dbt alternatives
dbt takes a cut of your revenue instead of charging a flat price. Here's what the 3 other data pipeline tools we track cost. The closest match, Airbyte, covers 81% of what dbt does. Each one shows how much of it it covers, capability by capability, next to the price.
What dbt does
Core: SQL & dbt transformations, Open source & self-hosting.
Important: Pipeline orchestration (partly), Lineage & data observability, API & pipelines as code, AI pipeline assistant, Compliance & data residency (partly).
Also has: Lake & Iceberg destinations (partly), Data to spreadsheets (partly).
Alternatives to dbt at 5 million rows a month from 5 sources, best match first
- Airbyte: $120/mo Standard pay-as-you-go; CDP assumes ~1 KB rows (Standard, pay-as-you-go, 25 credits a month). It covers 81% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations (partly), Lineage & data observability (partly), AI pipeline assistant (partly). Free plan: none. Last price hike: Sep 2026.
- Fivetran: $520/mo Standard list, monthly; MAR rate implied from examples (Standard plan, monthly list price, 5 connections (1 PostgreSQL, 4 SaaS) at 1,000,000 MAR a month.). It covers 61% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations (partly), Open source & self-hosting (partly), Lineage & data observability (partly), AI pipeline assistant, Data to spreadsheets. Free plan: Free plan: 500,000 MAR a month for connections, 3,500 MAR a month for activations, 5,000 model runs a month for transformations..
- Segment: not offered (None: ELT is not offered (no database or warehouse-loading source listed; Team caps syncs at 2 per day).). It covers 39% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations (partly), Open source & self-hosting (partly), Pipeline orchestration, Lineage & data observability (partly), API & pipelines as code (partly). Free plan: Free plan: $0/month for up to 1,000 MTUs, 2 sources, 1 warehouse, 10 seats and 1 sync per day; stays free permanently..
Other kinds of products that cover part of dbt
- PostHog (Analytics): covers 58% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations (partly), Pipeline orchestration, Lineage & data observability (partly), API & pipelines as code (partly), AI pipeline assistant (partly)
- Supermetrics (Marketing reporting): covers 39% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations, Open source & self-hosting, Pipeline orchestration, Lineage & data observability (partly), API & pipelines as code (partly)
- Amplitude (Analytics): covers 31% of dbt; missing or partial: SQL & dbt transformations, Open source & self-hosting (partly), Pipeline orchestration, Lineage & data observability, API & pipelines as code (partly)
Prices at every size
- dbt: 5 million rows a month from 5 sources not offered, 10,000 users synced to 2 tools not offered, 100 daily models for a 3-person team $300/mo (Models over 15,000/mo billed as overage)
- Airbyte: 5 million rows a month from 5 sources $120/mo, 10,000 users synced to 2 tools $20/mo, 100 daily models for a 3-person team not offered (Standard pay-as-you-go; CDP assumes ~1 KB rows)
- Fivetran: 5 million rows a month from 5 sources $520/mo, 10,000 users synced to 2 tools custom pricing, 100 daily models for a 3-person team free (Standard list, monthly; MAR rate implied from examples)
- Segment: 5 million rows a month from 5 sources not offered, 10,000 users synced to 2 tools $120/mo, 100 daily models for a 3-person team not offered (ELT not offered; CDP = Connections Team $120/mo)
Every price is for the same small company on the cheapest self-serve plan that fully covers the job, billed monthly: loading 5 million rows a month from Postgres and 4 SaaS apps into a warehouse (headline), getting data on 10,000 users into a warehouse and 2 business tools, or running 100 daily SQL models for a 3-person team. Free plans count when they cover the whole job; warehouse compute and free self-hosted open-source editions are not counted.
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