8 Best Azure ETL Tools for Data Engineers to Consider in 2024

In the data engineering industry, managing your data is critical for driving business. Data is gathered from various sources in all shapes and forms, and without the right set of tools, it is impossible to use this data for meaning analysis. 

If you work with a cloud environment, you must have heard of Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure is a vast ecosystem of tools meant to administer everything from simple data transformations to complex machine learning flows. However, this abundance of choices in the ETL tools available for the Azure suite makes it hard to choose the right one for your business.

This blog will discuss the best Azure ETL tools for data engineers in 2024. We will provide you with the Azure ETL tools list, features and pricing of each tool and various other aspects to make choosing the right Azure ETL tool easier. So, let’s dive in!

What is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure, a cloud computing platform, offers various services, such as computing, storage, networking, databases, and analytics. With Azure, you can build intelligent apps and solutions with advanced technology, tools, and services to grow your business.

Key Features of Microsoft Azure

• Users can create game-changing customer experiences by building their own copilot and generative AI applications with Azure OpenAI Services.
• It helps you to efficiently manage all your analytics, infrastructure, data, and AI solutions across an integrated platform. 
• Azure Arc helps you to extend and simplify the management of Azure services across environments—on-premises, at the edge, and multi-cloud.

We’ve always been sitting on a lot of data, but we needed Azure and AI to unlock its potential and find the interesting nuggets in those billions of data points.

Charlie Rohlf: Associate Vice President, Stats Technology Product Development
-National Basketball Association

Why Businesses Need Azure ETL Tools

There are various reasons why businesses need ETL tools to simplify the use of Microsoft Azure for data migration and transformation. ETL Tools in Azure are beneficial because:

1. Scalability: As your business grows, the amount of data and, thus, the need for the ETL tool also becomes imperative. Azure ETL tools can scale with your data, thus avoiding performance bottlenecks.
2. Cloud integration: Azure adopts a cloud-first strategy. Hence, you can store, process, and analyze data in real-time on multiple cloud platforms.
3. Security: As part of the Azure infrastructure, it offers strong security, allowing you to secure sensitive data during the processes involved in the ETL operation.
4. Automation: Most Azure ETL tools have automation facilities, meaning processes are executed automatically with little manual intervention, improving operational efficiency.

To Know more about ETL tools, check out our blog on Best ETL Tools.

List of Best Azure ETL tools in 2024

Now that we understand the importance of ETL in the data engineering process, let’s explore the best Azure ETL tools list for 2024. I’ll cover their features and pricing so that you can make an informed decision.

1. Hevo

G2 Rating: 4.2(232)

Capterra Rating: 4.7(100)

Hevo Data is a no-code data pipeline platform that automates data integration. It makes loading data from various sources easy into your data warehouse. Hevo stands out with its ease of use, comprehensive transformation capabilities, and excellent customer support.

Why choose Hevo over other platforms?

• Multiple Connectors: Supports 150+ connectors, including 60+ free sources for wide-ranging data integration.
• Auto Schema Management: Automatically handles schema changes without manual intervention.
• Pre and Post-Load Transformations: Offers robust transformations before and after data loading.
• No-Code Interface: User-friendly interface for easy pipeline setup.
• 24×7 Support: Round-the-clock customer support for any issues or guidance.

Transparent and Competitive Pricing: Straightforward pricing with no hidden fees.

Pricing

Hevo Offers transparent tier-based pricing for cost-effective data planning.

• Free Plan: Supporting up to 1M events per month for five users per team
• Starter Pack: Starting at $239 monthly with up to 50M monthly events with SSH/SSL encryption connection.
• Professional Pack: This pack starts at $679 monthly and includes up to 100M monthly events, reverse SSH, and unlimited users.
• Business Critical: If you want to transfer for more than 100M monthly events, you can contact our sales team for a custom quote.

One of the biggest reasons I would recommend Hevo is its lowest price-performance ratio compared to the competition. It is definitely one of the best solutions if we take into consideration 3 major aspects – scalability, productivity, and reliability.

Emmet Murphy, Staff Software Engineer, Deliverr

Matillion

G2 Rating: 4.4(77)

Capterra Rating: 4.3(111)

Matillion is a popular cloud-based ELT platform that allows users to quickly transform data and load it into their desired data warehouse. It supports integrating diverse data sources and provides users with a flexible platform.

Key Features of Matillion

• Deep integration with major cloud data warehouses.
• Integrates with AI and machine learning tools for advanced analytics and predictive modeling.
• Features an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface for designing ELT processes
• Monitor activity, identify and troubleshoot issues, and manage security and governance all in one place.
• Keep data secure with role-based security and strong governance. 

Pricing

Provides three pricing models for you to choose from: 

• Basic: Starting at $2.00/credit, you start with 500 monthly credits. You can only add five users per team with Application-level permissions.
• Advanced: For $2.50/credit, you get 750 monthly credits. You can add unlimited users and project-level permissions.
• Enterprise: For $2.70/credit, you get 1000 monthly credits. You can deploy over a hybrid cloud and use CDC pipelines.

If the investment data hub is the heart of everything we do, Matillion is the circulatory system – pumping everything around.

Tom Back, Head of Investment Data, St. James’s Place Wealth Management

3. Fivetran

G2 Rating: 4.2(377)

Capterra Rating: 4.7(20)

Fivetran is a no-code, automated data integration tool designed for simplicity and efficiency. Out-of-the-box connectors make it very easy to set up and maintain. With Fivetran, building or maintaining a pipeline is nothing to worry about; it’s all done for you.

Key Features of Fivetran

• Fivetran supports 500+ data connectors, making integrating data from multiple sources easy.
• It automatically synchronizes data, ensuring your data is always fresh and ready for analysis.
• Fivetran adheres to SOC 1 & 2, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, HIPAA, CCPA, GDPR, and HITRUST regulations.
• Fivetran offers robust customer support and a vibrant community, providing ample troubleshooting and learning resources.

Pricing

Fivetran offers four pricing levels—Free, Starter, Standard, and Enterprise. Each tier varies in terms of security, data governance, and support.

Fivetran was six or seven times less expensive than hiring someone to manage all the data pipelines we wanted.

Andrew Wahl, Director of Marketing Analytics and Operations, Paylocity

4. Stitch

G2 Rating: 4.4(68)

Capterra Rating: 4.3(4)

Stitch offers simple, extensible ETL pipelines that can handle various data sources. It’s known for its simplicity and ease of use, especially for smaller teams or startups.

Key Features Compared to Fivetran

• Extract data from 140+ popular sources to your warehouse or database with its no-code platform.
• Stitch pipelines automatically and continuously update, freeing you to focus on insights, not IT.
• SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA BAA, ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR, and CCPA security certifications. 

Pricing

It offers three pricing models: 

• Standard: It starts at $100 monthly with 5-30M rows/month. It supports a 7-day historical sync, 10 Sources, and 1 Destination, and you can add up to 5 users.
• Advanced: It starts at $1250 monthly, with 100M rows/month. It supports three destinations, and you can add unlimited users and have API access.
• Premium: It starts at $2500 monthly with 1B rows/month. It supports five destinations, and you can choose advanced connectivity options.

Stitch has a nice UX, awesome support, and the product just works!

Jonathan Asquier, CTO, trusk

5. Azure Data Factory

G2 Rating: 4.6/5 

Capterra Rating: N/A

Azure Data Factory, or ADF, is a cloud-based data integration service from Microsoft. Using ADF, you can create data-driven pipelines to orchestrate and automate data movement and transformation. You can build ETL and ELT code-free in an intuitive environment or write your chosen code.

Key Features of ADF

• It provides easy rehosting of SQL Server Integration Services with built-in Git and support for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).
• Pay-as-you-go, fully managed serverless cloud service that scales on demand and provides a cost-effective solution.
• More than 90 built-in connectors for transferring all your on-premises and software as a service (SaaS) data. 

Pricing

• It offers pricing based on different aspects, such as Pipeline orchestration and execution, Data flow execution, and debugging. 

6. Azure Databricks

G2 Rating: 4.5(212)

Capterra Rating: 4.6(8)

As a fast, easy, and collaborative Apache Spark-based analytics platform, Azure Databricks easily integrates into Microsoft Azure and meets all the requirements of a powerful big data analytics and machine learning solution.

Key Features of Azure Databricks

• You can create, tune, and deploy your own generative AI applications with tracking and monitoring at scale.
• Unify governance for data analytics and AI.
• Achieve industry-leading price and performance with the lakehouse architecture and SQL that bring cloud data warehousing capabilities to your data lakes.

Pricing

Azure Databricks bills you for virtual machines (VMs) provisioned in clusters and Databricks Units (DBUs) based on the VM instance selected. It offers a standard and a premium tier, and the pricing is based on your selected features. 

“We modernized a legacy Excel and SQL-based application into a Microsoft Power Apps and Azure Databricks solution on the Azure cloud inspired by data mesh and data lakehouse architectures.”

Wasim Tambe, Senior Technical Product Manager, EY Technology

7. Azure Synapse Analytics 

G2 Rating: 4.4(35)

Capterra Rating: 4.3(32)

Synapse is Microsoft’s enterprise analytics service. It accelerates time to insight across data warehouses and big data systems. This service incorporates the best SQL technologies used in enterprise data warehousing, Apache Spark technologies for big data, and Azure Data Explorer for log and time series analytics.

Key Features of Azure Synapse Analytics

• Limitless scale to rapidly deliver insights from all your data across data warehouses and big data analytics systems. 
• It provides machine-learning models to enhance your intelligent apps.
• Unified experience in developing end-to-end analytics solutions to reduce project development time significantly.

Pricing

The pricing depends on the purchase tiers and discounts for pre-purchase plan Synapse Commit Units.

8. Azure HDInsight

G2 Rating: 3.9(17)

Capterra Rating: N/A

Azure HDInsight is a customizable, enterprise-grade service for open-source analytics. It supports crucial frameworks, including Apache Hadoop, Spark, Hive, Kafka, and many more, to provide a comprehensive open-source analytics suite. It also enables smooth and scaled data processing by leveraging global resources from Azure.

Key Features of Azure HDInsights

• It is easy to spin up open-source projects and clusters quickly without installing hardware or managing infrastructure.
• It provides enterprise-grade security and industry-leading compliance with more than 30 certifications to protect your data.
• Optimized components for open-source technologies such as Hadoop and Spark keep you up to date.

Pricing

It is billed on a per-minute basis. The pricing overview is as follows: 

• Hadoop, Spark, Interactive Query, Kafka, Storm, HBase: Base price/node-hour + $0/core-hour.
• HDInsight Machine Learning Services: Base price/node-hour + $0.016/core-hour.
• Enterprise Security Package: Base price/node-hour + $0.01/core-hour.

Base price/ node-hour varies from instance to instance. 

How do you choose the right Azure ETL Tool?

Choosing the right Azure ETL tool is essential to ensure that your data from Microsoft Azure is efficiently managed. It depends on various factors like: 

• Data Volume: Stitch could be what you need for data with a very small volume. However, for large data volumes, better options would be Hevo, Azure Databricks, or Azure Synapse Analytics.
• Budget: If budget is the deciding factor, there are a few tools for flexible pricing. For example, it would be worthwhile to consider Hevo because of its transparent tier-based pricing. 
• Ease of Use: Ease of use is important, so tools such as Hevo and Fivetran can be better for teams with less technical know-how. More complex tools, such as Azure HDInsight, are better suited to data engineers who are comfortable coding.
• Scalability: These can be targeted for future data growth. Examples include Hevo, Azure Data Factory, and Azure Synapse Analytics, all of which are built to handle large data sets and complicated workflows in extraction, transformation, and loading.
• Integrations: Its integration into your existing data sources, cloud platforms, and analytics tools should be good. Tools like Hevo and Fivetran provide hundreds of connectors for seamless integration with databases, data warehouses, and SaaS tools. 

Conclusion

Azure ETL tools provide a strong and simple platform for automating and optimizing your data workflows. Each tool has its strengths, and the right choice depends on your data needs, technical expertise, and budget.

If you are looking for a cost-effective, reliable, and easy-to-use tool, try Hevo. Sign up for its 14-day free trial and experience seamless data migration. 

Frequently Asked Questions