10 Best CDC Tools(Change Data Capture) for 2025

Today, if you are trying to harness the power of up-to-the-minute data, the challenge will be to capture and replicate changes seamlessly across datasets without compromising the performance or integrity of data. 

This is where the best CDC tools, which are modern software solutions, come into play. They are equipped with numerous mechanisms to detect and capture data change, which will ultimately enable you to be more dynamic and responsive.

In this blog, we will dive deep into the features, pros, cons, and pricing of the 10 best CDC tools so that you can make the best choice for your business.

What are Change Data Capture (CDC) tools?

Change Data Capture is a process concerning databases that identifies and tracks any changes that you made to your data. It can replicate this changed data and synchronize it in real-time across multiple systems. CDC propagates the updates you made effectively from source to target systems without performing a full scan.

CDC (Change Data Capture) tools capture and replicate data changes from source databases to target systems in near real-time. For example, implementing these tools for CDC in a retail company was important for maintaining up-to-date inventory levels across multiple stores and online platforms.

Understanding the need for these tools

In this section, we will highlight the importance of these tools and why we need them.

• Real-Time Data Replication: These tools capture all changes made to data as they occur in source systems for near real-time replication into target systems. This will enable you to maintain up-to-date organization data across multiple systems.
• Minimizes Processing Overhead: You can minimize full table scans or batch processing by capturing only the changed data. These tools minimize resource consumption on source databases and improve overall system performance.
• Disaster Recovery: These tools can support your business’s continuity since they facilitate rapid failover and recovery strategies.

How Are These Tools Beneficial for Your Business?

As you know, CDC technologies gather information from several sources and import it into your data warehouse. Why, then, do you require this? For a variety of reasons, this is the response.

• Synchronizing Replications: By tracking changes in a database and capturing them in real-time, these tools ensure that data across different systems stays synchronized. This reduces inconsistencies and errors often arising from manual data entry or batch processing.
• Real-Time Data Availability: Real-time replication provides businesses with the most up-to-date information, enabling timely decision-making and actionable insights.
• Time Efficiency: With every change to the transactional database instantly recorded and transmitted, your data warehouse is always current, saving valuable time.
• Cost Savings: Incremental updates sent across WANs (Wide Area Networks) significantly reduce data transfer costs compared to bulk transfers.
• Optimized Resource Usage: Using log-based data transfers ensures an efficient way to load information with minimal impact on production resources.
• Network Efficiency: Gradual uploads free up network capacity and reduce strain, ensuring smoother operations. Additionally, these processes enhance security and protect against fraud.

Factors to Consider Before Choosing A CDC Tool

Criteria	Description	Recommended Tools
Type of Integration	Consider if the tool supports batch processing, real-time streaming, or both based on your use case.	Batch: Hevo, Fivetran, Qlik Replicate Real-Time: Oracle GoldenGate, Kafka, Apache Nifi, Debezium
Ease of Use	Evaluate whether the tool has a user-friendly interface and requires minimal coding or technical expertise.	User-Friendly: Hevo, Fivetran, Qlik Replicate Technical Control: Kafka, Apache Nifi, Debezium, Airbyte
Open-Source vs. Managed	Choose between open-source tools for flexibility and cost-effectiveness or managed services for ease of use and support.	Open-Source: Airbyte, Kafka, Debezium, Apache StreamSets, Apache Nifi Managed: Hevo, Fivetran
Connector Library	Check if the tool offers pre-built connectors for your required data sources and destinations.	Extensive Library: Hevo, Fivetran, Qlik Replicate Customizable: Airbyte, Apache Nifi, Debezium
Transformation Capabilities	Assess the tool’s ability to transform data during or after integration, including complex logic and enrichment.	Strong Transformation: Hevo, Oracle GoldenGate, Apache StreamSets Basic Transformation: Kafka, Debezium
Scalability	Evaluate the tool’s ability to handle growing data volumes and maintain performance.	Highly Scalable: Oracle GoldenGate, Kafka, Apache StreamSets
Real-Time Support	If low-latency or near-instant data synchronization is critical, choose a tool that excels in real-time data integration.	Best for Real-Time: Oracle GoldenGate, Kafka, Apache Nifi, Debezium, Hevo
Deployment Options	Consider cloud, on-premises, or hybrid deployments, depending on your organization’s infrastructure.	Cloud-Only: Hevo, Fivetran Hybrid: Oracle GoldenGate, Kafka, Apache StreamSets, Apache Nifi
Community and Support	Look for tools with active community support or professionally managed services for troubleshooting and updates.	Strong Community: Apache Nifi, Kafka, Debezium Robust Support: Hevo, Fivetran, IBM Infosphere
Cost	Review the pricing structure, including subscription fees, pay-as-you-go models, or open-source benefits.	Cost-Effective: Airbyte, Apache Nifi, Debezium (open-source), Hevo Premium Features: Oracle GoldenGate, Qlik Replicate, IBM Infosphere

What Are the Best CDC (Change Data Capture) Tools?

To simplify your search, here is a comprehensive list of the 10 best CDC tools you can choose from and easily start setting up your Data Replication.

1. Hevo Data

Hevo Data is a zero-maintenance platform that allows you to replicate data in near real-time from 150+ data sources to the destination of your choice, including Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and Databricks, without writing a single line of code. You can focus on important things and opportunities while we take care of your data for you. With Hevo as your data pipeline platform, maintenance is one less thing to worry about.

Key Features

• Pre-Load Transformations: It facilitates pre-load data transformations using Python or an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.
• Fault-Tolerant Architecture: Your data is safe even when a pipeline fails. Hevo keeps your data in the staging area and notifies you about it.
• Auto Mapping: This is one of the most important features that Hevo provides. Hevo’s schema detection engine automatically detects the schema of the incoming data and creates a compatible schema in the destination by itself.

Pricing Model

Hevo provides transparent pricing that ensures no billing surprises even as you scale. It provides four pricing plans, which are:

• Free:  For moving minimal amounts of data from SaaS tools. Provides up to  1 M events/month.
• Standard: $ 239/Month – For moving limited data from SaaS tools and databases.
• Professional: $679/Month – For considerable data needs and higher control over data ingestion.
• Business Critical: You can customize it according to your requirements. For advanced data requirements like real-time data ingestion

You can learn more about our pricing plans.

Pros

• It is a no-code data platform, so you do not require advanced technical skills.
• Transparent, tier-based pricing.
• 150+ connectors for seamless integration. 

Let’s look at some of our valuable customer reviews.

Hevo was the most mature Extract and Load solution available, along with Fivetran and Stitch, but it had better customer service and attractive pricing.

-Juan Ramos, Analytics Engineer, Ebury

2. IBM Infosphere

IBM Infosphere is a suite of data integration and governance software products developed by IBM.  It is a data integration platform that enables data cleansing, transformation, and data monitoring.

Key Features

• Master Data Management (MDM): Centralized data management for a single source of truth.
• Data Governance: Robust control over data access, security, and compliance.
• Metadata Management: Offers data lineage and cataloging tools.

Pricing Model

Their pricing plans are customizable. You can contact their team for details on the price.

Pros

• Capable of handling large-scale data environments.
• Strong governance, access control, and compliance features.
• Integrates with both IBM and non-IBM databases.
• It provides massive parallel processing (MPP) capabilities.

Cons

• Complex setup and management process.
• Higher costs, especially for smaller organizations.
• Dependency on IBM’s ecosystem for compatibility.

3. Qlik Replicate (formerly Attunity Replicate)

Qlik Replicate is a data replication and integration software solution designed to deliver real-time data ingestion, synchronization, and streaming between heterogeneous environments. It helps you to replicate data effectively from various sources, such as databases, data warehouses, and streaming platforms, into target systems like data lakes, cloud databases, and analytics platforms.

Key Features

• High-Performance Data Transfer: It enhances the performance of tasks related to data transfer and replication.
• Automated Schema Evolution: It facilitates schema changes to take place in an automated manner to accommodate changes in data structures.
• Real-time Data Replication: It supports real-time data ingestion and synchronization across heterogeneous environments.

Pricing Model

It has four main pricing models that are:

• Starter
• Standard
• Premium
• Enterprise

For details on the exact amount, you can contact them directly.

Pros

• It has flexibility in its wide coverage of sources and targets of data.
• It provides a user-friendly interface with easy setup and configuration tools.
• It includes monitoring and management features that track data replication performance.

Cons

• It requires training and expertise in its more advanced features to optimize performance.
• It may involve frequent updating and maintenance to be at par with the best performance and compatibility.

4. Apache Nifi

Apache NiFi is an open-source data integration and automation tool. It comes with a graphical interface to design data flows and manage activities between different sources and destinations. It empowers users to collect, route, transform, and process data in real-time, which fits perfectly within data ingestion, transformation, and streaming analytics scenarios.

Key Features

• Built-in Processors: It has a rich set of built-in processors for transforming, enrichment, filtering, and routing of data.
• Data Provenance: Through data lineage and tracking provenance, NiFi allows users to trace data flow originating from its source, through transformation, and into the destination.
• Scalability: It supports scalable software deployment to distributed systems with significant data volumes.

Pricing Model

Apache Nifi is an open-source platform; you do not have to pay to use it. You can use it for free.

Pros

• Active open-source community with continuous development, updates, and contributions.
• Offers flexible routing capabilities based on content, attributes, or conditions.

Cons

• NiFi comes with a set of built-in processors for common data flow tasks. These processors might not always align with your every specific data processing scenario. To address this, you should create custom processors or extensions to tailor NiFi to your unique requirements.
• Since it is Java-based, you need to be compatible with Java to use it. 

5. Oracle GoldenGate

Oracle GoldenGate is end-to-end software that provides real-time integration, replication, and data exchange within heterogeneous systems. It maintains unstructured and structured data, allowing permanent availability and consistency across a wide range of databases, platforms, and cloud environments.

Key Features

• Bi-Directional Replication: This supports bidirectional data synchronization between the source and target systems and enables active-active configurations.
• High Availability and Disaster Recovery: It enables seamless data access and recovery through automated failover and nondisruptive switchover.
• Transformations: It supports data transformation and filtering during replication to accommodate different data formats and structures.

Pricing Model

You can go through all the pricing plans and respective details about the plan.

Pros

• Powerful data filtering and transformation capabilities.
• Conflict detection and resolution for replication issues.
• Global support and extensive partner ecosystem.

Cons

• The initial setup cost can be substantial.
• You may face difficulties troubleshooting Oracle GoldenGate during setup or operation.
• It has the possibility of creating data latencies in some cases. 

6. Debezium

Debezium is a distributed, open-source platform for change data capture. It comes with a wide array of connectors that simulate streaming in various database transaction logs to a variety of destination systems. Debezium allows for real-time data integration and analysis. 

It captures row-level changes from the database transaction logs of supported databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQL Server, and others. Then, it emits change events, including the data level before and after the change.

Key Features

• Evolution of Schema: It supports automatic schema evolution, capturing any change made to the schema of the database and updating data structures in proper target systems.
• Event-Driven Architecture: It assists in developing event-driven architectures by streaming changes in the database as events, which makes design at the application level reactive and scalable.
• Compatibility with Apache Kafka: It ensures smooth data streaming and processing with robust, scalable, fault-tolerant Apache Kafka real-time stream integration.

Pricing Model

Since Debezium is an open-source platform, it is free to use.

Pros

• Reliable fault tolerance through Kafka’s distributed architecture.
• Real-time data synchronization and integration.
• An active open-source community ensures constant innovation..

Cons

• It is dependent on Apache Kafka at the base of its message-passing system.
• Kafka might let messages stack up in a queue if used in a high-volume arena or not kept active.

7. Apache StreamSets

Apache StreamSets is an open-source, comprehensive platform for developing and managing data pipelines. StreamSets makes it easy to develop data integration workflows with an intuitive graphical interface and several connectors to originate, process, or end data in different systems. StreamSets supports both batch and streaming data processing through the lenses of real-time data integration and data engineering.

Key Features

• Intuitive UI: It has a user-friendly graphical interface for designing, deploying, and monitoring data pipelines without demanding extensive skills from the developer in coding.
• Handles Data Drift: The support of automatic schema drift detection and handling assures that data sources and destinations are always compatible when the pipeline runs.
• Data Quality Management: It contains internal data quality checking, data validation, and error handling tools that users can apply to maintain data quality rules and properly manage exceptions.

Pricing Model

It has a starting price of $1000 per month.

Pros

• Supports deployment in cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.
• Dynamic data partitioning for optimized performance.
• Compatible with major big data technologies like Hadoop and Spark.

Cons

• Handling errors can become complex.
• Integrating with Legacy systems can be difficult.

8. 8. Airbyte

Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that simplifies data movement across systems. It is mainly known for its extensive library of connectors, which allows users to pull data from hundreds of sources and push it to various destinations. 

Key Features

• Extensive Connector Library: Airbyte offers a vast collection of connectors for data sources and destinations, covering cloud apps, databases, APIs, and more.
• Reverse ETL Support: In addition to traditional ETL workflows, Airbyte allows data to flow back from warehouses to operational systems, enabling enhanced data utilization.
• Community Support: Backed by a thriving community, Airbyte continuously evolves with contributions, frequent updates, and enhanced features.

Pricing Model

Free (open-source) and paid plans for managed services.

Pros

• Highly flexible with customizable connectors.
• Active open-source community with regular updates.
• 550+  open-source structured and unstructured data sources.

Cons

• Requires technical expertise for self-hosting.
• Managed service plans can be expensive for smaller teams.

9. Fivetran

Fivetran is a fully automated data pipeline tool designed to handle the heavy lifting of data integration. It focuses on delivering reliable, ready-to-query data by automating schema adjustments and incremental updates.

Key Features

• Automated Schema Management: Automatically detects and adapts to changes in source schemas, ensuring seamless data integration without manual intervention.
• Incremental Data Syncing: Captures only the changes from source systems, enabling efficient data replication while minimizing resource usage.
• Pre-Built Connectors: Extensive library of pre-built connectors for SaaS tools, databases, and cloud platforms, making it easy to integrate with common data systems.

Pricing Model

Subscription-based with usage-based pricing.

Pros

• Minimal setup with automated pipeline management.
• Wide range of connectors for SaaS applications and databases.
• Scalable for high-volume data processing.

Cons

• Limited customizability for unique use cases.
• High costs for larger data volumes or multiple connectors.

10. Kafka Connect

Kafka Connect is a tool built into the Apache Kafka ecosystem for real-time data integration. It enables the seamless transfer of data between Kafka and external systems using a pluggable architecture that supports a wide range of pre-built and custom connectors. 

Key Features

• Pluggable Connector Architecture: Offers a modular system for adding connectors, with many pre-built options available for common data systems.
• Distributed and Fault-Tolerant: Kafka Connect operates in a distributed manner, ensuring high availability and reliability even in case of hardware failures.
• Real-Time Integration: Facilitates low-latency data transfer, making it ideal for applications requiring instant data synchronization.

Pricing Model

Free as open-source; managed services (e.g., Confluent Cloud) are paid.

Pros

• Scalable and fault-tolerant architecture.
• Active community and robust Kafka ecosystem support.
• Supports distributed and standalone modes.

Cons

• Limited monitoring and debugging features in the open-source version.
• Requires expertise in Kafka for setup and maintenance.

What are the Challenges of using CDC Tools?

Challenges	Solutions
Database performance can be affected because CDC operations add more write operations to capture the changes.	You can fine-tune CDC configurations, like batch size and frequency, to lessen loads on source databases.
Ensuring consistency across a distributed system and handling or resolving probable conflicts/discrepancies are challenging.	You can implement timestamp-based conflict detection strategies or application-specific rules in the solution for conflict resolution.
The setup and maintenance of CDC configurations across heterogeneous systems can be complex and require specialized knowledge.	Automated tools with a user-friendly interface and support automation in setup and configuration.

Conclusion

In this blog, you went through some of the best CDC tools to implement Change Data Capture. Choosing the right tool among the several Change Data Capture solutions that exist, calls for a subtle understanding of your organization’s requirements regarding data integration. 

The strengths of each tool discussed above will differ. Putting these tools to work in an effective manner will further develop their capability for data integration and insights in real-time while fearlessly assuring data consistency for you. 

Ready to streamline your data integration? Try Hevo Data today and experience seamless Change Data Capture (CDC) with real-time insights and effortless integration. Start your free trial now and transform how you manage and analyze data!

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