Matillion vs Talend: Comparing the Top Two Data Ingestion Tools

KEY TAKEAWAY

• Matillion is a cloud-native ETL tool for modern data warehouses. Talend is an enterprise data integration platform with strong data quality and governance.
• Matillion follows a cloud-first, warehouse-centric ETL model. Talend supports hybrid and legacy systems with traditional ETL and governance layers.
• Matillion suits analytics teams working mainly in Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery. Talend fits enterprises managing complex, multi-system data and compliance needs.
• Matillion offers fast cloud setup and in-warehouse transformations. Talend provides advanced data quality, lineage, and governance controls.
• Both can become costly and harder to manage as pipelines and data volumes grow. Engineering effort may increase over time.
• Teams pick Matillion for cloud analytics speed. They choose Talend for regulated, hybrid, or legacy-heavy environments.
• Hevo Data serves teams that want simple and no-code ETL with built-in reliability, transparent pricing, and minimal pipeline maintenance.

As modern data stacks move toward cloud data warehouses, teams are re-evaluating how they ingest, transform, and operationalize data. Tools like Matillion and Talend often come up in this decision, especially for organizations migrating from on-prem systems or scaling cloud analytics.

Users typically compare Matillion vs Talend when they need to balance scalability, ease of use, cost transparency, and long-term maintenance. While both solve data integration problems, they approach them from different architectural and operational philosophies.

This guide examines where each tool excels, where they fall short, and why many cloud-native teams now evaluate Hevo Data as a simpler alternative.

Matillion vs Talend vs Hevo: Overview Comparison

To choose the right platform, it helps to first understand how Matillion, Talend, and Hevo compare at a high level.

Use case/feature

Connectors

Core features

Abilities

Security

Cost

Admin & support

For more comparisons, check out Fivetran vs Segment vs Hevo and Fivetran vs Alooma vs Hevo.

What Matillion and Talend Are

Matillion overview

G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (81 reviews)

Gartner Rating: 4.4/5 (174 reviews)

Matillion is a cloud-based ETL platform designed for modern data teams to integrate and transform data efficiently. It works with leading cloud data warehouses and supports data from both cloud and on-premises sources. Teams can build scalable pipelines and deliver analytics-ready data faster with lower operational effort.

Key features of Matillion:

• Cloud Optimized: Designed to work natively with cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and BigQuery.
• Intuitive UI: Drag-and-drop interface that makes building and managing ETL pipelines straightforward.
• Efficient Transformation: Built-in components that support complex SQL-based data transformations.

Matillion pros:

• Easy to use, even for users without deep coding knowledge.
• Offers a wide range of pre-built connectors for popular cloud platforms and databases.
• Strong cloud compatibility with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
• Quick onboarding and fast pipeline setup.
• Reliable customer support and an active user community.

Matillion cons:

• Primarily cloud-focused, with limited flexibility for hybrid or on-premises-heavy environments.
• Pricing can increase as data volumes and user counts grow.
• Not ideal for highly customized or advanced transformation use cases.
• Some features from the legacy server version are missing in the cloud version.
• May face performance challenges with extremely large or highly complex workloads.

Talend overview

G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (105 reviews)

Gartner Rating: 4.4/5 (269 reviews)

Talend is an integrated data management platform that offers tools for data integration, data quality, and data governance. Owned by Qlik, Talend supports cloud, multi-cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments. It is a flexible choice for enterprises that operate across diverse data environments. 

Key features of Talend:

• Unified Data Management: Combines data integration, data quality, and governance within a single platform.
• Extensive Connectors: Provides a wide range of pre-built connectors for easy access to multiple data sources.
• Flexible Deployment: Can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments.

Talend pros:

• Open-source foundation enables deep customization and community-driven extensions.
• Strong data quality and cleansing capabilities.
• Supports a wide variety of data sources across cloud and on-premises systems.
• Scales well for large, enterprise-grade data workloads.
• Comprehensive toolset covering ETL, data migration, and master data management.

Talend cons:

• Enterprise pricing can be complex and costly.
• Steeper learning curve, especially for new users.
• Performance may degrade on very large or highly complex jobs without tuning.
• The free version lacks several advanced features.

Matillion ETL vs Talend ETL Comparison: In-Depth Feature & Use Case Comparison

Deployment & Architecture

Matillion operates as a cloud-native platform with serverless architecture on AWS, GCP, and Azure, automatically scaling compute resources without infrastructure management. A growing SaaS company can deploy Matillion in hours and leverage automatic horizontal scaling during peak ingestion periods. However, it lacks on-premises support, making it unsuitable for organizations with strict data residency requirements.​

Talend provides hybrid deployment across cloud, on-premises, and multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to control data processing locations. Healthcare providers can deploy Talend on-premises for HIPAA-compliant patient data while using the cloud for non-regulated workloads. However, hybrid deployments require substantial infrastructure expertise and increase operational complexity, which outperforms many Talend alternatives.​

Talend excels in scalable cloud deployments with automated features. A user on G2  said:

I like the fact that Talend Cloud Data Integration utilizes tons of CPU to make execution of large jons-off hours. Availability of tools that manages flow of data through its life cycle.

Verified User

International Trade and Development

Ease of use

Matillion features visual drag-and-drop components enabling analysts to build pipelines without coding, while supporting SQL and Python for advanced transformations. Marketing teams with limited SQL knowledge can create customer segmentation pipelines and schedule refreshes independently. Advanced customizations still require SQL or Python skills for complex business logic.​

Talend employs a Java-centric, code-heavy approach requiring scripting knowledge, making it developer-focused. Enterprise engineering teams can build highly customized workflows with complex validation and governance rules. The steep learning curve requires dedicated developer resources, slows down onboarding for non-technical users, and makes users look for Talend alternatives.

Matillion offers significantly simpler onboarding with comprehensive learning resources. A user on G2  noted:

Matillion is a game-changer for data teams. Its intuitive interface makes complex tasks simple, while its power handles massive datasets with ease. Data quality is top-notch, and scalability ensures it grows with your business. Plus, their support is excellent.

Daniel A.

Head of Data Analytics

Connectors and ecosystem

Matillion offers 150+ pre-built connectors focused on cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Azure Synapse) with a no-code REST API designer. Retail companies can connect Salesforce, Google Analytics, and Shopify to Snowflake within days. Niche or legacy system integrations require manual setup and custom development.​

Talend provides 1,000+ connectors spanning cloud, on-premises databases, legacy ERPs, and big data environments with a custom connector framework. Manufacturing enterprises can integrate SAP, Oracle, mainframes, and cloud apps supporting complex hybrid architectures. The vast ecosystem requires significant configuration expertise, with some connectors needing custom Java development.​

Talend dominates with extensive database connectivity across environments. A user on G2  stated:

UI of Talend Open studio is straightforward to use and understand. Easily users can set up big queries and join the tables, which is amazingly helpful and a time-saver when using big data for operations.

Archana J.

Application Analyst

Transformation Capabilities

Matillion prioritizes ELT architecture, pushing transformations to the data warehouse for optimal performance through SQL, Python, and Java. Financial firms processing billions of rows achieve sub-minute transformation times using pushdown optimization in Snowflake. Traditional ETL scenarios requiring pre-load cleansing outside the warehouse may need workarounds.​

Talend excels at traditional ETL with extensive pre-load data manipulation, enabling sophisticated data quality checks and governance policies. Pharmaceutical companies implement complex validation rules and audit trails, ensuring regulatory compliance before loading. Transformation logic on external servers can introduce performance bottlenecks for large-scale processing.​

Matillion excels as a standard ETL tool with strong administrative features. A user on G2 noted:

Matillion products allow any organization to smoothly migrate to the cloud or even help them go to the cloud from the start. Matillion ETL and Matillion Data Loader are both extremely user-friendly and cover every aspect of data flow. That will be even easier now, thanks to the new Data Productivity Cloud (DPC). One of the best things about Matillion products is that they are incredibly easy for business users to learn even if they have no coding background, while yet allowing developers to leverage their coding expertise to achieve even more in the platform.

Marcus M.

Mid-Market

Observability & Monitoring

Matillion includes built-in logging, monitoring dashboards, and alerting with visual lineage and manual alert configuration. Data operations teams monitor daily pipelines through dashboards with email alerts for failures. Advanced observability requires manual setup, and capabilities lack comprehensive auto-retry mechanisms.​

Talend offers advanced monitoring with full lineage tracking, automated error handling, and plugin-based extensions for custom configurations. Enterprises implement comprehensive tracking across hundreds of pipelines with automated recovery and third-party tool integration. Advanced features are enterprise-tier only, and configuration complexity can overwhelm smaller teams.​​

Pricing model & transparency

Matillion’s pricing model is a subscription/credit-based pricing model, starting around $1,000/month. Pricing is tied to usage and cloud platform, and there’s a 14-day free trial to get started. For most organizations, costs are predictable, but can rise as data volumes increase.

Talend’s pricing model is a free open-source version, with paid cloud plans starting at about $1,000 per user per month. Enterprise features, support, and advanced connectors are only available on higher tiers, so costs can add up for large teams or complex needs.

You can also read more about:

• Alteryx vs Matillion
• AWS Glue vs Matillion
• Matillion vs Airflow
• Talend vs Informatica

Why Choose Hevo Data Over Matillion vs Talend?

When teams need faster data pipelines without operational overhead, Hevo Data makes an excellent choice. It is a simple, reliable, and transparent ELT alternative to tools like Matillion and Talend.

• Simple: Hevo offers a fully managed, no-code setup with 150+ pre-built connectors and visual configuration. Teams can start moving data to cloud warehouses in minutes, without scripts or infrastructure management.
  
• Reliable: Built with auto-healing pipelines, intelligent retries, and fault-tolerant architecture, Hevo ensures continuous data flow even when source systems change. Automatic schema handling keeps pipelines stable as APIs and data structures evolve.
  
• Transparent: Unified dashboards, detailed logs, and data lineage provide end-to-end visibility into pipeline health. With predictable, event-based pricing, teams avoid hidden costs and can forecast spend as data scales.
  

Compared to Matillion and Talend, which often require more setup and operational oversight, Hevo focuses on removing complexity, so teams can focus on analytics and business outcomes. You can check out our blog on Hevo vs Matillion for a more detailed comparison.

Explore how Hevo simplifies ELT for cloud analytics without the complexity of managing pipelines.

FAQs

Kamlesh Full Stack Developer, Hevo Data

Kamlesh Chippa is a Full Stack Developer at Hevo Data with over 2 years of experience in the tech industry. With a strong foundation in Data Science, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, Kamlesh brings a unique blend of analytical and development skills to the table. He is proficient in mobile app development, with a design expertise in Flutter and Adobe XD. Kamlesh is also well-versed in programming languages like Dart, C/C++, and Python.