Airbyte vs Hightouch For ETL/ELT in 2025

Airbyte consolidates data in warehouses, lakes, and databases through ETL, while Hightouch focuses on reverse ETL and AI for marketing and personalization. In this article, we'll compare Airbyte and Hightouch to see which one is the best data integration solution.

What are Airbyte and Hightouch?

Airbyte

Airbyte is an open-source ETL 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.

Hightouch

Hightouch is a reverse ETL and AI platform crafted for marketing and personalization, allowing companies to uncover insights, execute campaigns, and develop AI agents using their data.

It features an AI Decisioning Platform for lifecycle marketing and a Composable Customer Data Platform (CDP) that is adaptable, secure, and quick to deploy, built on top of a data warehouse.

Feature-by-Feature Breakdown: Alternatives & Competitors

Features
Sync to Warehouse (ETL/ELT)
Sync from warehouse (Reverse ETL)
Sync directly between SaaS Applications
Self-Hosted Option
High-Scale Database CDC
2-way, Read +Write Environment as Terraform
Real-time SOQL Transformations on Salesforce
Workspaces
Entity-level RBAC Permissions
Built for Enterprise Use Cases
Support Chat Reply in Minutes from Actual US-based Engineers
First-class API with Native Clients
White-label API with Auth-handling
Robust Connectors, None in Beta Version
Fast Turnaround Time on New Connectors
Straightforward Pricing (Easy to Understand)
Polytomic
Airbyte
Hightouch

Compare Airbyte and Hightouch

Airbyte

Hightouch

Key Features

  • Transfer data from various systems to data warehouses (ETL)
  • Extensive range of built-in connectors
  • Self-service capabilities
  • Thriving open-source community

Key Features

  • Synchronize data using Reverse ETL
  • Focus on AI capabilities and personalized marketing
  • Free tier available for initial use

Limitations

  • Many connectors are only “community-supported”
  • Setup process is complex
  • System can be brittle and immature at scale
  • Cannot move data from warehouses to SaaS apps (No Reverse ETL)

Limitations

  • Does not support syncing to data warehouses (No ETL)
  • Excess features and pricing for just Reverse ETL
  • Lack of unlimited workspaces

Pricing

Airbyte provides diverse 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 differs in hosting, sync frequency, and additional features, with the Cloud plan charging extra for more frequent syncs and the Team and Enterprise plans offering various add-ons.

Pricing

Hightouch's Starter Plan includes 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 offers custom pricing tailored to specific needs, featuring unlimited user seats and advanced personalization features.

Reviews

Using Airbyte has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. 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. Polytomic customers that previously used Airbyte cite unreliability as they scale to millions of rows per month. Check out more of their reviews here.

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.

WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Why customers are switching to Polytomic

Polytomic combines ETL, Reverse ETL, and CDC streaming in a single platform so you can move data to and from your data warehouse without managing multiple ETL tools.

  • Loved by Data Teams: One single vendor for all ETL and Reverse ETL, covering high-scale CDC streaming, full SQL support, and Terraform integration.
  • Easy for RevOps and Marketing: Point-and-click pipelines with power-user features like real-time SOQL transformations on Salesforce and native integrations with ad platforms.
  • Integrations Powering AI Agents: White-label API with native clients for unified ETL; deep integrations with your customers’ GTM stack, finance tools, and data warehouses with fully managed authentication.
  • Enterprise-ready: Self-hosting option, multi-tenant workspaces, fine-grained RBAC permissions, high scalability, and 30–50% cost savings from platform consolidation. Plus, support from engineers—in minutes, not days.

What is Polytomic?

Polytomic

Polytomic combines high-scale ETL, Reverse ETL, and CDC streaming in a single platform so you can move data to and from your data warehouses, databases, CRMs, finance applications, marketing tools, and APIs, without managing brittle pipelines or multiple vendors.

Data teams appreciate our single ETL platform with unified monitoring to centralize all data movement. We have full SQL support and first-class support for infrastructure-as-code.

RevOps and marketing teams use our no-code UI to quickly and independently set up syncs for product data to their CRM and ad platforms.

Built for enterprise scale, Polytomic can be self-hosted, handles billions of rows reliably, and has multi-tenant workspaces with fine-grained access controls.
Trusted by Data and ops teams
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All the features you need, on the platform that does it all

Replace multiple vendors

Reduce costs and simplify workflows

One platform for all syncs

ETL, Reverse ETL, CDC, iPaaS, APIs, and spreadsheets

Sync only what’s changed

Save on API limits and compute costs

Point and click

Select and filter your data without writing code

SQL query support

Powerful transformations when you need them

Pull from any API

No more glue code for custom integrations

Self-hosting available

Turnkey deployment to your private cloud

Enterprise-ready

SOC 2, GDPR, permissions, and audit logs

Move data between all of your favorite tools

Sync any of your proprietary data to and from your databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, and business systems.
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"Polytomic’s customer support has been unbelievably great. The level of consistent, immediate responsiveness has been a huge benefit to us. It’s clear that Polytomic invests in the success of our business in a way that most companies talk about but don’t actually do. More than just support, we feel we have a thought partner."
Jonathan Krangel
Director of Revenue Operations
@Retool

Pricing begins at $500/month

Standard

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Everything in Basic, plus:

  • Sync to and from databases, warehouses, spreadsheets, apps, and APIs
  • Multiple sync destinations
  • Live chat support

Enterprise

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Book call

Everything in Standard, plus:

  • On-prem deployment
  • Single sign-on (SSO)
  • Dedicated engineer
  • Phone support
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between ETL and Reverse ETL?
ETL / ELT move data into a warehouse (ETL transforms first, ELT transforms after load). Reverse ETL sends modeled warehouse data back out to SaaS apps like Salesforce so teams can act on it. Think “data warehouse as a destination” vs. “data warehouse as a source.”
How can Polytomic do both ETL and Reverse ETL when other tools can't?
Polytomic was designed from the start to do both ETL and Reverse ETL. While they are both "moving data", they require different technical architectures. WIth Polytomic, you can replace a multi-vendor stack with a single contract.
How frequent should my data syncs be?
Higher cadence means more API calls, warehouse credits, and compute, so start with the slowest interval that meets your SLA and tighten only where ROI is clear. Polytomic’s continuous mode runs as fast as every 5 minutes; for most revenue-ops or analytics cases, 15-min, 30-min, hourly, or daily schedules are cheaper and plenty fresh. We can help you determine what's best for your needs.
Why does quality of customer support matter?
When every pipeline fuels dashboards, campaigns, and revenue ops, downtime or mis-configured syncs have a direct cost. Polytomic’s proactive, engineer-led support responds in minutes to your message, not hours or days. We cut spend through proactive tuning of sync cadence and warehouse usage. We ship new connectors and features on request, quickly and reliably.
What is Fivetran?
Fivetran is a data integration platform that automatically syncs data from various sources into your data warehouse for easy analysis.