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Databricks vs Fivetran
Short answer: Pick Databricks if you want unified lakehouse for data, analytics and AI; pick Fivetran if you want managed ELT pipelines for AI and analytics. Both have a free plan.
Which to pick
Pick Databricks if you want…
- Unified lakehouse for data, analytics and AI
- Integrations with Delta Lake, SQL or R (on Databricks' list, not Fivetran's)
Pick Fivetran if you want…
- Managed ELT pipelines for AI and analytics
- Integrations with dbt Core, REST API or SSH tunnels (on Fivetran's list, not Databricks')
Side by side
- What it is
- Databricks:Databricks is a unified Data + AI platform that combines data engineering, warehousing, governance and AI workloads on a lakehouse.
- Fivetran:Fivetran provides managed data pipelines that move and model data from sources to warehouses or lakes for analytics and AI.
- Best for
- Databricks:Unified lakehouse for data, analytics and AI
- Fivetran:Managed ELT pipelines for AI and analytics
- Who it’s for
- Databricks:Data engineers, analysts, ML engineers and AI product teams needing integrated analytics and AI.
- Fivetran:Data engineers, analytics teams, and AI developers needing reliable data integration.
- Pricing
- Databricks:Freemium
- Fivetran:Freemium
- Free plan or trial
- Databricks:Free trial
- Fivetran:Free plan (Free) · Free trial
- Plans
- Databricks:Data Engineering $0.15 / DBU per second · Data Warehousing $0.22 / DBU per second · Interactive workloads $0.40 / DBU per second · Operational Database $0.069 / CU per second
- Fivetran:Free $0
- Works with
- Databricks:Delta Lake, SQL, R, Spark, AWS, Azure, GCP
- Fivetran:dbt Core, REST API, SSH tunnels, AWS, GCP, Azure, Salesforce, HubSpot
Databricks features
- Lakebase. Serverless Postgres-compatible database integrated with the lakehouse for transactional workloads.
- Lakeflow. Unified ETL engine for building batch and streaming data pipelines.
- Genie. Conversational analytics that answers natural-language queries with text, tables and visualizations.
- Unity Catalog. Open governance layer for data, models, dashboards and AI agents.
- AI/BI. AI-powered business intelligence with natural-language dashboard creation and conversational insights.
- Operational Database. Fully-managed Postgres service for serving data and features to applications.
Fivetran features
- Fully managed connectors. Move data from 750+ sources to destinations without custom code.
- Real-time syncs. Standard plan offers 15-minute syncs; Enterprise offers 1-minute syncs.
- Semantic layer. Define business metrics once and reuse them across teams and AI agents.
- Activations. Push synced data to downstream apps like Salesforce or HubSpot.
- Transformations. Run up to 5,000 model runs free per month with usage-based pricing.
- Enterprise security. SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI DSS Level 1, private networking and encryption.
Databricks vs Fivetran FAQ
What is the difference between Databricks and Fivetran?+
Databricks offers a lakehouse platform for analytics and AI, whereas Fivetran handles the data ingestion and ELT part.
Should I use Databricks or Fivetran?+
Pick Databricks if you want unified lakehouse for data, analytics and AI or integrations with Delta Lake, SQL or R (on Databricks' list, not Fivetran's). Pick Fivetran if you want managed ELT pipelines for AI and analytics or integrations with dbt Core, REST API or SSH tunnels (on Fivetran's list, not Databricks').
Is Databricks or Fivetran free?+
Databricks has a free plan and paid plans. Fivetran has a free plan and paid plans.
Do Databricks and Fivetran integrate with the same tools?+
Partly. Both list AWS, Azure and GCP. Databricks also lists Delta Lake, SQL, R and Spark; Fivetran also lists dbt Core, REST API, SSH tunnels, Salesforce and 1 more.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.