Fivetran vs Striim: Which One Drives Better Data Efficiency for Modern Teams?

Choosing a data integration tool shouldn’t feel like performing a surgery blindfolded, but it often does.

If you’re stuck between Fivetran vs Striim, you’re probably asking questions like,

1. “Does this support all my connectors?”
2. “Will the setup take too much time?”
3. “Will the cost balloon when our data scales?”

These aren’t just concerns. They’re daily blockers.

Fivestran offers no-code simplicity and broad SaaS coverage. Striim, on the other hand, offers real-time streaming with flexible hybrid setups. Both are top choices but serve different needs.

This guide breaks down everything from features to use cases and pricing. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to make a clear, confident choice that fits your budget and data requirements.

Let’s begin!

What Is Fivetran?

G2 Rating: 4.2 (424)
Gartner Rating: 4.6 (295)

Fivetran is an automated data, cloud-first platform, facilitating data flow for modern analytics teams. It’s a straightforward, no-programming solution for extracting, loading, and transforming (ELT) data from diverse systems into cloud storage.

It’s ideal for teams who want reliable, fully managed data pipelines without writing any code.

Here’s what Fivetran can do for you:

• Only syncs updated records using Change Data Capture (CDC).
• Adapt to schema mapping and updates automatically.
• Keep data accurate and duplicate-free.

But why Fivetran?

Its notable features include a large connector library, built-in scalability, and enterprise-grade security and governance. Fivetran HVR helps you handle high-volume replication from on-premises systems.

Key features of Fivetran

• Wide connector library: Offers 700+ pre-built, automated connectors for diverse SaaS apps, databases, and file systems.
• Data transformations: Primarily functions as an ELT tool. It manages in-warehouse transformations, often collaborating with dbt Labs.
• Schema management: Prevent pipeline disruptions by adapting to source schema changes.
• Enterprise security: Includes SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, and more for security compliance and trust.
• Hybrid deployment: Allows deployment in your secure environment with the same UI experience.

Use cases

• Data warehousing and analytics: Move data from internal systems into cloud warehouses for dashboarding and BI.
• Reporting: Centralize data from multiple departments for cross-functional insights.
• Legacy migration: Replicate large on-premises databases to the cloud with low downtime using Fivetran HVR.
• ELT workflows: Feed raw data into dbt or SQL for transformation in a warehouse.

Pricing

Fivetran charges based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR). Here is the pricing structure:

• Free plan: Includes 500,000 MAR and 5,000 monthly model runs.
• Standard: The first million MAR starts at $500.
• Enterprise: Offers additional features with volume-based pricing.
• Business Critical: Provides additional security for regulated industries.

Fivetrain provides a 14-day free trial for paid plans. An increase in volume brings a cost per million MAR surge.

Pros:

• REST API for automation.
• Data accuracy through idempotent loading and automatic retries.
• Automatic historical data syncs.
• Data normalization for instant use.

Cons:

• The pricing gets expensive as the data volume grows.
• Batch-based syncs can cause a delay.
• Complex transformations require external tools.

What Is Striim?

G2 Rating: 5 (1)
Gartner Rating: 4.1 (9)

Striim is a real-time data integration and streaming platform, helping organizations collect, process, and deliver data instantly. It’s designed for companies that need continuous visibility and want to move beyond batch-based processing.

What can Striim do for you?

• Stream real-time data from various sources.
• Transform data on the fly for immediate use.
• Ensure exactly-once delivery, avoiding data loss or duplicate data.
• Send live data directly to lakes, warehouses, and analytics tools.

Striim is known for its sub-second latency, enterprise-grade delivery, and connectivity. It works across hybrid, cloud, and on-premises setups, making it ideal for data-intensive organizations like telecom and finance.

Key features of Striim

• Change Data Capture (CDC): Captures inserts, updates, and deletes from databases like Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL.
• In-stream processing: Filters, enriches, and transforms data mid-stream using SQL.
• Wide connectivity: Integrates with hundreds of connectors for cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), databases, Kafka, file systems, and more.
• Deployment flexibility: Available as Striim Platform (on-premises) or Striim Cloud (SaaS).
• Enterprise-grade: Offers exactly-once delivery, high availability, and monitoring for efficient security.
• AI/ML ready: Includes AI-driven monitoring and ‘Data Copilot’ for data observability.

Use cases

• Cloud migration: Achieve zero-downtime cloud migration for on-premises data.
• Real-time analytics: Stream live data into BI tools and dashboards for instant insights.
• Fraud detection: Monitor financial transactions in real-time for anomaly alerts.
• IoT monitoring: Stream device and sensor data as it’s generated.
• Inventory management: Sync stock levels across systems continuously to prevent delays or stockouts.

Pricing

Striim’s pricing is subscription-based, often custom-quoted. Here’s the structure:

• Striim Developer: Free, includes 50+ connectors with 1 billion events per month.
• Striim Cloud: Charges mostly for data moved, starting at $365 per core/month.
• Striim Platform: Provides self-hosted deployments on your infrastructure.

Free trials are available with durations varying by product offering or marketplace, ranging from seven to 14 days.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Real-time delivery, often <2 seconds.
• Deploys flexibly across on-premises, hybrid, and various cloud environments.
• Performs in-flight data transformations.
• Provides strong security features.

Cons:

• Vendor lock-in might make migration challenging.
• Pricing can be expensive for smaller businesses.
• Advanced features have a learning curve for beginners.

Fivetran vs Striim vs Hevo: Detailed Comparison Table

Now that you know what both tools can do individually, let’s compare them side by side. But wait! Is there a better tool that can be an alternative to both?

Yes, there is! Hevo offers a fully managed ELT solution with near real-time syncs and predictable pricing.

The following table highlights the key differences between Hevo vs Frivetran vs Striim across various features.

Feature	Fivetran	Striim	Hevo
Core functions	Automated ELT (Extract, Load, Transform)	Real-time streaming ELT	Automated no-code data integration with built-in CDC
Data sources and connectors	700+ pre-built connectors	100+ pre-built connectors	150+ databases and SaaS-based connectors
Latency	6 hours default, streaming available for the Enterprise plan, ranging from 1 minute to 24 hours	Sub-second to real-time, often <2 seconds	Near real-time
Transformation capabilities	Post-load transformation via dbt integration	Powerful real-time, some post-load	Pre-load transformation via Python scripts and drag-and-drop, Built-in post-load transformations, and dbt Core Integration
Deployment options	Primarily SaaS	SaaS and On-premises, hybrid support	Primarily SaaS
Ease of use	No-code setup, low maintenance	Low-code, a steeper learning curve	No-code, user-friendly UI, zero maintenance
Schema management	Automatically adapts to schema changes	Automated real-time schema mapping	Dynamic schema mapping and auto-detection
Support SLAs	24/7 for enterprise customers	24/7 Email support, Monthly Availability percentage for SLAs is custom-negotiated based on the plan	24/7 Support and SLAs down to 1 hour via Chat and Email
Vendor lock-in	Yes	Yes	Low
Pricing	Less predictable, consumption-based, Monthly Active Rows (MAR)	Often custom, subscription-based	Predictable pricing, subscription-based (free up to 1M events, $239+/month after), all connectors included in paid plans

While Fivetran has a vast connector library and Striim excels in real-time streaming, Hevo Data provides a balanced solution with predictable pricing. This makes it a compelling choice.

Need a detailed comparison? Let’s do it!

Striim vs Fivetran: In-Depth Feature & Use Case Comparison

While the table above summarizes key points, let’s dive deeper into how these tools differ by scenario so that you can choose between Striim vs Fivetran.

Data processing approach

Fivetran: It follows the ELT methodology. Data moves from sources to a warehouse in its raw form, then gets transformed using tools like dbt or your warehouse’s native SQL capabilities. It has a default 6-hour latency period, which might not be ideal for sub-second use cases.

Striim: Processes data in real-time as it flows through the pipeline. It captures data changes as they occur, processes them in-flight, and delivers them to the target system with minimal latency, often under two seconds. If real-time streaming is what you are looking for, Striim is better than Fivetran.

“Striim is a unique data preparation tool which deals with real time data streaming. It has built with smart modules, automations and scripts whcih helps for real time data ingestion with accuracy and execution speed.”– Gartner Review

Transformation capabilities

Fivetran: The tool offers integrated transformation capabilities, supporting SQL-based transformations and easy integration with dbt core. This enables automated, scheduled, or trigger-based transformations within the platform.

Striim: It uses its SQL-based language to offer in-stream processing. As data moves through the pipeline, this permits real-time data filtering, enrichment, and transformation, enabling prompt insights and actions. This gives it a win over Fivetran.

“As our data grows we needed a solution to keep our BI tools completely synced with our production data. It was an extra development effort for us to automate the realtime integration of operational data to a data repository where it could be analyzed. With Striim it was much easier to transform and move data to a data storage service like AWS S3. Then we could easily query it with Athena and analyze it with Quicksight. In time we expect it to support more data transformation options.”– Gartner Review

Connector coverage and sources

Fivetran: Fivetran boasts a vast library of 700+ pre-built connectors, covering a variety of SaaS applications, databases, and file systems. It also offers a Connector SDK for building custom connectors. Striim, on the other hand, falls short in providing this variety of choice.

Striim: This tool supports hundreds of connectors, including databases, cloud services, messaging systems like Kafka, and IoT devices, and caters to diverse integration needs.

“Our team saved a lot of time using Fivetran. We were able accelerate adoption because of its user-friendly interface and step by step guidelines to set up connectors. We were able to connect 30+ data sources and not have to worry about schema drifts and other data engineering tasks. Also, we used Fivetran’s sdk to build custom connectors for complex integration. Customer support helped us a lot when we encountered issues. They would reply within 12 hours and offer detail feedback which helped us resolve issues quickly.”– G2 Review

Ease of setup and maintenance

Fivetran: It easily wins on simplicity over Striim. Their setup guides get your analytics stack running in days, instead of months, without any code. Most connectors require minimal configuration beyond authentic credentials.

Striim: Striim demands more technical expertise. Setting up streaming pipelines involves understanding data flow architecture, memory management, and performance tuning. It offers flexibility, but you might still need dedicated streaming engineers.

“Fivetran truly simplifies the process of connecting and syncing data across systems. Its out-of-the-box connectors are very robust, requiring minimal setup and almost no ongoing maintenance. I especially appreciate the automated schema management and the reliability of the pipelines — once configured, they just work without needing babysitting.”– G2 Review

Pricing and predictability

Fivetran: The pricing can become unpredictable as data volume grows. The consumption-based model charges based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR), which can lead to surprise bills during data spikes.

Striim: It uses consumption-based pricing but focuses on streaming volumes rather than row counts. This model works better for high-velocity, low-volume use cases but can get expensive for large-scale batch processing.

It’s a tie. Both tools use consumption-based models that can lead to unpredictable costs. So, the choice depends on your specific use case.

“The product is Bit costly compare to its peers , But has many functionalities , which are not available in others. It’s seamless connectivity , regular security patches upgradation makes it a complete package. Our use case was a migration from a SQL server to BigQuery implementation. The orchestration of jobs , the data transfer , data transformation is just very easy to implement. Still there requires a good experties on Data Ingestion Pipeline , for the resource working on Fivetran. There is a also good amount experties required in sql language as well.”– Gartner Review

Security and compliance

Fivetran: Fivetran places a strong emphasis on data security with features like role-based access control, SSH, VPN tunnels, and encryption at rest and in transit. It adheres to regulations like SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR.

Striim: Striim provides end-to-end encryption, role-based access control, and adherence to SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA. It also supports secure connections via SSH tunnels and private links across cloud platforms.

It’s a tie again. Both Fivetran and Striim offer enterprise-grade security features and compliance adherence.

“Fivetran makes it incredibly easy to build secure, low-maintenance ELT/ETL pipelines across platforms like Salesforce, Oracle, and Workday, integrating seamlessly with Snowflake, Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and PostgreSQL databases.”– Gartner Review

When to Choose Fivetran?

Fivetran works well if you need a fully automated, zero-maintenance data pipeline for analytics and reporting. Its vast pre-built connectors mean less time for building custom integrations.

It also handles schema changes automatically, reduces engineering effort, and provides security.

So, if Fivetran’s pricing being uncertain doesn’t bother you and simplicity is what you are aiming for, you can choose its ease of use over real-time sync. 

When to Choose Striim?

Choose Striim when your core requirement is real-time data movement and streaming analytics. You get deployment flexibility, including hybrid and on-prem support.

Its competent CDC and ability to process data before it lands make it suitable for industries like finance, retail, or logistics, where every second counts.

Why Does Hevo Stand Out?

With the data integration market expected to grow from $15.22 billion in 2025 to $25.69 billion by 2029, the demand for fast and reliable tools is only getting stronger.

Hevo provides the perfect balance between Fivetran’s ease of use and Striim’s real-time capabilities without the complexity or high cost. It supports near real-time data streaming, 150+ pre-built connectors, and zero-maintenance pipelines.

It is often cited as one of the most efficient Striim and Fivetran alternatives. Unlike Fivetran, it offers a more transparent event-based pricing free of hidden charges. For a more detailed comparison you can check out our blog on Hevo vs Fivetran.

Similarly, unlike Striim, you don’t need technical expertise for the setup. 

Hevo reduces engineering overhead with integrated reliability, security, and schema handling. This makes it ideal for teams looking for speed, scale, and flexibility in a single data integration tool.

Want to experience it yourself? Sign up for Hevo’s 14-day free trial.

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