In today’s highly competitive world, businesses are becoming digital and data-heavy. Businesses need to use the latest technology to remain ahead of the curve. ETL tools are one of the best ways to quickly access real-time data, maximize your abilities, and earn profits. If you are looking to make access easier across different systems and teams, you must incorporate the top ETL tools in your business.
However, with many ETL tools available, it becomes hard to choose the one that fits your needs and preferences. You need to ensure that the bulk of data in the organization is standardized and effectively scaled into your data pipelines. To help you make a wise decision, we are here with the list of the best ETL tools in 2024 that you should check out.
What are ETL Tools and Why are they Important
ETL tools are one of the primary necessities for an organization looking to improve data access. They are specially designed to improve the ETL processes. ETL, short for extract, transform, and load, is a data integration service that combines data from multiple sources into one consistent data store. At its core, ETL works to organize as well as clean your data. It deals with advanced business analytics to boost backend processes and end-user experiences. Many businesses use powerful tools to extract data from many data sources, transform it to raise the quality of data, and then load the transformed data into a targeted database. Integrating ETL tools simplifies the data management process, enhances data quality, and opts for a standardized approach to data access. Platforms and data-driven organizations must opt for the best ETL tools to improve business performance and achieve business goals.
Based on the supporting organization and infrastructure, the types of ETL tools are categorized into four major types, namely
- Enterprise Software
- Open Source
- Cloud-Based
- Custom ETL Tools
Access to the best ETL tool is essential as it helps you make a reliable and easy data transfer from multiple sources to a single place.
What are the top 10 ETL Tools in 2024
Now that you know the core function of ETL tools let us look at the top 10 ETL tools in 2024 and choose the one that fits your business requirements.
Talend Open Studio
Talend Open Studio is an open-source ETL tool, meaning it’s free to use and modify. While it doesn’t offer all the functionalities of its paid counterparts, it provides a good foundation for smaller businesses or individuals starting with data integration. Here are some key features:
- Data extraction: To extract data, connect to a variety of data sources, including files, databases, and APIs.
- Data transformation: Adjusts, purges, and reorganises data to satisfy certain requirements.
- Data loading: Data is converted and loaded into databases or data warehouses.
- Drag-and-drop interface that is easy to use is provided by the graphical user interface (GUI) while creating data pipelines.
- Community support: Availability of a sizable online community with educational materials and support.
Pricing
It is free to download and use Talend Open Studio because it is an open-source programme. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to account for potential supplemental expenses:
- Technical proficiency: Some technical proficiency is required to set up and use Talend Open Studio. Should you lack internal experience, you may have to pay a developer, which will increase expenses.
- Upkeep and support: Although there is a community for assistance, it might not be as extensive or easily accessible as with commercial solutions. You could have to pay for outside assistance that you engage.
- Limited scalability: Large-scale data integration projects may not be a good fit for Talend Open Studio. As your demands expand, you may need to upgrade to a commercial version with more scalability.
Daton
These tools often perform ETL and ELT data integrations & data pipelines to simplify how you can connect your data into data warehouses. If you want to solve data challenges for eCommerce brands and agencies, then Daton, our eCommerce-focused data pipeline, is the best tool to opt for. It is a no-code data pipeline that supports load scheduling, high volume processing, and complete data stack flexibility.
Features
- Data replication takes minutes, not months.
- Bring in data from 100+ data sources like Amazon, Shopify, various ad platforms (including Google, Facebook, etc.), customer support tools, CRMs, and more.
- Daton integrates and synchronizes your data sets into a data warehouse of your choice.
- Flexibility in data stack for BI and analytics.
- Custom reporting and dashboard to ensure all data needs are met.
Informatica Power Center
Informatica PowerCenter is a metadata-driven platform-focused tool. At its core, this ETL tool works to boost the collaboration of IT teams and businesses. Another unique feature of the Informatica ETL tool is the pre-built transformations for easy usage of the tool. So, if you are looking for an ETL tool that can meet computing demands and offers highly optimized performance and availability, you can opt for Informatica PowerCenter.
Features
- Helps simplify the developing process of Data warehouses and Data marts.
- Supports the entire data integration lifecycle
- It offers numerous benefits, including high security, collaboration, and scalability.
- It has features like Data Masking, Dynamic Partitioning, Metadata Management, and High Availability.
- Informatica PowerCenter offers integrations to DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, etc. (a few popular cloud data warehouses).
Pricing
Vendors need to request Informatica for a price quotation.
Hevo Data
Hevo Data is one of the best ETL tools to integrate and load data from more than 100 sources. You do not have to compromise the performance when you choose Hevo Data, as it allows you to load data easily. It is a completely automated platform that is easy to set up and comes with little maintenance. Let us have a look at the best platform.
Features
- It offers real-time data transformation to ensure that you can easily migrate data and that your business gets the full benefit of analysis-ready data.
- Thanks to the robust infrastructure of the platform, you get 100% accuracy and complete data transfer without any loss.
- The in-built integrations in the tool help the brands and organizations scale up their data infrastructure per their requirements.
- The live monitoring feature of Hevo allows you to monitor the data flow to know when and where your data is.
Pricing
There are three pricing plans:
- Basic Plan at $249 per month for 20 million events.
- Starter Plan at $799 per month for up to 300M events.
- Business Plan at $1599 per month for up to 1B events.
Pentaho
Pentaho is a business intelligence (BI) software available in the market. Besides the ETL capabilities of Pentaho, it is known to be equipped with features like Data Integration, reporting, Data Mining, OLAP services, information dashboards, and more. If your organization needs to transform complex data and create meaningful reports, Pentaho is the tool to opt for. You can create your reports in various formats, including Excel, HTML, PDF, Text, CSV, and XML.
Features
- It relies on hybrid and multi-cloud-based infrastructure.
- You can process and integrate data from various sources with the help of Data processing and data integration services.
- You can deploy the ETL tool in an on-premises or on-cloud provider.
- As it does not involve any code generation, Pentaho is better than other tools.
Pricing
Pentaho pricing is not disclosed.
Talend
For organizations and platforms who wish to get actionable data at their fingertips and handle all the Data lifecycle stages, Talend is one of the best choices. Talend provides support to every Cloud data warehouse and all other infrastructure providers. Another major thing that differentiates Talend from its competitors is the multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. It is an area that is beneficial for organizations looking for high data protection.
Features
- It is equipped with Talend studio that helps one design the data flow and the logic of transformation.
- The tool can help you to support most (if not all) cloud and on-premises databases.
- It follows the approach of code generation. The ETL tool will build a code once you change the logic.
- The tool is apt for Batch processes.
Pricing
Custom pricing plans are available.
Learn more about the benefits of a cloud data warehouse.
AWS Glue
Better known as a serverless ETL service, AWS Glue is considered one of the best data integration platforms. It is equipped with a wide range of features, including Data Preparation, Data Transformation, and Data Ingestion, as well as help building a Data Catalog. Thus, you can start analyzing your data with the tool within a few minutes. AWS Glue offers easy data access with the help of the Data Catalog.
Features
- AWS Glue charges users per second or on an hourly basis.
- Equipped with plenty of features, including an integrated data catalog and automatic schema discovery.
- Though it is primarily batch-oriented, it can support real-time use cases based on Lambda functions.
Pricing
AWS Glue bills users an hourly rate (billed by the second for ETL jobs and crawlers).
Azure Data Factory
Microsoft’s Azure Data Factory is a fully managed and serverless Data integration service ETL tool. Even if you do not have previous coding knowledge, the best ETL tool will help you construct the ETL processes without extra effort. You can quickly move your data to Azure Synapse Analytics to identify valuable information and improve business profitability.
Features
- Autonomous ETL is available that helps you to boost operational efficiencies.
- Azure is the pay-as-you-go pricing model, making it a cost-effective choice.
- Over 90 built-in connectors are available.
- Data ingestion of all SaaS and software data easily.
Pricing
Azure Data Factory is a pay-as-you-use service.
Apache Nifi
Apache Nifi is one of the best ETL tools for data warehousing that facilitates flow-based programming with a built-in web UI that allows drag and drop features to handle data flow in real-time. The core function of Apache Nifi is to automate data flow between different systems. Some of the significant components of the tool include Extensions, Web Servers, Flow Controller, FlowFile Repository, Content Repository, and Provenance Repository.
Features
- Highly concurrent models are available, so developers do not have to worry about general concurrency complexities.
- It is inherently asynchronous, which leads to natural buffering and high throughput.
- It is one of the most effective ETL tools, with a robust error handling mechanism.
Pricing
Apache Nifi is an open-source ETL tool and is free to use.
Stitch Data
Stitch Data provides enterprises with a cloud-based ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) solution to combine data from several sources into data lakes and warehouses. This is a summary of its characteristics and cost:
Features:
- Pre-built connectors: Stitch offers pre-built connectors to several widely used data sources, including as CRMs, databases, and marketing platforms. This removes the requirement for basic integrations to be coded by hand.
- Real-time and scheduled data pipelines: With Stitch, you can plan data extraction to occur at predetermined intervals or set up real-time data pipelines for continuous data flow.
- Data transformation: Stitch provides simple data transformation functions, such as connecting datasets, renaming fields, and filtering data. If the transformation is complex, you may need to use custom code.
- Error handling and notifications: Stitch keeps an eye on your data pipelines and notifies you when something goes wrong.
- HIPAA compliance: Stitch provides extra capabilities (available as an add-on) for HIPAA compliance, such as data encryption and access controls.
Compliance and security: Stitch follows industry-recognized security.
Pricing:
Stitch provides two primary price tiers:
- Free: This plan has one destination and limited data volume (1 million rows per month), along with rudimentary features.
- Premium: This subscription, which starts at $99 per month, gives you limitless destinations, post-load webhooks and advanced scheduling capabilities, higher data volume limits (upgradable based on your needs), and better support options.
StreamSets
StreamSets is your one-stop platform for monitoring, building, and running smart data pipelines without using multiple logins. Having a single ETL tool like StreamSets will help you to manage and monitor all the data pipelines in one place. Moreover, the tool allows easy switching between multiple cloud environments and on-premises without rework. Thanks to the zero rewrites and automatic updates, there is a massive reduction in maintenance time by 80%.
Features
- You can easily control the gaps when you have complete control of data pipelines and global transparency.
- With StreamSets, you can keep everything smooth and running even where there is a change in schemas or structures.
Pricing
StreamSets offer three types of pricing model.
- Free to use.
- Professional: priced at $1000/month.
- Enterprise: customers can request a custom quote based on their requirements
Conclusion
Data transfer or extraction can be a vast and complex chore. Having the best ETL tool in 2024 at your disposal will help you to extract all the valuable data in a single place. However, choosing the right ETL tool should always depend on your business needs and preferences. You need to understand which device is easy to use and set up, requires less maintenance, has a good market reputation, and can offer the desired outcomes. Now, having an agile, modern data pipeline like Daton will assist you not only in improving internal business operations but also ensure that you are ready to gain more customers. Sign up for a 14-day free trial today!
- What is ETL all about?ETL aka Extract, Transform, Load is a data extracting and storing process used by many companies for years. As they say, data is the most important and crucial factor for a company. Everyday lots of data enters a system and it is very important to find out which one is important among those. After finding and extracting that important pile of data, the company needs to save and store that data carefully. That is the job of an ETL expert in a company. Losing a bit of data can change a whole scenario. If the company has a data warehouse of their own or on rent, they generally store this extracted data there. Some companies send their important data to some other target system. After extraction, you will get a single and consistent source of data. Working with this data is easier now.
- What is the importance of ETL?ETL helps companies to store their data over time. Now they can easily see how they have evolved and all the steps they have taken over the years. This will help the company to understand their process of growth. You can see the data in consolidated form. All the data is saved in a single repository. Now, it will be easier for the data analyst to compare and find the exact data required for his job. When you have all your resources stored under one repository, the work becomes way easier. Also, when you have all resources stored at one place, the job becomes easier. It will not take much time to go and find data from everywhere in the office. If you have data in different databases, it will waste a lot of time. Keeping your data at one place saves your time and efforts.
- Does ETL improve productivity?Of course it does! You need to have a specialized ETL software for your company and a lot of work will be done easily. Finding data from a pile is one of the toughest tasks. With ETL, the work seems easier and also the software stops you from repeating a lot of steps! ETL helps employees to transfer data to a particular repository easily and efficiently. Without ETL the process will be long and lots of technical things will be involved in it. Hand coding is tough and also reformatting the data requires a lot of technical knowledge. When the process becomes smoother, the employees can do other jobs. They can add value to their respective companies while the software will automatically extract, format, transfer, and load the required data in the desired data warehouse. It saves time and increases productivity and efficiency of a company!
- Can ETL integrate data?Integrating data is one of the major tasks of ETL to increase the convenience of the company. Well, ETL also helps companies to integrate data from different sources. There are many social networking channels, mobile applications, and ecommerce companies. It is important to keep all of this data to a single place. Data integration seems very important under such circumstances. ETL software can do this job efficiently. If you do not use an ETL software for your business, you cannot analyze all your customer interactions efficiently. These days, customers interact over several fields and you have to be ready to get all that data. This will help you in the future to flourish. Your company needs to know what customers think about a particular product or service. Depending on the opinion, they can try to bring some new changes. This data is very crucial for your marketing which is impossible to gather without ETL.
- Can ETL help in cloud computing?Well, these days companies do not waste their time storing all of that crucial data on premise. It occupies a lot of space. Also, it takes a lot of time to extract and store all that data on premise. On the other hand, buying a cloud is very easy where you can store as much data as possible. You do not need to pay for a whole slot and waste your money. You can pay for the space required to store your company’s data only. ETL helps in managing all these tasks very efficiently. Also, ETL can judge how much space is required. Without ETL, extracting and transferring data seems very tough. You need to have a lot of technical knowledge about the task. When human involvement is there, mistakes are bound to happen. But with ETL, the whole task seems pretty easy and not time consuming at all.
