Fivetran vs dbt comparison

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dbt

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Fivetran and dbt compete in the data management category, with Fivetran focusing on data integration and dbt on data transformation. dbt has a slight advantage due to its robust feature set and in-depth data modeling capabilities.

Features: Fivetran offers seamless data integration, automated data pipelines, and reliable data movement. dbt provides advanced data transformation, complex data modeling, and powerful version control and testing capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fivetran emphasizes ease of deployment with minimal setup and extensive support during integration. dbt requires a more complex setup but offers detailed documentation and strong community support.

Pricing and ROI: Fivetran offers an attractive pricing model beneficial for simple data integration tasks, providing clear ROI through time savings. dbt, while higher in initial cost due to setup complexity, offers significant ROI in terms of data precision and transformation.

To learn more, read our detailed Fivetran vs. dbt Report (Updated: December 2025).

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Fivetran vs. dbt

December 2025

Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

dbt

Ranking in Data Integration

27th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Quality (17th)

Fivetran

Ranking in Data Integration

13th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Replication (3rd), Cloud Data Integration (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of dbt is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fivetran is 1.7%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fivetran	1.7%
dbt	1.7%
Other	96.6%

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Shubham-Agarwal

Manager Projects at Cognizant

Incremental data models have cut full refresh time and support trusted executive reporting

I am not very familiar with dbt's version control system. I cannot identify any improvements in dbt because I am still exploring more functionality. I have been working with dbt for only three years, so I am exploring more functionalities and cannot see any limitations or improvement areas at this time. In the past, I used the seed functionality, which is used to load raw files, individual files, or static files into the database. Going forward, if dbt can improve or implement more features on the seed side, that would be beneficial, especially when we have large files available that take time to load the data into Snowflake database.

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Hafiz Usman

Team Lead Data Engineer at Data Pilot

Has accelerated data integration workflows and supports seamless development of custom connectors

I've worked extensively with Fivetran, mainly used for extraction purposes, and I've worked with the transformation element in it as well. Fivetran not only has built-in connectors but also provides SDK connectors, allowing us to develop our own connectors in an easy manner. I don't have to write raw Python scripts or dumping scripts; it offers straightforward examples and guidelines, making it much simpler to develop custom connectors inside Fivetran. We've been able to develop many custom connectors as well, which is unique and beneficial for having everything centralized instead of having those connectors located elsewhere. One of the best features by Fivetran is its clean, simple, and intuitive UI. It includes a transformation section where I can deploy my DBT queries and scripts. It also supplies good tracking capabilities for billing estimates and user permissions, allowing for customization to the desired level. The number of connectors it has remains a standout feature, and within connectors, the options available are very helpful. Although it sometimes appears static due to its built-in nature, it offers good flexibility for data transformation and caching, which I appreciate because it saves us extensive script-writing time.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The product is developer-friendly."

"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, and we can do it in-house with the skillset we already have."

"Since we migrated from SSIS to dbt model architecture, it takes around four hours only to complete a full refresh, and the client is now happy because our downtime was drastically reduced when we perform a complete refresh of the data."

"Fivetran is an easy-to-deploy solution for organizations looking at integrating a wide variety of data sources."

"You can manage all of your connectors individually, which gives you a very good ability to trace which one of your ETL processes is running and when."

"The portal is very intuitive and easy to use."

"The ease of setting up the connectors and transformations is highly valuable."

"Fivetran's most valuable feature is replication."

"The compare feature is the most valuable piece of it."

"SysTrack load is the best feature."

"Fivetran provides time savings, cost reductions, and improvements in data quality, and when the time investment decreases, fewer developers are needed, which means significant savings."

More Fivetran pros

Cons

"Since dbt has a license cost, if a company is small and does not have much budget, they can explore other tools because there are other tools that provide the same functionality at a lower cost."

"Dbt is not as stable as preferred, as it has had a few outages in the current year itself, so improvement should be made in the outages section as it is not stable."

"The solution must add more Python-based implementations."

"dbt can be improved as I find the co-pilot in dbt is not very good, and my team has tried using it but opted to move off it and use other co-pilots such as GitHub."

"There was a random change to our contract in a unilateral manner after the first year. The overall cost of using Fivetran was then unclear and this is the reason I would not recommend this solution."

"The customization could improve because Fivetran gives more thought to people who don't want to manage analytics workflows rather than engineers who want to be able to customize pipelines more thoroughly."

"This solution needs to improve its real-time data and transformation availability."

"The solution is very expensive. I would like to have a better integration of the solution with Azure."

"We use a separate tool for "reverse ETL", which is the opposite of what Fivetran does; it pushes data from your data warehouse back out to business applications. If Fivetran pulls data from those same applications, they should also enable users to push it back. I would love to do both ETL and reverse ETL in the same tool."

"Fivetran would be improved by adding the ability to integrate the data from third-party APIs."

"Fivetran could improve in the area of customization, especially in how they socialize their tools."

"Their pricing has increased over the years, so it's not seen as an advantage anymore."

More Fivetran cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is affordable."

"The pricing model is okay and mid to large companies will not have an issue with it."

"I don't have the exact information, but I know it is high, and it is on a yearly basis. There is no additional cost for what we're doing. We're always open to doing things cheaper, so we might potentially implement a different solution."

"When you have a lot of workflows and complex use cases, pricing goes down as you use it more."

"I can't give exact amounts because that's based on usage, but it's more expensive than some of its competitors."

"Fivetran is very expensive, and its database-driven pricing model is outdated."

"I would say they're a little bit on the expensive side, and their contract process is not particularly good, but there is a lot of potential flexibility."

"The licensing costs are extremely high for the usage of somebody who has one GB or two GB of usage per day for real-time traffic. There are many other players in the market which are similarly priced or competitively priced. On average per month, it used to come around 12,000-15,000 USD, which is very high."

"The solution is affordable."

More Fivetran pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for dbt?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was simple enough.

What needs improvement with dbt?

dbt can be improved as I find the co-pilot in dbt is not very good, and my team has tried using it but opted to move off it and use other co-pilots such as GitHub. Additionally, the debugging capab...

What is your primary use case for dbt?

My main use case for dbt is for data transformation and data engineering.A specific example of how I use dbt for data transformation and engineering is that we use it to connect and ingest data fro...

What's the deal with the HVR software acquisition?

As a user of HVR Software I followed this deal closely. Fivetran is apparently trying to establish more in its sector and by buying an already established data replication software, they become som...

Does HVR Software provide reliable insights?

I honestly can't think of another data replication software that can give you better statistics and insight than HVR Software. There's the feature for topology and statistics and both of them can ...

How much traffic can HVR Software handle?

As someone who works at a company where a high volume of information is replicated and has tried several data replication softwares, I can tell you that you're looking at the right one. HVR Softwar...

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs dbt

Comparisons

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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs dbt

Compared 7% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs dbt

Compared 7% of the time

Tobiko vs dbt

Compared 7% of the time

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AWS Database Migration Service vs Fivetran

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle GoldenGate vs Fivetran

Compared 6% of the time

SSIS vs Fivetran

Compared 5% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Fivetran

Compared 5% of the time

Denodo vs Fivetran

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Download dbt product report

Data Integration

January 2026

Download Fivetran product report

January 2026

Overview

dbt is a transformational tool that empowers data teams to quickly build trusted data models, providing a shared language for analysts and engineering teams. Its flexibility and robust feature set make it a popular choice for modern data teams seeking efficiency.

Designed to integrate seamlessly with the data warehouse, dbt enables analytics engineers to transform raw data into reliable datasets for analysis. Its SQL-centric approach reduces the learning curve for users familiar with it, allowing powerful transformations and data modeling without needing a custom backend. While widely beneficial, dbt could improve in areas like version management and support for complex transformations out of the box.

What are the most valuable features of dbt?

SQL-Based Development: Facilitates transformations using SQL, streamlining the data modeling process.
Modularity: Encourages reusable components, making projects easier to manage and scale.
Version Control: Integrates with version control systems to track changes and collaborate effectively.
Testing Framework: Ensures data quality through automated tests, increasing trust in data outputs.

What benefits should you expect from using dbt?

Efficiency: Cuts down data processing times, allowing faster access to insights.
Collaboration: Promotes teamwork through shared data models and a common working language.
Scalability: Supports growing data demands by transforming complex data more flexibly and modularly.
Transparency: Provides clear documentation and lineage tracking, aiding in troubleshooting and understanding.

In the finance industry, dbt helps in cleansing and preparing transactional data for analysis, leading to more accurate financial reporting. In e-commerce, it empowers teams to rapidly integrate and analyze customer behavior data, optimizing marketing strategies and improving user experience.

dbt Labs

Fivetran, the global leader in data movement, is trusted by companies like OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer, Verizon and Spotify to centralize data from SaaS applications, databases, files, and other sources into cloud destinations, including data lakes. With high-performance pipelines, seamless interoperability, and enterprise-grade security, Fivetran empowers organizations to modernize their data infrastructure, power analytics and AI, ensure compliance, and achieve transformative business outcomes. Learn more at Fivetran.com

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Autodesk, Condé Nast, JetBlue, Morgan Stanley, OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer, Verizon, SpotifyNational Australia Bank, Saks, Cemex, Okta, Dropbox, Pitney Bowes, World Fuel Services,Lufthansa, AutoZone, ASICS, ASOS, Coupa, Databricks, Hermes, New Relic, Intercom,Canva, Honeywell, Square, DocuSign, Nandos, Oldcastle Infrastructure