Fivetran Review 2024: Features, Pros And Cons

Fivetran offers multiple plans for different-sized companies, including a free plan for small businesses that are just starting to organize their data. With Fivetran, you can set up automated data pipelines to extract data from many different sources. It also cleans that data to remove duplicate entries or find missing values, transforms various types of data into one and loads it to your preferred data warehouse. All of this makes it easier for you to visualize data to help you make better business decisions.

Although Fivetran works similarly to other ELT software, it offers an easy entry point for anyone new to data transformation. The pre-built connectors work a bit like plug-and-play integrations; you choose the software or databases you want to pull data from and connect it to the Fivetran software, which then cleans and transforms the data before dumping it into your preferred database. There’s little code needed, so it’s easy to use even if you aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

You can set a schedule for data extraction with specific connectors, so you don’t have to manually pull data. This sort of automation saves a lot of time. Combine the integrated scheduling in Fivetran with its sync options (real-time or a scheduled sync) and you can have up-to-date data pouring in regularly.

Pros

What most stands out about Fivetran is how easy it is to use, especially if you don’t have a data engineering team. It automates processes and offers pre-built data pipelines to distill data you collect in various programs and databases. The free plan is usable for very small businesses that have minimal data to process. Especially helpful are the pre-made connectors so you don’t have to set up an API for each one to dump data into a centralized database.

Cons

Fivetran is likely to be too expensive for most established businesses. There’s no public pricing available, but you can find examples on Fivetran’s website to get an idea of how much it might cost. The more rows of data you need to extract and load, the more it will cost. Its ELT features are simple, so if you need complex transformations, Fivetran might not be the best fit.

Fivetran makes it far easier to extract data from various sources, clean and verify that data and then transform it into a format you want to use for a database or data warehouse. To achieve these goals, Fivetran offers lots of connectors, automations and synchronization options without requiring you to code much.

Data Extraction

Extracting data is made easier with Fivetran thanks to the hundreds of connectors with which it maintains compatibility. Some of the notable places from which you can extract data via Fivetran connectors are Salesforce, Facebook, Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google Analytics and Oracle. If there are any missing from Fivetran’s list, you can set up your own API or request a connector (the Fivetran devs might add it).

Using Fivetran to extract data required nothing more than clicking a few buttons and pasting an origin folder link into the field where it was needed. Connections are handled by the software itself, so we just followed the instructions and within minutes we were able to start the first sync of data.

Data Cleaning

Fivetran removes the manual process of cleaning the data you extract from various databases and applications. Fivetran automatically looks for duplicate entries, incomplete data and incorrect data. This ensures you don’t waste any rows of data or count duplicates in reporting. Following this data cleanse, you can set up one of Fivetran’s transformations to convert your data.

Transformation

Data transformation makes it much easier to analyze data that comes from different sources. So, you can transform data from Salesforce and SQL databases, for example, to use in a data warehouse for a single source of truth. You can use one of multiple pre-built data models to connect to data warehouses such as Snowflake and Redshift.

We used Fivetran’s managed data warehouse in our testing and setup was easy. After we connected to the server, we performed an initial sync and now the data movement through the pipelines is completely automated.

Data Sync

One of the most important features of any data ingestion program such as Fivetran is data synchronization. Fivetran syncs your data every six hours by default. You have the option to set a different sync schedule from every minute to every 24 hours, so you can have up-to-date data whenever you need it.

Although pricing isn’t transparent, there are some examples on Fivetran’s website of how much it might cost for a subscription on each plan (Business Critical is the only plan that isn’t represented). Assuming you have 2 million active rows of unique data going through your Fivetran data pipeline, here’s what you might pay:

Starter: $701.75 per month
Standard: $1,052.63 per month
Enterprise: $1,403.51 per month

It’s also important to keep in mind that every connector counts differently toward free or paid monthly active rows.

	Free	Starter	Standard	Enterprise
Starting Price	$0	Custom	Custom	Custom
User Limit	Unlimited	10	Unlimited	Unlimited
Active Rows	500,000 per month	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Connectors	300-plus	300-plus	300-plus	300-plus
Pre-Made Schemas	✔	✔	✔	✔
Pre-Built Data Models	✔	✔	✔	✔
dbt Core Integration	✔	✔	✔	✔
Custom Roles	X	X	X	✔
Uptime SLA	X	X	✔	✔
Data Delivery SLA	X	X	X	✔
Sync Frequency	15 minutes	One hour	15 minutes	Five minutes
Support	24/7 email	24/7 email	24/7 email	24/7 email, one-hour support response

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Free

Fivetran’s free plan is surprisingly full of the features you need for an effective ELT solution. You won’t get any guarantees and your sync frequency is limited to 15 minutes, but you do get all the same pre-built data models, schemas and all the connectors that paid plan users get. Plus, dbt Core integration comes standard. The most limiting factor is the monthly row allowance; you get up to 500,000 active rows per month, which isn’t much if you have a lot of data to extract and transform.

Starter

We were a bit confused by the Starter plan, which limits you to a one-hour sync frequency and 10 users. You also won’t get any uptime or data delivery guarantees. The key limitless feature is you’re no longer fenced in by an active row cap; it’s unlimited. However, this is how Fivetran determines your bill each month. It’s also worth noting that you won’t get managed database connectors on this plan, so it’s only suitable for businesses that aren’t yet using data warehouses.

Standard

You’ll be ready to upgrade to the Standard plan when you have a data lake where you want to collect all your data from various sources. Essentially, this plan is a lot like the Free Fivetran plan but with no limit to your active rows, no user limit and you get an uptime service level agreement (SLA), which is 99.9%.

Enterprise

If you need data sync every five minutes, a data delivery guarantee and the ability to create custom roles for the Fivetran platform, the Enterprise plan is probably your best option. Choose an annual subscription and you can get advanced security by way of VPN and reverse SSH tunnels.

Sign-up and setup of Fivetran is just as easy as any other software as a service (SaaS). You get step-by-step guidance to set up your account so you’re ready to push data from the services you use to Fivetran and then the destination of your choice. If you don’t have a data warehouse yet, you can use Fivetran’s option. After your first data sync, the system defaults to a scan and sync of your data from selected connectors every five hours.

One of the most useful additions to Fivetran is the guide that appears on the right side of your dashboard. It’s a detailed guide for each action you’re trying to perform, so it’s especially helpful if you’ve never used ETL software before.

The reason to use Fivetran is because it simplifies the process of data extraction and transformation. There isn’t much you have to do manually after your initial setup unless you need to add more connectors or destinations for your data. Additionally, you get help at intervals. After setting up our account, we got an email from a representative who noted what we’d already accomplished with Fivetran and an offer for more tips on how to use the software.

When you’re extracting data from one platform and transferring it to another, security is a major concern. Fivetran checks all the boxes when it comes to protecting data, but there may be one flaw not considered. Fivetran is ELT software, so the order of transfer is to pull data, load it to a destination and then transform. The potential problem with this is that some of your users may access raw data before transformation, which could compromise sensitive data.

The reason we’re comfortable with Fivetran’s method is that it uses column masking, which blocks or hashes data to keep it private. The service also follows standard security measures of encrypting data in transit and at rest. Additionally, data doesn’t persist in pipelines after it’s moved to your destination.

To get the strongest security features for specific compliance (PSS DCI, HIPAA), you need to choose the higher tiers such as Enterprise and Business Critical, so it could be out of your price range.

Gaining access to customer support is easy enough, but it’s all via email or ticket submission. As Standard users, we were able to submit a ticket through the website. There was a note to expect a response within 48 hours, but we heard back after about 20 minutes. The agent was friendly and helpful, including links to guides to help us with the issue we outlined in the support request.

Not all data movement software offers the level of automation that Fivetran does. The scheduling and pre-built connectors make it much easier to focus on analyzing the cleansed and transformed data than maintaining data pipelines.

Automation

All ETL software offers automation in a way, but Fivetran makes it an even more hands-off process. You can set up data syncs and transformations to automatically occur as often as every minute. The pre-built connectors are a form of automation too, in that you won’t need to rely on a data engineering team to build and maintain your data pipelines.

Integrations

The only way to get more integrations than Fivetran with programs where your data lives and where you store data is to either use an open-source ETL option or create your own data pipelines and connectors. There are more than 300 pre-built integrations with software such as Salesforce, Zoho, SAP and Amazon Ads. Additionally, you can direct your data to many data warehouse options including Snowflake, Databricks and SQL Server.

	Fivetran	Talend Open Studio	Pentaho	AWS Glue
Starting Price	Custom	Custom	Custom	Custom
Free Plan	✔	✔	✔	✔
Free Trial	14 days	14 days	30 days	N/A
Automated Data Cleaning	✔	X	X	X
Pre-Built Connectors	300-plus	140-plus	X	12-plus
Sync Frequency	One minute to 24 hours	N/A	N/A	N/A
Database Connectors	✔	✔	✔	✔
Column Blocking	✔	✔	X	X
Local Data Processing	✔	✔	✔	✔
Support	24/7 email	In-app chat, support tickets and phone support (high tiers)	24/7 phone support	24/7 phone, chat and support tickets (costs extra)

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The ELT and ETL software world is still fairly new, so there aren’t many programs like Fivetran that have automated so many of the processes of data ingestion and integration. Comparing Fivetran to its competitors mostly comes down to whether you want control over the data and how you process it in the app. All the platforms we considered keep pricing private, so that’s not a factor in our comparison below.

Fivetran vs. Talend

The closest competitor to Fivetran is Talend because it offers similar tools. You can connect to popular programs to pull data and databases for analysis. Fivetran is far more automated than Talend and it offers more than double the pre-built connectors. The benefit of Talend is better access to tech support and a bit more control over your data and how you manage it.

Fivetran vs. Pentaho

Pentaho is more of an aid to data engineers who don’t mind building data pipelines so they can have more control over the data that they integrate into the platform. There are connectors to make it easier, but far fewer than Fivetran. You can also try Pentaho’s free trial for 30 days, which is more than twice as long as Fivetran’s.

Fivetran vs. AWS Glue

Amazon’s AWS Glue is more similar to Pentaho than Fivetran in that it’s more of a tool for data engineers rather than a replacement. There’s not much automation in AWS Glue and far fewer connectors than Fivetran.

Fivetran is a good data integration tool for businesses that need to extract, transform and load a lot of data for analysis, but may not have a team of data engineers and data scientists to do the work. It could be a more cost-effective solution than building and maintaining your own pipelines.

After our experience with Fivetran, we’d highly recommend the data movement service to businesses that need a centralized space for data and don’t want to build API connections themselves. It was intuitive to set up connectors to push data to Fivetran and then out to a destination and if you don’t have a ton of data, it’s more affordable than hiring a team of data engineers. You don’t even have to be particularly tech-savvy to make Fivetran work for you. However, if you do run into issues, it’s easy to get help. The only caveat is that you don’t have as much control over your data, how it moves or the features of your API connections.