
Are you searching for the best Fivetran alternatives to optimize your data integration, ETL, and ELT workflows? Whether you're looking for a cheaper, more flexible, or real-time alternative to Fivetran, choosing the right tool is critical for scalable data pipelines and cost-effective data management.
While Fivetran is a popular cloud-based ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) platform, many businesses seek alternatives due to high costs, batch-only processing, limited real-time capabilities, and lack of control over schema changes.
This guide presents the 11 best Fivetran competitors in 2025, helping you compare real-time vs. batch-based ELT solutions, ETL tools, open-source data integration platforms, and cost-effective alternatives. Whether you need real-time Change Data Capture (CDC), open-source flexibility, or low-cost ELT pipelines, we’ve got you covered!
Why This Guide?
- Covers 11 best Fivetran alternatives – more than basic lists, ensuring you get a 110% complete overview of the best ELT/ETL options.
- Compares pricing, features, pros & cons of real-time ELT, open-source tools, and batch-based competitors.
- Includes cost-effective & high-performance options that outperform Fivetran in scalability, real-time processing, and flexibility.
By the end of this guide, you'll have a clear understanding of which Fivetran alternative best fits your data integration needs in 2025.
Why Consider Fivetran Alternatives?
While Fivetran is a well-known cloud-based ELT platform, many businesses seek Fivetran alternatives due to its high costs, batch-based data ingestion, and limited flexibility. Here’s why companies switch to better ETL/ELT solutions:
1. High & Unpredictable Costs
- Fivetran pricing is based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR), which can lead to unexpected expenses.
- Non-relational data sources (e.g., NoSQL, APIs) result in excessively normalized tables, increasing MAR counts drastically.
- Certain high-cost Fivetran connectors require full-table replication, driving up costs.
💡 Alternative solutions like Estuary Flow offer predictable, cost-efficient pricing without inflated MAR costs.
2. High Latency – No Real-Time Data
- Fivetran supports batch-only processing, even for Change Data Capture (CDC).
- Delayed updates (hourly or daily) slow down analytics and real-time decision-making.
- Companies needing real-time ELT & streaming pipelines must look for low-latency alternatives.
💡 Consider Estuary Flow or Debezium for real-time data streaming.
3. Limited Control Over Schema Changes
- Fivetran auto-adjusts schema changes, which can break queries and analytics workflows.
- Users cannot rename columns or modify schemas manually, leading to rigid pipelines.
💡 Alternatives like Estuary Flow, Airbyte and Hevo Data offer better DataOps controls.
4. Reliability Issues & Source Database Strain
- Batch-based CDC replication adds stress to databases, sometimes causing performance slowdowns or failures.
- Limited monitoring & error handling make troubleshooting data pipeline failures difficult.
💡 If reliability is a top concern, Estuary Flow offers exactly-once delivery & durable stream storage.
5. Slow & Limited Customer Support
- Many Fivetran users report slow support response times, leading to extended downtimes.
- Lack of transparency around product roadmap and updates leaves customers without clear expectations.
💡 Alternatives like Estuary Flow offer faster, more responsive customer support.
Is It Time to Switch from Fivetran?
If you’re facing cost overruns, high latency, schema rigidity, or performance issues, it’s time to explore modern, real-time ETL & ELT alternatives.
Keep reading to find the best Fivetran competitors that offer more flexibility, real-time data movement, and lower costs.
Fivetran Review: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Pricing Explained
What is Fivetran?
Fivetran is a cloud-based ELT platform that simplifies data integration by automating the extract and load process across hundreds of data sources. Founded in 2012, Fivetran originally aimed to deliver a full-stack analytics solution but later focused entirely on data pipeline automation. The company now supports over 600 connectors (300+ managed, 300+ lite/API-based) and integrates with dbt for downstream transformations.
Fivetran is best known for its ease of use, pre-built connectors, and low-code setup, making it a popular choice for modern data teams looking to sync data into warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift. Its recent acquisition of HVR added support for Change Data Capture (CDC), though most real-time capabilities remain part of a separate pipeline.
Fivetran's Strengths
- User-friendly UI: Easy setup with minimal engineering effort
- Large connector library: 300+ managed, 300+ lite/API sources
- dbt integration: Native support for cloud-based transformations
- Good scalability: Handles medium to large warehouse loads efficiently
- Schema automation: One of the few tools that automates schema evolution
Fivetran's Weaknesses
- Batch-only latency: No real-time streaming in standard connectors
- Expensive & unpredictable pricing: Charges by Monthly Active Rows (MAR), which can skyrocket for nested, high-change, or normalized sources
- Database strain: Snapshot-based CDC adds load and risk to source systems
- Limited control: Auto-renames fields and prevents column-level schema customization
- Support & roadmap: Users report slow support and limited transparency on product improvements
Fivetran Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?
Fivetran's pricing is based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR) — the number of unique rows synced monthly. While this works for predictable workloads, costs can spiral due to normalized APIs, full-table syncs, and high-change datasets.
- 2M MARs/month: ~$700–$2,600
- 10M MARs/month: $10K+
- Enterprise-scale: Costs can reach $100K+ annually, depending on connectors and sync frequency
If you need real-time sync, better cost control, or more schema flexibility, it may be time to consider a Fivetran alternative.
11 Best Fivetran Alternatives in 2025
Here is a list of the top Fivetran alternatives and competitors:
1. Estuary Flow
Estuary Flow is one of the most robust Fivetran alternatives, excelling in real-time ETL, ELT, CDC, and batch processing. Its easy-to-use user interface lets you build both batch and real-time data pipelines from a wide array of databases, SaaS applications, filestores, and other sources.
Estuary Flow supports both ETL and ELT, meaning you can build streaming transforms using SQL or TypeScript (ETL) or use dbt in your destination. The platform safeguards data in motion and at rest with industry-standard security protocols, including encryption, authentication, and authorization.
Flow is an ideal solution for syncing data across multiple systems in real-time. With support for 100s of connectors, Flow makes it simple to connect to a wide range of data sources and destinations, offering a seamless data integration experience. Additionally, the platform’s flexibility allows for easy scaling as your data needs grow, making it a future-proof choice for any organization.
Pros
For the most part, if you are interested in a public or private cloud option and the connectivity options exist, you should evaluate Estuary. It has many strengths, partly because it is a relatively new vendor.
- Lowest latency: Of all these vendors, Estuary is the only ELT/ETL vendor in this comparison with sub-second latency.
- Real-time and batch: Estuary is the only vendor supporting real-time and batch, allowing you to mix them in a single pipeline. This is useful for extracting in real-time with CDC and loading a data warehouse in batches to save costs.
- ETL and ELT: Flow supports streaming SQL, and TypeScript transforms (ETL) and dbt (ELT).
- Built-in data storage and replay: Estuary automatically stores the data as it streams for future replay and time travel.
- Advanced schema evolution: Estuary and Fivetran are the two leading vendors that support automating how changes in sources are passed through to destinations.
- Multiple destinations: Estuary supports loading multiple destinations with a single pipeline, unlike most ELT vendors that only support 1 destination per pipeline.
- Highest scale: While it might not be immediately apparent without running your own benchmarks, Estuary stands out as the most scalable ETL/ELT vendor. It’s the only platform capable of performing incremental snapshots, showcasing 5-10x the scalability compared to competitors like Airbyte, Fivetran, and Hevo. The only alternatives that come close to this level of scale are Debezium (Kafka) and Striim.
- Most efficient: Estuary also leads in efficiency with the fastest and most effective CDC connectors. It is the only vendor that offers exactly-and-only-once capture, minimizing system load—particularly when supporting multiple destinations, such as a data warehouse, high-performance analytics database, AI engine, or vector database.
- Private cloud: Estuary is currently the only vendor to support private cloud deployments, which involve a data plane deployed in a customer private account managed by a shared SaaS control plane. It’s the privacy of on-prem with the simplicity of SaaS. Your next-best option is self-hosted open source.
- Most reliable: Estuary’s exactly-once transactional delivery and durable stream storage contribute to its reputation as the most reliable data pipeline vendor.
- Lowest cost: Estuary emerges as the clear winner in terms of cost-effectiveness, offering the lowest costs for data processing at any volume.
- Great support: Customers frequently highlight Estuary's exceptional support as a key reason for choosing and sticking with the platform.
Cons
- New vendor: Estuary Flow is a relatively new company compared to some other vendors. While it is open source and the core framework has been maturing for 10 years, the connectors and data integration services are 5 years old.
- 150+ connectors: Estuary Flow has 150+ connectors built by Estuary, which is less than Fivetran. While it also supports 500+ open-source connectors, open-source connectors are not always complete. Make sure you evaluate your connectors before moving forward.
Pricing
Estuary Flow offers these flexible pricing plans:
- Free: Up to 2 connectors and 10 GB/month
- Cloud (30-day free trial): $0.50/GB change data moved +$0.14/hour/connector
- Enterprise pricing available
If you want to get your data where you want it in milliseconds, try Estuary Flow for free. It provides a comprehensive data integration platform that is suitable for a variety of data integration tasks.
2. Airbyte
Airbyte is a popular open-source data integration platform launched in 2020. It offers both a self-hosted open-source edition and a managed cloud version, making it a solid Fivetran alternative for teams looking for customization and cost control.
Originally based on the Singer protocol, Airbyte now supports 300+ connectors and has built its own protocol for improved flexibility. While it lacks real-time capabilities, Airbyte is well-suited for batch ELT workflows and organizations with engineering resources.
Pros
- Ease of use: like other ELT vendors, Airbyte is easy to use.
- Low cost: Airbyte Cloud is one of the lower cost options, higher than Estuary but lower than most of the others.
- Widely used: Although Airbyte is a relatively new product (4 years old), it is widely used with thousands of deployments. Most customers use the open-source version. The official 1.0 product launch, the big milestone for any open-source project, is planned for September 2024.
Cons
- Batch only: No real-time or low-latency streaming
- Limited reliability: “At least once” delivery, no persistent staging or replay
- Not built for scale: Performance plateaus with larger workloads
- No ETL support: Transformations are limited to ELT in warehouse
Pricing
Airbyte starts at $10 per GB of data moved from a database, and $15 per million rows of data moved via an API (or custom source). There are volume-based discounts. You also pay for backfills.
Summary: Airbyte is a good Fivetran alternative for cost-sensitive teams that want open-source control—but it’s best for small to mid-scale batch ELT, not real-time or high-scale pipelines.
3. Debezium
Debezium originated within Red Hat, building on the release of Kafka and Kafka Connect, and was influenced by Martin Kleppmann’s concepts on Change Data Capture (CDC) and the idea of "turning the database inside out."
For those dedicated to open-source solutions and possessing the specialized resources necessary to construct their own scalable pipeline infrastructure, Debezium stands out as an excellent option. As one of the leading Fivetran alternatives, open-source Debezium offers flexibility for organizations requiring open-source CDC solutions. Its flexibility and strong community support make it particularly well-suited for organizations with complex data integration needs.
Pros
- Open-source CDC: Debezium is the open-source standard for the CDC. It’s used in many open-source deployments and by several vendors, including Confluent and several ELT vendors.
- Broad CDC support: Debezium has one of the most extensive lists of sources it supports. It can also be loaded into many destinations via Kafka, which it uses as its streaming layer.
- Modern CDC: Debezium supports immediate transaction log reads and incremental snapshots (DDD-3), which is better than many other CDC implementations.
- Proven: Debezium is widely used today.
Cons
- Build, not buy: Debezium will require specialized data engineering and admin resources because it’s open source and not a full data integration offering.
- Limited connectivity: You can leverage all the Kafka Connect-based connectors to over 100 different sources and destinations. But they have a long list of limits (see confluent docs on limits). You will also need to build non-CDC source and non-Kafka connectivity.
- Real-time only: Debezium does not support batch processing for sources or destinations, so if you need it, you’ll need to build it or rely on another tool.
- Limited schema evolution - While the Kafka Schema Registry does support message-level schema evolution, the limitations on destinations and the translation from sources to messages make this much harder to manage.
Pricing
Debezium is free and open-source. Your costs will be based on the specialized resources you’ll need to deploy and manage.
Your other option is to use Confluent Cloud, which will help simplify your administrative costs. However, you will still need to configure and manage Debezium and your Kafka cluster, and the costs will exceed some, including Estuary and Airbyte.
If Kafka is already the core of your data infrastructure, it’s wise to consider Debezium as a complement. Opting for Confluent Cloud can streamline your deployment process, though it comes with additional expenses.
Summary: Debezium is a powerful option if you’re already using Kafka and want complete control over your real-time CDC stack — but it’s not plug-and-play.
4. Hevo Data
Hevo Data is a no-code SaaS data pipeline platform that started as a cloud service in 2017. Hevo is primarily ELT but has been adding some row-based ETL support.
Pros
- Ease of use: Like several other ELT vendors, Hevo is intuitive and easy to use.
- ELT and ETL: Hevo has started to add more transformation capabilities, including Python scripts and a new drag-and-drop editor (in Beta.) This is more for row-level transformations. Hevo’s main transformation support, especially for doing more complex transforms involving merging data, is dbt (ELT)
- 150+ connectors: Decent coverage for cloud apps and databases
Cons
- Batch only: Minimum 5-minute latency; no real-time support
- Scalability limits: Caps on file sizes, rows per table, and API calls
- High cost at scale: Pricing rises quickly with volume and frequency
- Limited automation: No CLI, no CI/CD or schema versioning
- Reliability concerns: Reports of bugs, missed events, and failed pipeline alerts
Pricing
- Free: Limited to 1 million free events per month with free initial load, 50+ connectors, and unlimited models
- Starter ($239/mo): Offers 150+ connectors, on-demand events, and 12 hours of support SLA
- Business (Custom Pricing): HIPAA compliance with a dedicated data architect and dedicated account manager
Summary: Hevo Data is a no-code batch ELT tool ideal for small teams — but lacks modern features like real-time CDC, broad Reverse ETL, or DataOps automation.
5. Informatica
Informatica offered one of the first ETL products, Powercenter, in 1993 and one of the first cloud integration products, Informatica Cloud, in 2006. Informatica Cloud was initially built based on an older version of Informatica PowerCenter and eventually upgraded to a newer version of the on-premises data integration based on Hadoop and then Spark.
Informatica is perhaps the best example of a mature data integration platform. While it was one of the first to make the transition to the cloud and has one of the strongest and broadest data integration feature sets, it is more complicated to use, more expensive, and not as DataOps-native. However, it offers robust enterprise features and is one of the strongest private cloud architectures available.
Pros
- Full-featured platform: ETL, ELT, governance, quality, MDM, and more
- Private cloud & hybrid support: Enterprise-grade architecture with flexible deployments
- Strong performance: Pushdown optimization, pipeline partitioning, and serverless options
- Large connector library: 300+ connectors for cloud and on-prem systems
- Enterprise integrations: Integrates well with Oracle, SAP, mainframes, and more
Cons
- Complex to use: Requires specialist knowledge to configure and manage pipelines
- Not DataOps-native: Limited CI/CD, version control, and automation features
- Expensive: Premium pricing, often requiring sales engagement
- Overkill for small teams: Best suited for enterprise-scale workloads
Pricing
No one is going to accuse Informatica of being cheap. Informatica’s consumption-based pricing is complicated and requires a quote. You can read the Informatica Cloud and Product Description Schedule here. Cloud pricing is mostly based on hourly pricing per compute unit, with some other pricing, like row-based pricing for CDC-based replication.
Summary: Informatica is best for large enterprises with complex data needs, not for teams seeking agility, affordability, or real-time CDC.
6. Matillion
Matillion ETL is a mature on-premises ETL platform often listed among the top Fivetran alternatives, supporting cloud data platforms like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and Google BigQuery. It combines many features to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data. The Matillion Data Productivity Cloud offering consists of a Hub for administration and billing, a choice of working with Matillion ETL deployed as a “private cloud” or Matillion Data Loader, a free cloud batch and CDC replication tool built on ETL but lacking ETL capabilities.
As with most mature ETL tools, Matillion has a strong feature set but is harder to use, has not fully transitioned to the cloud or DataOps, and is more expensive.
Pros:
- Advanced ETL: Matillion ETL supports various transform options, from drag-and-drop to code editors for complex transformations.
- Workflow orchestration: Matillion also offers advanced graphical workflow design and orchestration.
- Pushdown Optimization: Matillion ETL pushes down transformations to the target data warehouse whenever possible.
- Reverse ETL: Matillion allows you to extract data from a source, cleanse it, and insert it back.
Cons:
- No real-time CDC: Batch-based with delayed updates
- Limited free features: Data Loader lacks transforms or dbt integration
- Limited connectors: ~120 total; fewer than other vendors
- Not automation-friendly: Lacks strong CI/CD, schema evolution, or CLI support
- Complex pricing: Credit-based billing tied to virtual core usage
Pricing
Matillion doesn’t have a pay-as-you-go model. It starts at $1000/month for 500 credits, each credit being a virtual core hour similar to an AWS, Azure, or Google virtual core. Pricing increases by 25% per credit for advanced and 35% for enterprises with higher base commitments.
This platform typically costs thousands of dollars per month at minimum. Data Productivity Cloud consumes credits for every running task, with a credit used every 15 minutes the task is active. The smallest ETL unit operates on two cores, meaning you consume two cores per hour, which can quickly add up to nearly three times the 500-credit baseline each month.
Summary: Matillion is great for warehouse-native, visual ETL — but lacks real-time sync, modern DevOps features, and flexible pricing.
7. Meltano
Meltano was established in 2018 as an open-source project within GitLab to assist their data and analytics team. It’s a Python framework based on the Singer protocol. Originally developed by the founders of Stitch, the Singer framework saw reduced contributions after Stitch was acquired by Talend, which was later acquired by Qlik. Despite these changes, Meltano has continued to grow, driven by a strong community and its commitment to open-source principles.
Compared to other Fivetran alternatives, Meltano is focused on configuration using YAML and the CLI. Most users prefer the no-code approach, even with Estuary, which fully supports configuration and DataOps.
Overall, Airbyte and Meltano are strong ELT choices for those prioritizing open-source tools. If ease of use is your main concern, Airbyte could be the more suitable option. If you prefer more configuration and development, Meltano is better. Estuary Flow is your other option.
Pros:
- Open source ELT: Meltano is the main successor to Stitch if you’re looking for a Singer-based framework.
- Configure-driven: If you are looking for a configure-driven approach to ELT, Meltano may be a great option.
- Connectivity: Meltano and Airbyte collectively have the most containers, which makes sense given their open-source history with Singer. Meltano supports Singer and has an SDK wrapper for Airbyte, giving it 600+ open-source connectors. Open-source connectors have limits, so it’s important to test them carefully based on your needs.
Cons:
- No UI: CLI-only; not beginner-friendly
- Batch only: No support for real-time data movement
- Scalability limits: Performance drops with high-volume workloads
- Limited schema handling: No built-in schema evolution or testing
- Self-managed: Requires DevOps expertise to host, scale, and maintain
Pricing
It’s open source. There is no pricing. But it’s not a free lunch. You’ll need to spend more on data engineering resources to stand up, build, and maintain Meltano. If you need scalability, there isn’t a lot of documentation on how to scale, so make sure you evaluate carefully, and have the Meltano expertise in-house.
Summary: Meltano is a great Fivetran alternative for engineering teams who want full control over open-source ELT — but it’s not ideal for teams needing real-time pipelines or ease of use.
8. Stitch
Stitch Data, originally built on the Singer protocol and later acquired by Talend (and now Qlik), is a cloud-based ELT tool designed for simplicity. It was one of the earliest modern ELT platforms but has seen limited innovation in recent years.
Stitch is a good Fivetran alternative for teams that need basic batch pipelines with minimal setup, but it lacks real-time capabilities, modern automation, and evolving connector support.
Pros
- Open-source: Singer is a robust open-source framework, and multiple options, such as Stitch, Meltano, Airbyte, and Estuary, can support Singer taps.
- Log retention: Stitch provides up to 60 days of log retention for recovery, a feature that outperforms many other vendors, with Estuary being one of the few exceptions.
- Support: Qlik offers support for Stitch.
- Integration with other Qlik products: If you're already a Qlik customer, sticking with Stitch makes a lot of sense because it seamlessly integrates with other Qlik offerings.
Cons
- Lack of investment: A quick glance at the Stitch changelog reveals that there hasn't been significant investment in either the Singer framework or Stitch itself.
- Pricing: You will most likely spend $1250+ a month on any reasonable deployment. If you need a VPN/private link and a high level of support, you will need Premium at a minimum of $2500 a month. At that price you can consider several other ELT vendors along with Estuary.
- Limited connectors: Stitch currently supports just over 140 taps (connectors), which, while substantial, falls short compared to several other platforms. Although more than 200 Singer connectors are available, the quality can be inconsistent. Additionally, the pace of new connector additions has slowed, so if you require a broader range of connectors, this could be a limitation.
Pricing
Stitch starts at $100 per month/$1000 per year for the most basic plan, which offers 3 million rows per month, $1250 a month for Advanced, which offers 100 million rows, and $2500 for Premium, which offers 1 billion rows per month.
Summary: Stitch Data is a simple Fivetran alternative for lightweight batch pipelines, but it’s showing its age and lacks the real-time and DevOps features modern teams expect.
Also Read: Stitch Data Alternatives
9. Striim
Striim, pronounced "Stream," started as a replication and stream processing vendor but has since expanded into the broader data integration space.
In 2012, several key figures from GoldenGate came together to establish Striim. Initial efforts focused on utilizing CDC replication for replication, stream processing, and analytics. Over time, they expanded the platform by adding connectors to support a variety of data integration use cases.
Whether you need real-time replication or more complex stream processing, Striim is a great and proven vendor option. It has some of the best CDC, including its Oracle database support. If you have the skill sets to do stream processing, it can also be a good option for supporting stream processing and data integration use cases.
Pros
- Real-time CDC: High-speed, low-latency replication with sub-second performance
- Stream processing engine: Supports continuous SQL-based transforms
- Enterprise-grade connectors: Broad support for Oracle, SAP, SQL Server, and more
- Multi-sink pipelines: Load multiple destinations simultaneously
- Private and hybrid deployments: Flexible deployment options for secure environments
Cons
- Complex to use: Requires knowledge of streaming and pipeline orchestration
- Custom query language: TQL (Tungsten Query Language) has a learning curve
- No built-in data lake storage: No persistent staging or backfill/replay
- High cost: Enterprise-level pricing starts in the $1000s/month range
- Overhead for basic ELT: More than most teams need if real-time isn't required
Pricing
Striim starts with Striim Developer, a free option of 10 million events per month with community support. Then it’s starting at $1,000 monthly for deploying to BigQuery, Databricks, or Snowflake in real-time, or $2,000 monthly for broader connector support. You also pay $0.75 (or $0.60) per virtual CPU-hour and $10.10 per GB in or out. Mission Critical requires a conversation, which sounds like more of what an enterprise should be with a 99.9% SLA, horizontal scaling, partitioning, and enterprise support.
Summary: Striim is best for advanced teams that need high-scale real-time pipelines and stream processing—not for simple ELT or batch workloads.
10. Talend
Talend, now part of Qlik, has two main products: Talend Data Fabric and Stitch (covered under Stitch). Talend Data Fabric is a data integration platform that, like Informatica, is broader than ETL. It also offers data quality and data governance features, ensuring that your data is not only integrated but also reliable and well-managed.
Talend also had an open-source solution, Talend Open Studio, to help you kickstart your first data integration and ETL projects. You could use Talend Open Studio for data processes that require lightweight workflows. However, Qlik has discontinued it.
Pros
- ETL platform: Data Fabric provides robust transformation, data mapping, and data quality features that are essential for constructing efficient data pipelines.
- Real-time and batch: The platform supports both real-time and batch processing, including streaming CDC. While the technology is mature, it still offers true real-time capabilities.
- Strong monitoring and analytics: Similar to Informatica, Talend offers robust visibility into operations and provides strong monitoring and analytics capabilities.
Cons
- Learning curve: Talend features an older UI that requires some time to master, much like other ETL tools. Developing transformations can also be time-consuming.
- Limited connectors: Talend claims 1000+ connectors. But it lists 50 or so databases, file systems, applications, messaging, and other systems it supports. The rest are Talend Cloud Connectors, which you create as reusable objects.
- High costs: There is no pricing listed, but it costs more than most pay-as-you-go tools, including Stitch.
Pricing
Outside of the discontinued Open Studio and the open-source Singer framework, pricing for Talend is available upon request. This suggests that Talend's costs are likely to be higher than those of many pay-as-you-go ELT vendors, with the exception of Fivetran.
11. Qlik
Qlik provides three data integration products - Stitch (covered under Stitch) Talend Data Fabric (covered under Talend) and Qlik Replicate, which was originally Attunity. Qlik Replicate has both on-premises and cloud replication deployment options for streaming real-time data.
Qlik Replicate is based on more traditional replication. It performs full snapshots before starting to replicate the stream. But it is a proven replication offering.
Pros
- Easy to use CDC replication: you’re able to configure new pipelines in a UI.
- It supports both cloud and on-premises: unlike most modern ELT tools, you can not only capture from on-premises and cloud sources. You can also stream to both cloud and on-premises data warehouses, including Teradata, Vertica, Hana, or Exadata.
- Strong monitoring: Provides centralized monitoring and visibility via Qlik Enterprise Manager
Cons
- Older product: While Qlik Replicate is proven, it is older. Attunity was founded in 1988 and acquired by Qlik in 2019, 4 years before Qlik acquired Talend. The future direction of these different integration products is unclear.
- Traditional CDC: In the event of connection losses, a full snapshot is required before resuming the transaction log reading process.
- Replication only: Replicate is limited to CDC sources and mostly data warehouse destinations. If you need a broader data integration platform. It’s the wrong choice.
Pricing
Pricing plans for both on-premise and cloud solutions are available upon request from sales, which means it will be more costly than several of the pay-as-you-go ELT plans, or even Confluent Cloud and its support for Debezium.
Conclusion: How to choose the best Fivetran alternative tools
If you're looking for a cloud-based solution and the necessary connectivity is available, Estuary is worth considering as a Fivetran alternative or replacement. In fact, many Estuary users initially started with Fivetran before making the switch.
- Lowest latency: Estuary stands out as the only ELT/ETL vendor in this comparison with sub-second latency, offering unmatched speed.
- Highest scale: Estuary’s scalability is unparalleled, especially with CDC. It is the only vendor capable of performing incremental snapshots, and it has demonstrated 5-10 times the scale of competitors like Airbyte, Fivetran, and Hevo. Estuary is the only viable option if your data needs involve moving a terabyte a day from a source.
- Most efficient: Estuary leads the pack with the fastest and most efficient CDC connectors. It’s also the sole vendor offering exactly-and-only-once capture, minimizing system load, particularly when supporting multiple destinations such as data warehouses, high-performance analytics databases, and AI engines or vector databases.
- Most reliable: Estuary’s exactly-once transactional delivery and durable stream storage contribute to its reputation as the most reliable data pipeline vendor.
- Private Cloud: Estuary is among the few modern ELT/ETL vendors that offer true private cloud deployment. Alternatively, you might consider deploying your open-source solution or evaluating options like Informatica, Matillion, or Talend.
- Lowest cost: Estuary is the clear leader in cost-effectiveness, offering the lowest prices for data processing at any scale.
- Great support: Customers transitioning from Fivetran to Estuary frequently highlight the excellent support as a key reason for their switch to Estuary.
The most effective way to evaluate your Fivetran alternatives is to assess both your current and future needs in terms of connectivity, key data integration features, as well as performance, scalability, reliability, and security requirements. Use this information to select the solution that best aligns with your short-term and long-term goals.
Getting Started with Estuary
- Getting started with Estuary is simple. Sign up for a free account.
- Make sure you read through the documentation, especially the get started section:
- I highly recommend you also join the Slack community. It’s the easiest way to get support while you’re getting started.
- If you want an introduction and walk-through of Estuary you can watch the Estuary 101 Webinar.
- Questions? Feel free to contact us anytime!
Related Top Tools Blogs:
FAQs
1. What are the best Fivetran alternatives in 2025?
2. Why are companies switching away from Fivetran?
3. What’s the most cost-effective Fivetran alternative?
4. Why is Fivetran so expensive?

About the authors
With over 15 years in data engineering, a seasoned expert in driving growth for early-stage data companies, focusing on strategies that attract customers and users. Extensive writing provides insights to help companies scale efficiently and effectively in an evolving data landscape.
Rob has worked extensively in marketing and product marketing on database, data integration, API management, and application integration technologies at WS02, Firebolt, Imply, GridGain, Axway, Informatica, and TIBCO.
