
Users seek better integration, Python support, and stability improvements, alongside enhanced SQL, testing, setup, structure, and package management.
The ability to handle the largest volumes of data is another concern; if I have to manage more than one terabyte of data every day, I am not comfortable dealing with Azure Data Factory and had to switch to Oracle Data Integrators (ODI) because it lacks performance features.
Senior Consultant Oracle Technologies at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Incorporating more dedicated API sources to specific services like HubSpot CRM or Salesforce would be beneficial.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
Sometimes, the compute fails to process data if there is a heavy load suddenly, and it doesn't scale up automatically.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
Improvement is needed in the tool itself in terms of the copilot, in terms of covering outages, in terms of testing, and in terms of quality reasons related to governance and collaboration.
Senior Data Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
The whole data testing field is not very mature. It is not the same as software testing; for example, you have test suites, test tools, and profilers, but for data testing, it is not yet that advanced.
Principal Data Engineer at Integrant, Inc.
dbt does not have a native concept of multi-tenant or multi-standard project organization.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Azure Data Factory provides cost-effective, usage-based pricing suitable for various budgets, with expenses depending on data volume and services.
DBT is cost-effective, open-source, with manageable costs, praised for its affordability and free beginner courses.
The pricing is cost-effective.
Chief Analytics Officer at Idiro Analytics
It is considered cost-effective.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
The course content that dbt provides is free and excellent for anyone starting out.
Lead Software Engineer at Momentus
dbt is open source for its core modules.
Data Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I mentioned the cost as one of the advantages, specifically the license cost.
Data Engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology
 

Valuable Features

Azure Data Factory offers scalable ETL solutions with user-friendly interface, seamless Azure integration, robust orchestration, and effective dataset handling.
dbt offers fast, efficient SQL-based data transformation, with features like version control, templating, and testing for improved performance.
It connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier.
Sr. Technical Architect at Hexaware Technologies Limited
The platform excels in handling major datasets, particularly when working with Power BI for reporting purposes.
Data Engineer at Vthinktechnologies
Regarding the integration feature in Azure Data Factory, the integration part is excellent; we have major source connectors, so we can integrate the data from different data sources and also perform basic transformation while transforming, which is a great feature in Azure Data Factory.
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
dbt has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to create our data pipelines much faster, going from ingestion of data to creating a data product in weeks instead of months.
Head of Data & AI engineering at One NZ
There are the benefits of having code, so you have a software development lifecycle; you can use version control, testing, and documentation.
Principal Data Engineer at Integrant, Inc.
The tests, especially custom tests for financial data like validating that debits equal credits, caught a lot of our data quality issues early.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Data Integration
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (5th)
dbt
Ranking in Data Integration
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 2.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of dbt is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Data Factory2.3%
dbt1.4%
Other96.3%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

KandaswamyMuthukrishnan - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Integrates diverse data sources and streamlines ETL processes effectively
Regarding potential areas of improvement for Azure Data Factory, there is a need for better data transformation, especially since many people are now depending on DataBricks more for connectivity and data integration. Azure Data Factory should consider how to enhance integration or filtering for more transformations, such as integrating with Spark clusters. I am satisfied with Azure Data Factory so far, but I suggest integrating some AI functionality to analyze data during the transition itself, providing insights such as null records, common records, and duplicates without running a separate pipeline or job. The monitoring tools in Azure Data Factory are helpful for optimizing data pipelines; while the current feature is adequate, they can improve by creating a live dashboard to see the online process, including how much percentage has been completed, which will be very helpful for people who are monitoring the pipeline.
Harshwardhan Gullapalli - PeerSpot reviewer
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Data pipelines have improved financial accuracy and now build transparent audit-ready reports
As for something I wish we had, dbt's native support for Python transformations came later, and we did some complex financial classification calculations that felt clunky in pure SQL. We ended up writing Python in our n8n workflows and then fed the results back into dbt, which created a bit of a split-brain situation. If we would have had dbt Python models earlier, we could have kept that logic unified. Managing multiple reporting standards was our biggest operational pain point with dbt. We were running UAE corporate tax compliance and IFRS disclosure workflows simultaneously for different clients, and dbt does not have a native concept of multi-tenant or multi-standard project organization. Everything lives in one flat structure, so we had to build more conventions: separate schema folders for IFRS models versus UACT models, custom macros to tag models by compliance regime, and environment variables to control which set of transformations run for which client.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise63
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for dbt?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for dbt is that dbt is open source for its core modules, so the pricing, setup, and everything was really good.
What needs improvement with dbt?
dbt can be improved by introducing Python. Ideally, I would want to be able to orchestrate across the DAG and have both Python and SQL combined. The last time I used it, it was not able to visualiz...
What is your primary use case for dbt?
My main use case for dbt is data pipelines. I build data transformations and usually construct analytics pipelines.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
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Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. dbt and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.