Stitch Data vs Census For ETL/ELT in 2025

Stitch Data and Census are crucial for ETL/ELT solutions, enabling seamless data movement to a unified data warehouse. In this article, we'll compare Stitch Data and Census to determine the best data integration solution.

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What are Stitch Data and Census?

Stitch Data

Stitch Data is a cloud-based ETL service that allows users to transfer data from over 140 sources to a data warehouse with minimal IT expertise.

In 2018, legacy data provider Qlik acquired the company, integrating Stitch Data with Talend.

Census

Census is a Reverse ETL platform designed to transfer data from your data warehouse to various SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Hubspot, and advertising platforms.

It ensures seamless data synchronization, enabling you to leverage your data across multiple tools efficiently.

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

Stitch Data

Census

Compare Stitch Data and Census

Stitch Data

Census

Key Features

Transfer data from sources to warehouses (ETL)
No programming needed
SOC2 compliant

Key Features

Sync data from your warehouse to various tools (Reverse ETL)
Utilize workspaces for better organization
Access a white-label API for seamless integration

Limitations

Encountering bugs and instability when scaling up
Delayed updates to changes in connector APIs
Absence of Reverse ETL functionality
Limited growth in support for new connectors

Limitations

Limit on the number of synced fields for the Professional plan
Pricing model not based on scale (per field pricing)
Enterprise plan needed for syncs more frequent than every 15 minutes
Unable to sync to data warehouses

Pricing

Stitch Data provides three pricing tiers: the Standard Plan, which begins at $100 monthly, the Advanced Plan at $1,250 monthly when billed annually, and the Premium Plan at $2,500 monthly with annual billing.

Each plan is tailored to meet varying user requirements and data capacities, with features expanding to match the needs of different users.

Pricing

Census offers three main pricing plans: a limited free plan, a Professional plan starting at $350/month, and custom Enterprise plans.

For real-time sync capabilities and their “Audience Hub” features, the Enterprise plan is required.

Reviews

Using Stitch Data has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. 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.

Reviews

Census has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Some users find Census to be expensive, especially for scaling companies.

There are mentions of feature limitations and missing features. A few users noted that some functionalities, like on-the-fly transformations, are lacking in certain pricing tiers. One review mentioned that the tool is still young and has limited connections to SaaS tools. Check out more of their reviews here.

WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Why customers are switching to Polytomic

Polytomic is a data integration platform that seamlessly syncs data from various sources into your data warehouse for effortless analysis.

Minimal API usage: Whether syncing with Salesforce, HubSpot, or other systems, you won't need to worry about API limits. Our sync engine automatically performs incremental syncs and utilizes the appropriate bulk APIs, rate limits, and throttling through its intelligent job queue.
No coding required: Perform Sync, ETL, Reverse ETL, ELT, and CDC streaming between databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, and applications like Salesforce and Zendesk without needing engineers. Just point, click, and go!
Custom SQL? No problem: If you require the full capabilities of SQL, we've got you covered. Define your preferred data model using native SQL against your databases.
Realtime & scheduled syncs: Automatically transfer data from databases and spreadsheets to your CRM as soon as it changes at the source, or set up a custom sync schedule that suits your needs. You have full control.

What is Polytomic?

Polytomic

Polytomic combines ETL and Reverse ETL in a single platform so you can move data to and from your data warehouse without managing brittle pipelines across multiple tools.

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.

Trusted by Data and ops teams

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.

See all integrations

"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

Get hands-on with Polytomic

See how easy it is to sync data to the tools your team actually uses—no code, no waiting.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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.

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.”

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.