Hevo vs Fivetran: The Right ELT Platform for Your Business 

The right ELT tool can either make or break your organization’s data architecture. Fivetran and Hevo Data are two popular options, but which is the right fit? While both Hevo and Fivetran are powerful, no-code automated ELT platforms, they differ largely when it comes to security, scalability, flexibility, and customization. 

In this blog, I will unravel your confusion(Hevo vs Fivetran) and compare the features both tools offer. This will give you a clear picture of which platform best suits your requirements and which is the right fit for you. 

Overview of Hevo Data

Hevo is the only streaming ELT platform that is reliable and cost-effective. Its user-friendly UI, designed for ease of use, enables you to build no-code pipelines in minutes. You can move data from 150+ sources to data lakes and warehouses for your data integration needs. Plus, Hevo has more than 2000+ customers across 45+ countries. Giants like ThoughtSpot, Postman, DoorDash, and Shopify run their ELT on Hevo.

Overview of Fivetran

Fivetran is a fully automated data integration tool that enables companies to automate the process of connecting and syncing data from various sources into a central data warehouse. Fivetran offers pre-built connectors for many data sources, including databases, applications, and cloud services.

Hevo vs Fivetran: A Quick Comparison

	Hevo	Fivetran
Data Sources	150+	500+
Pricing	Event-based pricing with a 14-day free trial option.	Consumption-based pricing with a 14-day free trial.
Ease of Pricing	No hidden costs; there is a transparent pricing structure on the website. Easy to understand event-based calculation.	It is challenging to understand the MAR costing structure.
Building custom connectors	Hevo has a RestAPI connector. It is easier to use, as only a few credentials need input into the UI. Once it is set up, no maintenance is required.	Fivetran does not have RestAPI-based connectors. However, it has a “Cloud functions” feature that extracts data from the source. Developers need the bandwidth to build and maintain this.
Pre-Load Transformation	Offers in-pipeline data transformation using Python-based and Drag-Drop Transformations.	Does not have pre-load transformations to change the data in flight.
Post-Load Transformation	Integrates with DBT Core.	Integrates with DBT Core.
Data destinations	Hevo Supports 7 data warehouses.	Fivetran supports a few more data warehouses than Hevo.
Data replication Formats	Hevo supports change data capture, log-based replication as well as full table replication.	Fivetran supports full table and incremental replication via change data capture.
Security features and certifications	Compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and other significant data protection regulations.	Ensures compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and other industry standards.
Support	Offers live chat support across all plans.	Offers chat support for business plans only. Rest, need to rely on email support.
Data Ingestion Frequency	Hevo can stream data near real-time across all the plans.	Near real-time data streaming is available only in business plans in Fivetran. The lower plans typically have a 1-hour frequency.
Schema Mapping	Automated schema mapping and handles schema changes dynamically. Flexibility to over-ride schema for advanced use cases.	Automatically adjusts to schema changes without manual intervention. Rigid schema

Hevo Data vs Fivetran: Head-to-Head Comparison Against 4 Key Buying Criteria

Now that you have an overall idea of Hevo Data vs. Fivetran, let’s dive into the specifics. We’ll compare compatibility, platform flexibility, pricing, and security, with examples and use cases to illustrate each point.

Replication Modes

Hevo has three replication modes:

• Table mode: Writes SQL queries on the customer’s database and extracts data from a modified timestamp column.
• Custom SQL: Writes a custom SQL query to pull only the necessary data.
• Log-based replication: Hevo provides WAL with test coding for log-based replication.

What does this mean for you? 

Hevo’s connector is optimized to reduce the load on the production database. If the customer connects their production database to Hevo instead of Fivetran, Hevo will improve replication, ensuring that the production database is not impacted.

Fivetran offers two replication modes:

• Teleport syncs: This is a non-log-based replication approach. Fivetran takes a snapshot of the entire table and stores it in staging. The ingestion stage compares the new snapshot with Fivetran’s version and identifies what has changed. Teleport sync can also identify deletes.

Customers who switched from Fivetran to Hevo have highlighted that Teleport is not scalable for higher volumes of data or larger tables. It consumes more database resources and slows down the replication process. Also, this only works on tables with a primary key.

• Log-based Replication: Fivetran provides three options – WAL with Pgoutput, WAL with TEST_DECODING, and Xmin. 

The only drawback is that Fivetran follows batch-based replication. This means Fivetran flushes the log once replication is complete. Additionally, Fivetran often faces issues with scalability. Log-based replication has been known to fail multiple times when there was a sudden surge of data. 

Platform Flexibility and Set-up

Real-time Streaming

Fivetran’s internal architecture is batch-based, which limits its ability to truly provide a real-time data pipeline platform. In contrast, Hevo’s architecture is built on Kafka, which allows Hevo to stream data in near real-time into the warehouse. 

Schema Management

In Fivetran, a user cannot merge databases or schemas into the same destination. It stores these schemas and uses the same schema/table hierarchy as the source.

Hevo, on the other hand, gives complete flexibility to its users who want to store their data at the destination:

• Users can push multiple or single databases/schema to the same destination schema.
• They can merge the same tables in various source databases/schema into the same destination schema.
• Hevo allows you to pre-fix your destination table names to quickly establish a naming standard for organizational purposes.

Transformation Capabilities

Last but not least, there are typically two types of transformations in Fivetran and Hevo. Fivetran has limited pre-load transformations on the UI. It lets users drop columns and mask data. 

On the other hand, Hevo has a robust drag-and-drop (or Python) pre-load transformation layer. By offloading a few lightweight transformations to Hevo, users can save some computing costs at the warehouse. They can also clean data, convert currency values, filter unwanted rows, and more.

For post-load transformations, Hevo and Fivetran both use dbt Core.

Pricing and Cost of Ownership

Hevo Data

Hevo has a transparent pricing model, ensuring no billing surprises even as you scale. There are four pricing tiers. Each plan has different product capabilities attached to it, with tighter SLAs as we go up the plan and according to the customer’s needs. 

• Free Trial Plan: This plan reliably moves minimal data from SaaS tools. There are 50+ SaaS-based connectors, and the consumption limit is 1 million events (rows updated, deleted, or added)
• Starter Plan: This plan is for moving limited amounts of data from SaaS tools and databases. It starts at $239/Month for 5 million events and goes up to $759/Month for 50 million events. 
• Professional Plan: This plan is for considerable data needs and higher control over data ingestion. It starts from $679/Month for 20 million and gives you access to streaming pipelines and low-latency workloads. 
• Business Critical Plan: This plan is built for advanced data requirements like real-time data ingestion. It supports streaming pipelines, role-based access control, single sign-on, multiple workspaces, and VPC Peering. It also has Advanced security certificates and Add-ons. To access this, you need to contact Sales. 

Note: Hevo also offers a few add-ons that can be availed by talking to sales representatives. 

Fivetran

Fivetran offers four pricing models:

• Free Plan: This plan is for individuals automating ELT for small volumes of data. It gives access to Standard Plan features and up to 500,000 monthly active rows (MAR) free of charge. 
• The Starter Plan: This plan is for achieving modern ELT for your application and file sources. You can access up to ten users for a one-hour sync. Fivetran does not allow Database connectors in its starter plan; it is limited to an enterprise plan. 
• The Standard Plan: It allows you to centralize product and transactional data from your databases. Unlimited users can access it for 15-minute syncs. 
• The Enterprise Plan: It lets you connect to an enterprise database connector for 1-minute syncs. It also allows for detailed roles and support for teams. This means that a few connectors are not available in plans lower than the Enterprise plan. To get the sync to 1 min, Fivetran usually connects to HVR to get the same.

Overall, Hevo offers a transparent pricing model and capabilities scaling with every plan. In contrast, Fivetran provides various plans catering to different data needs with faster sync intervals and advanced connectors, but at a potentially higher cost. 

Security and Compliance

Data Privacy Regulations

• Hevo Data complies with the General Data Protection Regulation, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2), and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
• Fivetran adheres to SOC 2 Type 2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR regulations.

Data Security

• Hevo Data supports AES encryption to protect data at rest and in transit. This encryption also acts as an extra layer of protection by securing sensitive information during storage and transmission.
• Fivetran has PrivateLink features for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, allowing on-premise services to connect privately with cloud-based infrastructure. 

Authentication

• Hevo Data employs SAML 2.0 for Single Sign-on (SSO) integration and enforces two factor authentication. It also offers additional networking options such as SSH, reverse SSH and VPC peering.
• Fivetran too employs SMAL 2.0 and two-factor authentication for all user accounts, enhancing security during access provision. They also provide additional networking options such as SSH, reverse SSH and VPC peering.

Workspaces

• Hevo Data provides a unique capability, users can create up to five different workspaces in the same domain but on separate instances. This flexibility is very handy, especially when dealing with companies operating across multiple nations, where data must be maintained within specific zones only. 
• Fivetran, however, lacks the flexibility in workspaces. This may limit flexibility for global organizations that want their data stored in specific regions.

Error Detection

• Error identification and auto-correction mechanisms are default features of Hevo’s monitoring system. Alerts can be sent through Slack or email.
•  Fivetran too supports error identification and auto-correction mechanism and the alters can be notified via email or Slack.

Hevo vs Fivetran – Which ELT tool should you pick?

Hevo stands out for its:

• Kafka-based architecture to have real-time data streaming capabilities.
• The ability to handle schema flexibly supports combining many databases and user-defined storage options.
• Flexible pre-load transformation capabilities, including drag-and-drop or Python-based transform layer.
• A clear, transparent pricing model based on events, with visibility in both data usage and cost.
• Robust security controls and compliance with most data protection laws

What Fivetran is Good at:

• It supports 500+ connectors to connect and helps with 300+ SaaS-based APIs, databases, etc.
• Assisted & autonomous transformations with pre-defined schemas & custom transforms.
• Auto data integration with less manual intervention – Very Simple to set up.
• Confers the modern approach to security and advanced networking options with user authentication.
• With this, rollback syncs are offered to pertain to marketing sources that provide correct information for reporting.

However, Fivetran has some limitations:

• It relies on a batch-based internal architecture, which limits its real-time streaming capabilities.
• Its schema management lacks flexibility and does not allow merging multiple databases in the same hierarchy as the source.
• It does not offer performance enhancement options, unlike Hevo.
• Pricing can become complex due to a lack of transparency and predictability. 

If your organization values real-time data streaming, flexible schema management, and a transparent and cost-effective pricing model, Hevo is likely the better choice.

Ultimately, it depends on what kind of use case you are trying to solve and whether either company can fulfill it. Both Hevo and Fivetran offer robust tools. They help streamline your data workflows and support data-driven decision-making in your organization.

For a deeper exploration of alternatives to Fivetran.