Top 6 Talend Alternatives & Competitors
Talend is an enterprise-grade platform that combines ETL, quality, and governance in a single solution, supporting integration across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments to ensure flexibility and scalability.
What is Talend?
Talend
Talend offers a UI-based ETL platform designed for enterprise use, merging data integration, quality, and governance into one comprehensive solution. They have been operating for nearly 20+ years.
Key Features
- Sync to Warehouse (ETL/ELT)
- In business for twenty years
Limitations
- Supports only ETL, lacking reverse ETL capabilities
- Costly legacy platform
- Complex GUI and lacks code compatibility
- Unreliable when scaling up
Pricing
Talend's pricing structure is tailored to the unique data integration needs of each customer. As a part of Qlik, Talend provides a range of solutions, such as Talend Data Fabric and Qlik Replicate. The cost is determined by factors like deployment size, data volume, and required support levels. For specific pricing details, inquiries can be made directly.
Why Consider Talend Alternatives
While Talend has been a go-to ETL tool for many, it has its limitations that prompt users to seek alternatives. Here are some reasons why companies consider other options:
- Only ETL (no reverse ETL): Talend focuses solely on moving data into your warehouse. It doesn't support sending data back from your warehouse to tools like Salesforce or Hubspot, necessitating the use of an additional tool.
- Not reliable at scale: Users often report that Talend struggles with performance and reliability when handling large-scale data operations, leading to potential downtime and inefficiencies.
- Difficult GUI and not compatible with code: The graphical user interface can be cumbersome and unintuitive, making it challenging for users to navigate. Additionally, it lacks compatibility with code, limiting flexibility for developers.
- Expensive legacy platform: Talend's pricing can be prohibitive, especially for smaller businesses. As a legacy platform, it may also lack some of the modern features and efficiencies found in newer ETL tools.
Below is a table breaking down six alternatives to Talend and their tradeoffs.
Feature-by-Feature Breakdown: Alternatives & Competitors
Top 6 Talend Alternatives & Competitors
Polytomic
Business operations teams can set up powerful syncs without writing code, and data engineers get full SQL support, CDC streaming, Terraform compatibility, and an API. Built for enterprise scale, Polytomic handles billions of rows, complex models, and fine-grained access controls with reliability and speed.
All the features you need, on the platform that does it all
Replace multiple vendors
One platform for all syncs
Sync only what’s changed
Point and click
SQL query support
Pull from any API
Self-hosting available
Enterprise-ready
Move data between all of your favorite tools
Pricing begins at $500/month
Fivetran
Fivetran is a popular ETL tool that moves data from SaaS apps, databases, and files into data warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, and Redshift.
Key Features
- Widely-known ETL vendor
- Large number of built-in connectors
- Plug-and-play syncing into data warehouses
- Simple to use for smaller businesses
Limitations
- Unable to sync back into SaaS applications (no Reverse ETL)
- Frequent price increases
- High cost at medium scale and beyond
- Limited and unreliable customer support
- Slow response to new connector requests
Pricing
Fivetran provides various pricing options, beginning with a Free Plan at no cost. The Standard Plan is priced at $500 per million monthly active rows (MAR), while the Enterprise Plan costs $667 per million MAR. For those requiring higher security and compliance, the Business Critical Plan is available at $1,067 per million MAR. As of March 2025, bulk sync discounts are applied on a per connector basis rather than across the entire workspace, leading to increased costs for numerous users.
Reviews
Fivetran has an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars. Users have raised concerns about the pricing model, noting that it can become expensive as data volume increases. Additionally, there are complaints about the limited number of connectors and the lack of features in some existing connectors. Customer support has also been a point of contention, with users reporting below-average assistance for more complex issues.
Check out more of their reviews here.
Airbyte
Airbyte is an open-source data integration engine designed to consolidate data in data warehouses, lakes, and databases. It offers a range of solutions including Airbyte Cloud for quick setup, Airbyte Self-Managed Enterprise for secure data movement, and Airbyte Open Source, which is used by over 40,000 companies.
Key Features
- Move data from systems to data warehouses (ETL)
- Large number of included connectors
- Self-serve option
- Large open-source community
Limitations
- Many connectors are only “community-supported”
- Complicated setup procedure
- Fragile and underdeveloped at scale
- Incapable of transferring data from warehouses to SaaS applications (No Reverse ETL)
Pricing
Airbyte offers a range of pricing options, including a free Open Source plan for self-hosting, a volume-based Cloud plan, and capacity-based Team and Enterprise plans. Each plan varies in terms of hosting, sync frequency, and additional features, with the Cloud plan incurring extra costs for more frequent syncs and the Team and Enterprise plans offering multiple add-ons.
Reviews
Airbyte has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 49 reviews. Users have reported issues with error reporting and poor documentation. There are also mentions of limited integrations and challenges with certain connectors, such as Google Sheets. Troubleshooting can be frustrating, especially for open-source users, and there are concerns about security when allowing Airbyte IPs to access databases. Check out more of their reviews here.
Polytomic customers that previously used Airbyte cite unreliability as they scale to millions of rows per month.
Hightouch
Hightouch is a reverse ETL and AI platform designed for marketing and personalization, enabling companies to find insights, run campaigns, and build AI agents using their data. It offers an AI Decisioning Platform for lifecycle marketing and a Composable Customer Data Platform (CDP) that is flexible, secure, and quick to deploy, built on top of a data warehouse.
Key Features
- Sync data with Reverse ETL
- Emphasis on AI features and marketing personalization
- Free tier to get started
Limitations
- Does not support syncing to data warehouses (No ETL)
- Excess features and pricing for just Reverse ETL
- Lack of unlimited workspaces
Pricing
Hightouch offers a Starter Plan with a free tier at $0 and a paid tier at $350 per month, billed annually with a 20% discount. For larger teams, the Business Plan features custom pricing tailored to specific needs, including unlimited user seats and advanced personalization features.
Reviews
Hightouch has a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Some users mentioned that Hightouch can be expensive, especially for startups or when using the paid solution extensively. There are comments about the learning curve and the need for better error handling and debugging processes. The UI is sometimes described as confusing and not very intuitive. Error reporting, especially for large batches, needs improvement. Check out more of their reviews here.
Stitch Data
Stitch Data is a cloud-based ETL service designed to facilitate the transfer of data from more than 140 sources to a data warehouse. The platform aims to simplify the data migration process, requiring minimal IT expertise from its users. In 2018, the company was acquired by Qlik, a legacy data provider, which subsequently integrated Stitch Data with Talend.
Key Features
- Move data from sources to warehouse (ETL)
- No coding required
- SOC2 certified
Limitations
- Bugs and instability at scale
- Slow to update to connector API changes
- No Reverse ETL
- Lack of growth for new connector support
Pricing
Stitch Data offers three main pricing plans: the Standard Plan starting at $100 per month, the Advanced Plan at $1,250 per month billed annually, and the Premium Plan at $2,500 per month billed annually. Each plan is designed to cater to different user needs and data volumes, with features scaling accordingly.
Reviews
Stitch Data has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 68 reviews. Users have reported concerns about the reliability of the product and the quality of customer support. Previous Stitch Data customers cite minimal new work on existing connectors, slow response times to outages, and unwillingness to build new connectors. Check out more of their reviews here.
Retool’s Director of RevOps switched from Stitch Data to Polytomic to consolidate all their bidirectional ETL jobs.
Hevo Data
Hevo Data is a no-code ETL platform that enables users to ingest, transform, and load data from more than 150 sources. It offers a way to manage data workflows without requiring coding skills. The platform supports various data sources, including databases, cloud applications, and more, facilitating the movement and transformation of data across different systems.
Key Features
- ETL data integration for syncing to data warehouses
- Works well at sub 5 million rows/month
- 150+ data sources
- Free tier available at small scale
Limitations
- Issues with scalability even at 5 million rows/month
- Slow support (even the Enterprise plan only offers 1hr support SLA)
- Unreliable for critical infrastructure
- No Reverse ETL offered
Pricing
Hevo Data's pricing structure is well-suited for companies with modest data requirements. They provide a generous free tier that allows up to 1 million events to be synced each month. For those needing more, their starter plan ranges from $299 to $949 per month, accommodating between 5 to 50 million monthly synced events. Additionally, Hevo offers Professional and Business Critical plans, which come with enhanced features for more demanding data needs.
Reviews
Hevo Data has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. Users have enjoyed the low cost, especially for smaller companies. They often mention issues with data inaccuracy, unreliability at scale, and limitations in advanced transformations. Check out more of their reviews here.
Customers who switch from Hevo Data to Polytomic often do so from frustration with sync failures and missing records in the Hevo platform as they scale the amount of data synced.
Why customers are switching to Polytomic
Polytomic unifies ETL/ELT, Reverse ETL, and database CDC into a single platform—so your data moves in and out of the data warehouse without relying on multiple vendors.
- Built for Data Teams: Consolidate your ETL and Reverse ETL needs with one solution. Polytomic handles high-throughput CDC streaming, full SQL transformations, and support for infrastructure-as-code.
- RevOps and Marketing-Friendly: Launch data pipelines to your CRM and ad platforms in minutes with an intuitive UI, plus advanced tools like live SOQL transformations on Salesforce data.
- API for AI & Product Teams: Deliver embedded customer integrations via our white-labeled native API. Polytomic supports seamless syncing into customer CRMs and data warehouses with built-in auth and integrations with the whole GTM stack.
- Enterprise-Grade: Deploy on-prem or in the cloud, manage complex orgs with multi-tenant workspaces and fine-grained RBAC permissions, and cut costs by 30–50% through platform consolidation. Backed by fast, responsive support from real data engineers.
