Most businesses have data stored in a variety of locations, from in-house databases to SaaS platforms. To get a full picture of their finances and operations, they pull data from all those sources into a data warehouse or data lake and run analytics against it. But they don't want to build and maintain their own data pipelines.

Fortunately, it’s not necessary to code everything in-house. Here's an comparison of two such tools, head to head.

About Jitterbit

Jitterbit is a cloud-based API integration platform for application integration.

About Elastic Logstash

Elastic is the corporate name of the company behind Elasticsearch. Logstash is a command-line tool that runs under Linux or macOS or in a Docker container. It integrates log data into the Elasticsearch search and analytics service. Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana make up the company's ELK Stack.

About Stitch

Stitch Data Loader is a cloud-based platform for ETL — extract, transform, and load. More than 3,000 companies use Stitch to move billions of records every day from SaaS applications and databases into data warehouses and data lakes, where it can be analyzed with BI tools. Stitch is a Talend company and is part of the Talend Data Fabric.


Focus	Application integration	Log replication and management	Data ingestion, ELT
Database replication	Full table	None	Full table; incremental via change data capture or SELECT/replication keys
SaaS sources	More than 100	None	More than 100
Ability for customers to add new data sources	Yes	Yes	Yes
Connects to data warehouses? Data lakes?	Yes / Yes	Yes / Yes	Yes / Yes
Transparent pricing	No	Yes	Yes
G2 customer satisfaction	4.7/5	4/5	4.8/5
Support SLAs	Yes	No	Available
Purchase process	Requires a conversation with sales	Available as a free download. Also bundled as part of the Elastic Stack, which is available via subscription	Options for self-service or talking with sales. Also available from the AWS store.
Compliance, governance, and security certifications	HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 1 Type I and II, SOC 2 Type I and II	GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2	HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2
Data sharing	Yes	No	Yes, through Talend Data Fabric
Vendor lock-in	Annual contracts	Logstash is open source software shipped under the Elastic license	Month to month or annual contracts. Open source integrations
Developer tools	Jitterbit's Harmony API is designed for building integrations with data, apps, or devices	Four monitoring APIs, instructions for writing plugins in Java	Import API, Stitch Connect API for integrating Stitch with other platforms, Singer open source project

Let's dive into some of the details of each platform.

Transformations

Jitterbit

Jitterbit specializes in application integration — moving data from one application or platform to another. Each application has defined data structures, so Jitterbit often has to transform data from a source to fit the destination schema. Jitterbit lets users select preload transformations in a graphical interface. The platform bundles several kinds of transformations, and lets users write their own functions in JavaScript or Jitterbit Script.

Elastic Logstash

Logstash provides plugins for several kinds of transformations, including filtering and deserializing data, extracting fields, and enriching data with lookups. Filters are text files, and users can edit existing filters and write their own; Logstash filters are Ruby gems.

Stitch

Stitch is an ELT product. Within the pipeline, Stitch does only transformations that are required for compatibility with the destination, such as translating data types or denesting data when relevant. Stitch is part of Talend, which also provides tools for transforming data either within the data warehouse or via external processing engines such as Spark and MapReduce. Transformations can be defined in SQL, Python, Java, or via graphical user interface.

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Connectors: Data sources and destinations

Each of these tools supports a variety of data sources and destinations.

Jitterbit

Like other application integration platforms, Jitterbit typically replicates data changes one at a time between multiple SaaS, on-premises, and cloud applications as events happen, rather than pushing batches of data to a single central repository. Jitterbit claims to support more than 1,000 sources, and lists more than 200 of them on its website. Endpoints include SaaS platforms, databases, file formats, and transport protocols. Destinations include all source types, plus email and Salesforce Wave Analytics (Einstein Analytics) cloud datasets. Amazon Redshift, S3, and Snowflake are supported destinations.

Elastic Logstash

Logstash supports more than 50 log and event data sources. Destinations include Google BigQuery data warehouse, Google Cloud Storage and Amazon S3 data lakes, Elasticsearch, and more than 50 other file formats and operational monitoring platforms.

Stitch

Stitch supports more than 100 database and SaaS integrationsas data sources, and eight data warehouse and data lake destinations. Customers can contract with Stitch to build new sources, and anyone can add a new source to Stitch by developing it according to the standards laid out in Singer, an open source toolkit for writing scripts that move data. Singer integrations can be run independently, regardless of whether the user is a Stitch customer. Running Singer integrations on Stitch’s platform allows users to take advantage of Stitch's monitoring, scheduling, credential management, and autoscaling features.

Support, documentation, and training

Data integration tools can be complex, so vendors offer several ways to help their customers. Online documentation is the first resource users often turn to, and support teams can answer questions that aren't covered in the docs. Vendors of the more complicated tools may also offer training services.

Jitterbit

Jitterbit provides support via an online forum-based community and via online form submission. Documentation is comprehensive. Digital training materials are available.

Elastic Logstash

Logstash vendor Elasticsearch provides support through a customer-only portal. Logstash is also supported through an open source community. Documentation is comprehensive. Digital training materials are not available.

Stitch

Stitch provides in-app chat support to all customers, and phone support is available for Enterprise customers. Support SLAs are available. Documentation is comprehensive and is open source — anyone can contribute additions and improvements or repurpose the content. Stitch does not provide training services.

Pricing

Jitterbit

Jitterbit provides three subscriptions tiers — Standard, Professional, and Enterprise — but pricing is not disclosed.

Elastic Logstash

Logstash is a free download, and is available bundled with other products in the Elastic Stack as a subscription, which starts at $16 per month. More expensive plans are available that feature things like dedicated support, custom plugins, machine learning, and advanced security features.

Stitch

Stitch has pricing that scales to fit a wide range of budgets and company sizes. All new users get an unlimited 14-day trial. Standard plans range from $100 to $1,250 per month depending on scale, with discounts for paying annually. Enterprise plans for larger organizations and mission-critical use cases can include custom features, data volumes, and service levels, and are priced individually.

Get started now

Which tool is better overall? That's something every organization has to decide based on its unique requirements, but we can help you get started. Sign up now for a free trial of Stitch.

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