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 Xplenty

Xplenty is a cloud-based ETL platform.

About Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)

Pentaho, a subsidiary of Hitachi Vantara, is an open source platform for data integration and analytics. The software comes in a free community edition and a subscription-based enterprise edition. It runs on-premises rather than as a SaaS application.

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.

Xplenty LogoPentaho Data Integration (Kettle) LogoStitch Logo
Focus Data ingestion, ELT/ETL Business intelligence, data integration, ETLData ingestion, ELT
Database replication Full table; incremental via SELECT/replication keys Full table; incremental via binary logs or SELECT/replication keysFull table; incremental via change data capture or SELECT/replication keys
SaaS sources More than 100 Only Salesforce and Google AnalyticsMore than 100
Ability for customers to add new data sourcesNoNoYes
Connects to data warehouses? Data lakes?Yes / YesYes / YesYes / Yes
Transparent pricingNoNoYes
G2 customer satisfactionHelp4.4/54.2/54.8/5
Support SLAsYesYesAvailable
Purchase process Requires a conversation with salesRequires a conversation with salesOptions for self-service or talking with sales. Also available from the AWS store.
Compliance, governance, and security certifications SOC 2, SOX, PCI, GDPRNoneHIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2
Data sharingNoYesYes, through Talend Data Fabric
Vendor lock-inAnnual contractsAnnual contracts. Open source version availableMonth to month or annual contracts. Open source integrations
Developer toolsREST APIREST 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

Xplenty

Xplenty offers more than a dozen simple preload transformations, including filter, sort, and join, implemented via dragging and dropping components onto a workspace.

Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)

Pentaho supports a wide variety of pre- and post-load transformations through dragging and dropping more than two dozen kinds of operations onto its work area. In addition, users can drag and drop custom scripts in Python, Java, JavaScript, and SQL onto the canvas.

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.

Xplenty

Xplenty supports more than 120 integrations to SaaS platforms, databases, and BI and analytics tools. It supports Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, and Snowflake data warehouses and Amazon S3 data lakes, along with database and file storage destinations. Customers can request that the company build a new data source or destination, but no one outside of the company can build new ones or make improvements to existing ones.

Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)

Pentaho can take many file types as input, but it can connect to only two SaaS platforms: Google Analytics and Salesforce. It connects to more than 40 databases, as sources or destinations, via JDBC, ODBC, or plugins.

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.

Xplenty

Xplenty provides support through Intercom online chat and via email. Documentation is in the form of an online knowledgebase. The company doesn't provide training services.

Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)

Pentaho provides support through a support portal and a community website. Premium support SLAs are available. There's no live support within the application. Documentation is comprehensive. Pentaho provides free and paid training resources, including videos and instructor-led training. A certification program is also 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

Xplenty

Xplenty doesn't disclose pricing. The company offers a 7-day free trial to users who request a product demo.

Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)

Pentaho provides a 30-day trial download. Contract pricing isn't disclosed.

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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