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 Striim

Striim is an end-to-end, in-memory platform for collecting, filtering, transforming, enriching, aggregating, analyzing, and delivering big data in real time.

About Alooma

Alooma is a cloud-based ETL platform. Formerly independent, it was purchased by Google in 2019.

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.

Striim LogoAlooma LogoStitch Logo
FocusData integration Data ingestion, ETLData ingestion, ELT
Database replicationFull table; incremental replication via change data capture Full table; incremental via binary logs or SELECT/replication keysFull table; incremental via change data capture or SELECT/replication keys
SaaS sourcesNone About 20More than 100
Ability for customers to add new data sourcesNoNoYes
Connects to data warehouses? Data lakes?Yes / YesOnly Google BigQueryYes / Yes
Transparent pricingNoNoYes
G2 customer satisfactionHelp5/54/54.8/5
Support SLAsYesNoAvailable
Purchase processRequires a conversation with sales Requires a conversation with salesOptions for self-service or talking with sales. Also available from the AWS store.
Compliance, governance, and security certificationsGDPR, HIPAA HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, OAuth 2.0HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2
Data sharingNoNoYes, through Talend Data Fabric
Vendor lock-inAnnual contracts. No open sourceAnnual contracts. No open sourceMonth to month or annual contracts. Open source integrations
Developer toolsREST API for monitoring and application managementPython APIImport 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

Striim

Striim provides pre-load transformations written in SQL or Java and specified through a drag-and-drop interface.

Alooma

Alooma lets developers transform data within the data pipeline before loading via Code Engine, an in-browser Python environment.

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.

Striim

Striim supports file, database, protocol, and messaging system data sources, as well as two on-premises data warehouses. It can write data to data warehouses, data lakes, databases, messaging systems, and semistructured files.

Alooma

Alooma integrates with about 30 databases and SaaS data sources. Customers can request that Alooma build a new data source, but no one outside of the Alooma team can build new data sources or make improvements to existing sources. It used to support several data warehouse and data lake destinations, but since the company was purchased by Google, new Alooma customers can use only Google Cloud Platform as a destination.

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.

Striim

Striim provides support through an online ticketing system. Documentation is comprehensive. The company doesn't provide training materials or services.

Alooma

Alooma provides support via Zendesk through a form on its website. Documentation is comprehensive. The company doesn't provide training services.

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

Striim

Striim pricing is undisclosed.

Alooma

Alooma doesn't disclose pricing.

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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