Airbyte vs Matillion For ETL/ELT in 2025
Airbyte is an open-source engine designed to consolidate data in warehouses, lakes, and databases, while Matillion is a cloud-native ETL/ELT platform for building and managing pipelines across cloud data platforms. In this article, we'll compare Airbyte and Matillion to see which one is the best ETL solution.
What are Airbyte and Matillion?
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.
Matillion
Matillion is a cloud-native ETL/ELT platform that empowers data teams to construct and oversee pipelines across cloud data platforms like Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, and Azure Synapse.
It features a low-code interface and push-down transformations for streamlined data processing.
Feature-by-Feature Breakdown: Alternatives & Competitors
Compare Airbyte and Matillion
Airbyte
Matillion
Key Features
- Transfer data from various systems to data warehouses (ETL)
- Extensive range of built-in connectors
- Self-service capabilities
- Vast open-source community
Key Features
- Sync to Warehouse (ETL/ELT)
- Contemporary User Experience
Limitations
- Many connectors are only “community-supported”
- Setup process is complex
- Can be brittle and immature when scaled
- Cannot move data from warehouses to SaaS applications (No Reverse ETL)
Limitations
- Challenging version control and limited visibility of change logs
- Outdated point-and-click interface
- Supports only ETL, lacking Reverse ETL capabilities
- High cost for available features
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 features, with the Cloud plan charging extra for frequent syncs and the Team and Enterprise plans offering various add-ons.
Pricing
Matillion's pricing model is consumption-based, where users buy credits that can be used for both Matillion ETL and Data Loader services, with costs influenced by virtual core hours for ETL processing and the volume of data rows for loading.
Pricing is also affected by deployment size, execution runtime, and support needs, making it flexible to accommodate various business requirements.
Reviews
Airbyte has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, but 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
Matillion has received a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. Users have reported challenges with version control, particularly when merging branches, and have noted that certain components are less versatile, leading to reliance on custom SQL scripts.
Some reviews mention a steep learning curve for advanced features and limitations in testing capabilities. Check out more of their reviews here.
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
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.
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
