Organizations of all sizes and industries now have access to ever-increasing amounts of data, far too vast for any human to comprehend. So far in 2023 so far, the world produced and consumed 328.77 million terabytes of data per day — an almost unimaginable number. However, all this information is useless without a way to efficiently process it, analyze it, and reveal the valuable data-driven insights hidden within the noise.
Here are the top things you need to know about ETL tools:
- ETL is a data integration method that extracts data from a source, transforms it into the correct format for analysis, and loads data into a centralized location like a data warehouse.
- Manual ETL requires data engineers to build complex data pipelines — a process that requires lots of coding.
- ETL tools, however, streamline this process and allow businesses like yours to move data between different locations without worrying about data extraction, schemas, ingestion, APIs, and other complicated factors.
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Not all ETL tools are the same. This list features the best products based on features, capabilities, and user review scores.
Consider a leading data integration tool to help you manage your big data daily business and gain better insights for teams across several departments. There are options for those with more technical knowledge and capabilities and those who want a simple no-code solution. ETL is an easier way to move data with better security and features.
What is ETL?
ETL, an acronym for Extract, Transform, and Load, is a vital data integration process in the world of data warehousing. It involves gathering data from diverse sources and consolidating it into a centralized database. The ETL process consists of three key stages:
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Extract: Data is extracted from its original sources.
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Transform: Extracted data undergoes transformations like deduplication, combination, and quality checks to ensure accuracy and consistency.
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Load: The transformed data is loaded into a target database, such as a data warehouse.
In the past, ETL processes required laborious manual pipeline-building and complex coding, taking weeks or months to implement. However, the advent of ETL tools has automated the process, enabling organizations of all sizes to efficiently move data across locations, even without specialized data engineering expertise.
Implementing an ETL tool offers several benefits, including streamlined data management, enhanced data analysis, and improved decision-making capabilities. By leveraging ETL tools, businesses can optimize data pipelines, track data flow, and facilitate faster insights.
Let's explore the characteristics of a great ETL tool and how to find one that suits your requirements.
What are ETL Tools?
ETL tools are software applications that make it easier to extract data from multiple sources, transform them into an appropriate format, and then load the processed data into a target destination. ETL processes allow businesses to quickly and accurately aggregate data from various sources for analysis or reporting.
What Makes a Great ETL Tool?
When choosing an ETL tool, you want to make sure it can handle the complexity of your data requirements. A great ETL tool should be able to move and transform large amounts of data quickly and efficiently, with minimal effort. It should also support multiple data sources so that you can easily combine datasets from disparate systems into a centralized repository. Additionally, an intuitive user interface is key for quickly manipulating data, configuring settings, and scheduling tasks. Finally, an ETL tool should be able to integrate with other tools in your tech stack for a seamless workflow.
Depending on the tool, most of the above process is completely streamlined. Pre-built data connectors will extract, transform, and load data to a target system with little or no code. That removes the need for complicated data extraction, ingestion, managing APIs, and other tasks.
With the right ETL tool, businesses can accelerate their analytics processes without sacrificing accuracy or scalability. It’s an essential part of any data-driven enterprise, and the right tool can make all the difference.
Related Reading: ROI of No-Code Platforms
Types of ETL Tools
When it comes to ETL tools, there are various options available to suit different needs. Here are some popular types of ETL tools:
Open-Source ETL Tools
Open-source solutions provide flexible and customizable options for data integration. These tools offer a wide range of features and are often favored by tech-savvy teams looking for cost-effective solutions.
Cloud-Based ETL Tools
Cloud-based ETL tools leverage the power of cloud computing to handle large-scale data integration tasks. These tools offer scalability, cost-efficiency, and easy integration with other cloud services.
Enterprise-Grade ETL Tools
Enterprise-grade tools provide comprehensive features and robust capabilities. These tools are designed for complex data integration scenarios and offer advanced functionalities like data governance and metadata management.
Real-Time ETL Tools
Real-time ETL tools focus on streaming data integration. They enable organizations to process and integrate data in real-time, ensuring up-to-date and timely insights.
Self-Service ETL Tools
Self-service ETL tools empower business users to perform data integration tasks without heavy reliance on IT teams. These user-friendly tools offer drag-and-drop interfaces and require minimal coding knowledge.
How to Evaluate ETL Tools
Choosing the right ETL tool depends on factors like scalability, complexity of data integration requirements, and budget. When looking for an ETL tool, it’s important to evaluate your needs and options. What type of data sources do you need to connect? How much automation do you need? Do you want a cloud vs on-premise solution?
The answers to these questions will determine what type of features you should look for in an ETL tool.
Here are some key criteria to consider when evaluating ETL tools:
- Ease of Use: Does the tool have an intuitive user interface or does it require complex coding and scripting? Does it provide pre-built data connectors for popular data sources?
- Scalability: Can the tool handle large volumes of data? How quickly can it process data?
- Security: Does the tool provide secure data transfer and encryption of sensitive information? Is there access control over who can view or modify certain data?
- Documentation and Support: Does the vendor provide detailed documentation, tutorials, and other resources to help you get started quickly? Are customer service and technical support options available?
- Advanced Features: Does the ETL tool offer features such as data transformation, validation, and automated workflows? Does it allow for custom coding of more complex tasks?
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Cost: What is the total cost for implementing and using the ETL tool? Are there additional costs associated with usage or upgrades?
Top 7 ETL Tools to Consider
- Integrate.io
- Portable
- Talend
- Informatica
- Oracle Data Integrator
- Stitch Data
- Fivetran
ETL is essential for data warehousing, and analytics, but not all ETL software tools are created equal. The best ETL tool may vary depending on your situation and use cases. Here are 7 of the best ETL software tools for 2023, along with several others that you may want to consider:
1. Integrate.io
Price: 14-day free trial & flexible paid plans available
Integrate.io is a cloud-based ETL tool that makes data preparation and transformation simple! It has an intuitive visual interface for building data pipelines between multiple sources and destinations, allowing both technical and non-technical users to build and manage data pipelines. Using Integrate.io's low-code solution, users can choose from over 220 different data transformations for preparing their data before loading to their desired data destination/s. The platform also offers ELT, Reverse ETL, and the fastest Change Data Capture (CDC) on the market, making it the one-stop shop for all of your data integration needs.
The platform is an extremely flexible data integration solution that is used by leading companies such as 7-Eleven, Caterpillar, and Samsung for both Analytical and Operational ETL use cases.
Its four core use cases are:
Other benefits of using Integrate.io include less reliance on engineers and technical team members, the ability to ingest data from anywhere, easy-to-implement data transformation, and ensure compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and other region-specific compliance requirements.
Thanks to these advantages, Integrate.io has received an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars from 193 reviewers on the G2 website. It has also been named one of G2’s “Leaders” in the field of ETL tools for fall 2024. One verified user says: “Integrate.io was easily implemented for all of our business needs. You can automate your data pipelines with ease, and the whole team at Integrate has been excellent to work with.”
Integrate.io Key Features:
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Flexibility & Ease of Use: The platform built for ease of use allows both technical and non-technical users to build and manage their data pipelines in a seamless manner.
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Low-code data transformations: Integrate.io supports a powerful data engine that can manage in-pipeline data transformations. Data transformation before loading eliminates computing costs for your data warehouses. This proves to be a very cost-effective feature for ingesting large data volumes.
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Scalability: Integrate.io can scale with your business's needs, allowing you to add new use cases as you continue on your data journey.
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Customer Support: The team at Integrate.io is always available to help users with their questions or issues. They have excellent response times and are always eager to help.
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Security: Take advantage of Integrate.io's cybersecurity team to ensure security and compliance best practices across your data architecture.
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Connectors & Integrations: Integrate.io offers more than 200 connectors to different systems and applications, allowing your business to connect data between multiple sources and destinations quickly.
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Advanced monitoring: Integrate.io simplifies troubleshooting problems and prevents integration issues with its advanced monitoring and logging features to give you data peace of mind.
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Customization: Integrate.io offers a range of customization features, including X-console, rich expression language, advanced API, and webhooks, for users to customize the platform as they, please.
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REST API: Integrate.io's whole UI is built on its external-facing REST API, meaning anything you can do via the UI can also be done programmatically using the API.
Overall, Integrate.io is an excellent choice for anyone looking to integrate their systems quickly and easily with minimal effort. With robust features and unparalleled customer support, Integrate.io has become a key player in the ETL industry. Its wide range of data transformation capabilities and integration templates make it a great choice for businesses of all sizes, and its competitive prices make it an attractive option for budget-minded customers. With Integrate.io, you can be confident that you can deliver on your data projects quickly and accurately with first-in-class support and reliability.
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2. Portable
Price: Monthly: $200 USD/flow. Annual: $2,000 USD/flow.
Portable is a no-code ETL tool helping analytics teams get data from 1000+ systems into their data warehouse. The solution sits somewhere between a product and a service - combining a catalog of prebuilt connectors with development of custom ETL connectors on-demand for data teams.
While many data professionals use Portable for niche, long-tail connectors they can’t find anywhere else on the market, Portable also offers a cost-effective solution for more commonly accessible business applications (like CRM systems, applicant tracking tools, and more).
Portable has an average of 4.8 out of 5 starts on G2 and focuses on rapid connector development, hands-on customer support, and fixed monthly prices. Zach Wilner, who leads data and analytics at Pair Eyewear says “The team is the most responsive team I have ever worked with. Within 2 hours they will create a new integration for us. Can't stress how great their team is.”
Portable Key Features:
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On-Demand Connector Development - Portable is known for their lightning-fast connector development capabilities, turning custom connector requests into production integrations in minutes or hours
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Hands-On Customer Support - The team at Portable is hands-on. Typically, when dealing with long-tail connectors, data teams need to build and maintain integrations in-house, when using Portable, their team is on-call when things break
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Fixed-Price API Connectors - With a fixed pricing model for API to warehouse connectors, data teams don’t need to worry about their monthly usage, and can focus on generating high value insights instead
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No-Code, Self-Service Experience - With a PLG go-to-market motion, Portable focuses on providing a no-code, self-service ETL experience for clients
Overall, Portable is a great solution for those looking for a managed solution for bespoke, niche API data integrations, or a cost effective solution for connecting larger business applications to their data warehouse for analytics.
3. Talend
Price: Monthly: $1,170 USD/user. Annual: $12,000 USD/user.
Talend offers a suite of ETL data integration solutions. The Talend platform is compatible with data sources on-premises and in the cloud and includes hundreds of pre-built integrations.
While some users will find the open-source version of Talend (Talend Open Studio) sufficient, larger enterprises will likely prefer Talend’s paid Data Integration platform. This version of Talend includes additional tools and features for design, productivity, management, monitoring, business intelligence, and data governance.
Talend Data Integration has received an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on G2, and the website highlighted the platform’s fast implementation in the winter of 2024. Reviewer Jan L. says Talend Data Integration is a “great all-purpose tool for data integration” with “a clear and easy-to-understand interface.”
Talend Key Features:
- Fast Implementation - Talend's Data Integration platform can implement large data structures quickly and accurately.
- Data Quality - Talend allows users to maintain their data quality through the use of profiling, cleansing, and minimizing duplicates.
- Data Governance - Talend's platform allows users to manage their data governance with tagging, tracking, and monitoring capabilities.
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Automation & Scheduling - Talend provides the ability to automate data integration processes with scheduling functionality.
Overall, Talend is a powerful and reliable solution for those looking for a data integration platform. With a range of features and capabilities, it can be used to efficiently manage and analyze large amounts of data, helping organizations get the most out of their data.
Price: Starts at $2,000 per month, and a free trial is available.
Informatica PowerCenter is a mature, feature-rich enterprise data integration platform for ETL workloads. PowerCenter is just one tool in the Informatica suite of cloud data management tools.
As an enterprise-class, database-neutral solution, PowerCenter has a reputation for high performance and compatibility with many different data sources, including SQL and non-SQL databases. You can use it to move structured and unstructured data from locations and improve your data integration projects.
The negatives of Informatica PowerCenter include high prices and a challenging learning curve that can deter smaller organizations with fewer technical chops. Although Informatica provides various tutorials and resources on its website, users might struggle with its learning curve, making other ETL tools on this list a better fit.
Despite these drawbacks, Informatica PowerCenter has earned a loyal following, with an average of 4.4 out of 5 stars on G2— enough to be named one of the website's top 50 IT infrastructure products in 2024. Reviewer Victor C. calls PowerCenter, “probably the most powerful ETL tool I have ever used.” However, he also complains that PowerCenter can be slow and doesn't integrate well with visualization tools such as Tableau and QlikView.
Informatica Key Features:
- Automated data ingestion and transformation: Automates the ETL process, making it easier and faster to move data between sources.
- Robust security options: Protects sensitive data with a range of encryption, user access control, and other security measures.
- Advanced analytics: Enables users to gain insights into their datasets using predictive analytics, machine learning algorithms, and more.
- Integration with visualization tools: Integrates easily with popular visualizations such as Tableau, QlikView, and more.
- Scalability: Supports data ranging from small datasets to massive warehouses.
Overall, Informatica is a powerful IT infrastructure product that can help organizations move their data quickly and securely. While it requires some initial setup, the benefits of improved data management, analytics capabilities, and security may be well worth the effort.
5. Oracle Data Integrator
Price: Visit pricing page
Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) is a comprehensive data integration solution that's part of Oracle’s data management ecosystem. This makes the platform a smart choice for current users of other Oracle applications, such as Hyperion Financial Management and Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS). ODI comes in both on-premises and cloud versions (the latter offering is Oracle Data Integration Platform Cloud).
Unlike most other software tools on this list, Oracle Data Integrator primarily supports ELT workloads (though it’s still capable of executing ETL), which may be a selling point or a dealbreaker for users. ODI is also more bare-bones than most other tools in this post, and certain peripheral features are included in other Oracle software instead.
Oracle Data Integrator has an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on G2. According to G2 reviewer Christopher T., ODI is “a very powerful tool with tons of options,” but also “too hard to learn" and "training is definitely needed.”
Oracle Data Integrator Key Features:
- Comes with advanced data transformation capabilities
- Connectivity with Hadoop and NoSQL databases
- Robust scheduling engine for automation of data integration processes
- Cloud version available in Oracle Data Integration Platform Cloud
- Includes SQL Developer, a robust graphical interface for writing and debugging SQL queries
Overall, Oracle Data Integrator is a powerful ETL tool with many features and capabilities. Its ability to connect with Hadoop and NoSQL databases, as well as its automation capabilities, make it an attractive choice for companies looking to streamline their data integration processes. However, users should be aware that ODI can be difficult to learn without proper training and practice.
6. Stitch Data
Price: Starts at $100/mo 14-day unlimited trial available
Stitch is an open-source ELT data integration platform. Like Talend, it also offers paid service tiers for more advanced use cases and larger numbers of data sources. The comparison is apt in more ways than one: Talend acquired Stitch in November 2018.
The Stitch platform sets itself apart from others by offering self-service ELT and automated data pipelines, making data integration simpler. However, would-be users should note that Stitch’s ELT tool does not perform arbitrary transformations. Rather, the Stitch team suggests that transformations should be added on top of raw data in layers once inside a data warehouse.
G2 users have given Stitch generally positive reviews, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 Stars. The website also named Stitch a “Leader” in the winter of 2024. One reviewer compliments Stitch’s "simplicity of pricing, the open-source nature of its inner workings, and ease of onboarding." However, some Stitch reviews cite minor technical issues and a lack of support for less popular data sources.
Stitch Key Features:
- Real-time alerts ensure accurate and consistent data flows
- Automated ELT processes accelerate time to insights
- Advanced monitoring & troubleshooting tools for support team visibility
- Data preview capabilities for quality assurance
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Auto scalability ensures high availability of your data platform
Overall, Stitch is a great choice for businesses that need an easy-to-use, reliable data platform. It's important to note that with any data platform, there may be some technical issues or a lack of support for less popular data sources. So make sure to do your due diligence and research any platform thoroughly before selecting it for your team. This way, you can ensure that the data platform you choose will meet all of your needs. Stitch is a great option - just be sure to check its compatibility with other services or platforms you may use as well.
7. Fivetran
Price: Pricing based on monthly active rows with a utilization curve detailed here. Depending on data sources MAR can be converted to GB at around 500k to 1M MARs / GB.
Fivetran is a cloud-based ETL solution that supports data integration with Redshift, BigQuery, Azure, and Snowflake data warehouses. One of the biggest benefits of Fivetran is the rich array of data sources, with multiple SaaS sources available and the ability to add your own custom integrations.
Fivetran currently has 4.2 out of 5 stars on G2, where many users praise the platform's simplicity and ease of use. G2 also named this ETL tool a “Leader” for the winter of 2024. Reviewer Daniel H. writes: "We don't have to spend much time thinking about Fivetran, and that's a great sign it's doing what we need it to do. Hooking up new connectors is typically quick and straightforward to do with solid documentation."
Some G2 reviewers, however, have complaints about Fivetran’s consumption-based pricing model. (The platform used to charge customers for the number of connectors used, which can work out cheaper in certain data integration use cases.) In addition, a minority of users have had problems with technical issues and customer support: “Fivetran is a black box, and when there is a problem, it's really difficult to diagnose. Their support line is no prize, either.”
Fivetran Key Features:
- Data security and privacy controls
- Automated data transformation features
- Real time analytics capabilities
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Logging and reporting capabilities
Overall, Fivetran is a great ETL solution for businesses looking to streamline their data integration process. The platform makes it easy for organizations of any size to move and transform data from multiple sources into an analytics-ready form quickly and cost-effectively. While there have been some issues reported with Fivetran’s customer service and pricing model, the company offers robust security and privacy controls, automated data transformation functionality, real time analytics capabilities and logging/reporting tools. With these features, Fivetran may be a great choice for companies looking to improve their data integration processes.
More ETL Tools to Consider
While the seven solutions listed above are Integrate.io’s personal recommendations for the top ETL tools, there are plenty of other options to consider. Below, discover seven more ETL tools you might want to add to your tech stack in 2023.