With businesses accumulating vast amounts of data from diverse sources, there’s a need for robust data integration solutions to use the data efficiently. Data integration helps analyze the data to make informed decisions and gain a competitive edge.

The popular contenders in the realm of data integration include Airbyte, Stitch, and Estuary. If you want to build a seamless data management pipeline, these are among the best options. While these platforms offer features designed to simplify the complex task of data integration, they possess distinct functionalities that set them apart.

In the following sections, we will delve into the key parameters that set Airbyte, Stitch, and Estuary apart. Once you’ve analyzed these differences, you’ll be well-equipped to decide which platform better suits your requirements and objectives.

Company Overviews

Before we examine the differences, here’s an overview of all three platforms.

What is Airbyte?

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Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that simplifies the process of connecting data sources. What makes Airbyte stand out from other platforms is that it prioritizes support for as many data sources and destinations as possible. It achieves this with its open-source connector model and by encouraging its user community to actively contribute.

What is Stitch?

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Stitch is a cloud-based, open-source data integration service primarily operating as an ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) solution. With its 140+ connectors, you can connect to data sources, including SaaS applications, databases, and other cloud storage services.

Apart from creating data ingestion pipelines using the pre-built connectors, you can also perform basic transformations, like data type conversions, to store data in the destination. However, for more complex transformations, you can use Talend, the parent company of Stitch.

In 2018, Talend, a leading provider of cloud data integration solutions, acquired Stitch. And in May 2023, Qlik closed its acquisition of Talend, giving Qlik three different integration technologies.

What is Estuary?

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Estuary Flow is a leading DataOps platform that focuses on flexible, scalable pipelines. You can use Estuary Flow to build, test, and evolve real-time pipelines to continuously capture, transform, and materialize data across multiple systems.

If you want to unify databases, pub/sub systems, and SaaS applications in real time, Estuary Flow is your best choice. With its range of in-built connectors, user-friendly interface, and low-code requirements, setting up a real-time data pipeline will only take a few minutes.

Airbyte, Stitch, and Estuary Features At A Glance

Now that we’ve seen a brief overview of all three platforms let’s get to the comparison. This will help you analyze which is a better option for different requirements. First, here’s a comparison table that summarizes the key differences among the three platforms.

Stitch vs Airbyte vs Estuary: Processing Method

A data integration tool uses two main types of processing—batch processing and real-time stream processing. In batch processing, the pipeline periodically checks for changes in the data source and processes those changes in batches. With real-time processing, data pipelines tend to be much faster since they detect any change in the source and process it in milliseconds.

Airbyte

Airbyte allows you to schedule data syncing in batches, with a frequency as low as 5 minutes. You can use a pre-set time interval or manually trigger a sync. Airbyte uses different sync modes depending on the selected connector.

• Full Refresh | Overwrite: All data from the source is synced by overwriting the destination data.
  
• Full Refresh | Append: All data from the source is synced by appending the data to the destination without deleting any data. This can cause duplicate data records in the destination.
  
• Incremental Sync | Append: Only new or modified data from the source is synced by adding it to the destination without deleting any data. This means the modified rows are duplicated.
  
• Incremental Sync | Deduped History: Only new or modified data from the source is synced by adding it to the destination. It also provides a de-duplicated view of the state of the source stream. This means the modified rows are merged.

Stitch

Stitch doesn’t support real-time data replication or processing. The minimum replication frequency in Stitch is typically around 30 minutes.

The data extraction phase in the replication process includes the Singer-based replication engine and the Import API. After the data has been extracted from the source, it is buffered in Stitch’s internal data pipeline for loading. Finally, the data is transformed for compatibility with the destination.

Estuary

Estuary Flow is a real-time change data capture and streaming ETL platform that supports both real-time and batch together. In streaming mode, all data events in the source system are processed in real time. In both real-time and batch, Estuary stores the data for later reuse.

Streaming data updates in Estuary are done in milliseconds. This is mainly because it reacts to events and doesn’t have to scan the entire data source for each update.

Stitch vs Airbyte vs Estuary: Data Connectors

Pre-built connectors ensure seamless integration with the supported data sources in minutes. These connectors are built in line with established standards.

All three platforms use two types of connectors—source connectors and destination connectors. Let’s look at how the platforms differ based on the connectors they support.

Airbyte Connectors

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Airbyte supports over 200 data sources, including popular databases, warehouses, and data lakes as destinations.

It has several grading systems for its connectors: 

• A Generally Available connector is officially supported by Airbyte and is ready for use in a production environment.
  
• A Beta connector is one that hasn’t been validated by a broader group of users but is almost stable.
  
• An Alpha connector is an under-developed one, and Airbyte gathers feedback and issues reported by the early users.

If there’s a connector you cannot find, you can use one of the following options to build a custom connector:

• No-Code Connection Builder: This option takes less than 10 minutes to build a custom connector.
  
• Low-Code Connector Development Kit (CDK): Building a custom connector with this option takes less than 30 minutes. 
  
• Language-Specific CDK: With this, it takes about 3 hours to build a custom connector.

Stitch Connectors

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Stitch supports over 140+ data sources, including databases, files, APIs, or other applications like Google Analytics, MySQL, or Amazon S3. For destinations, Stitch supports some of the most popular data lakes, warehouses, and storage platforms.

To get data from data sources that Stitch doesn’t currently support, use one of the following methods:

• Suggest an integration
  
• Use incoming Webhooks
  
• Use the Import API
  
• Build a Singer tap

Estuary Connectors

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Estuary offers pre-built connectors to help you build connections between your desired applications and databases quickly. Unlike other tools that only support batch and near real-time data movements, Estuary Flow allows you to replicate data in real time.

Some Estuary connectors are based on open-source connectors from third parties, with modifications for optimal performance. In addition, many of Airbyte’s open-source connectors are usable in Estuary Flow since Estuary uses an adaptation of the Airbyte community connector specification for its connectors.

And if you can’t find the connector you’re looking for, you can request a new connector by submitting a form to the Estuary team.

Airbyte vs Stitch vs Estuary: Transformation

Data transformation is the process of changing the structure, format, or values of datasets.

With an increasing need to transform data for different operations like integration, aggregation, and analysis, the demand for data integration tools offering transformation capabilities has increased.

Here’s an overview of the transformation capabilities of the three integration platforms.

Airbyte

Airbyte doesn’t transform data before loading because it is an ELT tool. However, before passing the extracted data to tools that manage extensive transformation, Airbyte performs basic normalization on the data.

Internally, it supports a specialized transformation tool called dbt (Data Build Tool) to handle transformations. dbt is an open-source tool based on SQL and is used to transform data within a data warehouse. For transformations, you can use plain SQL queries and integrate the SQL-based transformations with Airbyte using dbt.

Stitch

Stitch is an ELT platform that focuses more on the E and L part of ELT. Hence, it primarily extracts data from different sources and loads it into the destination. However, Stitch offers basic transformation, including breaking nested structures and translating data types.

For extensive transformation operations, you can use Talend, its parent company. With Talend, you can perform extensive transformations like joining, aggregating, enriching, sorting, mapping, etc. You can define the transformations in Talend using Python, SQL, Java, or GUI.

Estuary

Estuary Flow supports four types of transforms:

• Native TypeScript transforms: With Flow’s native support for running TypeScript transforms, the testing, deployment, and monitoring are all built-in.
  
• Native SQL transformations: You can also use standard SQL to perform joins, aggregations, and other operations. Under the covers, Estuary runs the operations directly on the data streams.
  
• ETLT transforms using dbt: like Airbyte and Stitch, Estuary also supports dbt. This enables you to choose the best place to do given transforms; mid-stream (ETL) or in the target (ELT). 
  
• Remote transforms using webhooks: When using remote transforms, Flow calls an HTTP(S) endpoint for each document of the source collection. However, you must test, deploy, and monitor the code that handles your webhook. 

Stitch vs Airbyte vs Estuary: Pricing Model

Each platform offers different pricing models that cater to varied requirements. Here’s a brief overview of the pricing models:

Airbyte Pricing

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Airbyte offers three pricing options:

• Growth: This plan is priced at $2.50 per credit. The credits are charged based on the volume of data you sync. Teams automating ELT pipelines can use this plan for an effortless implementation and possibly access pipeline extensibility.
  
• Enterprise: This plan has custom pricing; for specific quotes based on your requirements, you must contact the sales team. This plan includes all the features of the Growth plan and some additional features, like enterprise-level support with SLAs, custom docker-based connectors, and advanced data residency. It’s suitable for high-growth organizations with large data volumes.

Stitch Pricing

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The different pricing plans offered by Stitch include:

• Standard: This plan is free for the first two months. Then, the pricing starts at $100 per month. It’s an ideal plan if you just require basic data pipelines involving a single destination. The pricing will vary depending on the number of rows ingested.
  
• Advanced: This plan involves a monthly rate of $1,250 and is billed annually. It’s suitable for teams who want more control and extensibility of their data pipelines.
  
• Premium: Starting at a monthly rate of $2,500 (billed annually), the Premium plan is beneficial for fast-growing organizations with high data volumes. The plan also offers best-in-class security and compliance.

Estuary Pricing

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Estuary offers three different pricing tiers:

• Free: This tier is free of charge and offers up to two tasks and 10 GB per month. For this, you don’t have to provide any credit card details either.
  
• Cloud: The Cloud tier charges $0.14 per connector-hour, and $1/GB for up to 2 TB per month.
  
• Enterprise: This tier has custom pricing and is meant for large or custom Estuary Flow deployments.

Conclusion

All three platforms discussed here are among the more popular options for data integration. The comparison of Stitch vs Airbyte vs Estuary in terms of different features makes it easier to analyze the strengths and weaknesses.

While all the platforms are equally strong contenders, the real-time data capabilities of Estuary Flow push it to the top spot. You can use it to obtain real-time insights for effective data-driven decisions. Estuary is also the most cost-effective option and is a reliable platform for your ETL/ELT needs.