Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Fivetran VS PlanetScale

Compare Fivetran VS PlanetScale and see what are their differences

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Fivetran logo Fivetran

Fivetran offers companies a data connector for extracting data from many different cloud and database sources.

PlanetScale logo PlanetScale

The last database you'll ever need. Go from idea to IPO.
  • Fivetran Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19
  • PlanetScale Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-15

Fivetran

$ Details
-
Release Date
2012 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
City
Oakland
Founder(s)
George Fraser
Employees
250 - 499

Fivetran features and specs

  • Automation
    Fivetran automates data integration, eliminating the need for manual coding and reducing maintenance overhead.
  • Scalability
    Fivetran can easily scale its services to handle growing data loads, making it suitable for businesses of various sizes.
  • Wide Range of Connectors
    It supports a broad array of data sources and destinations, allowing for diverse data pipelines.
  • Data Transformation
    Fivetran provides built-in data transformation capabilities, ensuring that data is in the correct format when it reaches the destination.
  • Real-Time Data Syncing
    Fivetran allows for near real-time data syncing, which is crucial for businesses that rely on up-to-date data for decision-making.
  • Reliability
    The service ensures data integrity and reliability, minimizing data loss during transfers.

Possible disadvantages of Fivetran

  • Cost
    Fivetran can be expensive, especially for small businesses or startups with limited budgets.
  • Limited Customization
    The platform offers limited options for customization, which might be a drawback for businesses with unique data integration needs.
  • Complex Setup for Non-Technical Users
    Despite its automation features, the initial setup can be complex for users without technical expertise.
  • Dependency on Third-Party Services
    Reliance on Fivetran means depending on a third party for crucial data integration tasks, which could be risky if the service faces downtime.
  • Data Latency for Some Sources
    While Fivetran supports near real-time syncing for many sources, some data sources might experience latency, affecting the freshness of the data.

PlanetScale features and specs

  • Scalability
    PlanetScale is designed for massive scale, leveraging the Vitess engine that powers YouTube. This makes it suitable for applications requiring high scalability for both read and write operations.
  • Global Distribution
    Offers multi-region deployment, ensuring low-latency access and higher availability, beneficial for globally distributed applications.
  • Serverless Approach
    The platform takes a serverless approach to database management, which means automatic scaling, less infrastructure to manage, and potential cost savings.
  • Branching and Sharding
    Supports database branching for isolated environments like development, testing, and production. It also supports sharding, which helps in distributing data across multiple nodes for better performance and reliability.
  • High Availability
    PlanetScale provides high availability with automated failover mechanisms, ensuring minimal downtime.
  • Strong Data Integrity
    Uses Vitessโ€™s strong consistency models to ensure data integrity across distributed systems.
  • Developer Friendly
    Includes tools and features that make it easier for developers to manage, such as automatic migrations and simplified schema management.
  • Integration
    Can be easily integrated with various cloud service providers, making it flexible for different deployment environments.

Possible disadvantages of PlanetScale

  • Learning Curve
    The platform comes with a learning curve, especially for teams unfamiliar with Vitess or managing distributed databases.
  • Cost
    While it can offer cost savings in some areas, the pricing for large-scale deployments and multi-region setups can be relatively high.
  • Complexity of Advanced Features
    Advanced features like sharding and branching can add complexity to the database management operations.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more established databases, the ecosystem and community around PlanetScale might be smaller, which can affect the availability of third-party tools and community support.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Using a proprietary platform can lead to vendor lock-in, making it harder to switch to other database services if needed.
  • Early-stage Platform
    While promising, PlanetScale is relatively new compared to some other established database services, which means it may lack some maturity or have bugs that older platforms have ironed out.

Analysis of Fivetran

Overall verdict

  • Fivetran is generally regarded as a good solution for businesses looking for an automated, reliable, and easy-to-use data integration tool. It is particularly beneficial for companies that wish to reduce time and effort spent on managing data pipelines and ensuring accurate data transfer.

Why this product is good

  • Fivetran is considered good due to its ability to automate data integration processes, providing a seamless and efficient way to connect various data sources to your data warehouse. It offers pre-built connectors, automated schema management, and reliable data syncing, which reduces the need for manual coding and maintenance. Its robust security measures and scalability also contribute to its positive reputation.

Recommended for

    Fivetran is recommended for small to large businesses that require efficient data integration from multiple sources into their data warehouse. It is ideal for organizations looking for a fully managed service to simplify their ETL/ELT processes, especially those using cloud-based data warehousing solutions such as Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift.

Analysis of PlanetScale

Overall verdict

  • PlanetScale is a strong choice for developers and companies looking for a scalable, reliable, and developer-friendly database solution. Its foundations on proven technology and modern features make it a good option for various use cases.

Why this product is good

  • PlanetScale is known for its serverless database platform designed to be simple, scalable, and efficient. It is built on Vitess, which powers companies like YouTube and Slack, offering great performance at scale. PlanetScale provides features such as branching, sharding, and horizontal scaling without downtime, appealing to developers who need robust infrastructure. Additionally, it's designed to integrate seamlessly with developer workflows, providing tools like a CLI and a web console for easy database management.

Recommended for

  • Developers building cloud-native applications
  • Teams needing scalable databases with no downtime
  • Organizations requiring seamless integration with existing development workflows
  • Startups and tech companies looking for robust infrastructure

Fivetran videos

Cloud Data Warehouse Benchmark Redshift vs Snowflake vs BigQuery | Fivetran

More videos:

  • Review - Looker + Fivetran: Data Source to Dashboard in an Afternoon
  • Review - The Modern Data Stack: Fivetran + Looker + Snowflake

PlanetScale videos

PlanetScale Beta - Release Radar

More videos:

  • Review - Using PlanetScale (MySQL) with Next.js and Vercel!
  • Review - PlanetScale and Prisma: building in the cloud - Nick Van Wiggeren | Prisma Day 2021

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Fivetran and PlanetScale)
Data Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Databases
0 0%
100% 100
ETL
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Fivetran and PlanetScale

Fivetran Reviews

Best ETL Tools: A Curated List
High costs: Fivetranโ€™s pricing model, based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR), is one of the most expensive modern ELT vendors, often 5-10x the alternatives. Fivetran measures MARs based on its internal representation of data. Costs are especially high with connectors that need to download all source data each time or that have nonrelational data because Fivetran converts it into...
Source: estuary.dev
Top 11 Fivetran Alternatives for 2024
Fivetran's pricing is determined by monthly active rows (MAR), which can be unpredictable because of the way Fivetran internally represents data and manages non-relational sources. Additionally, reducing latency significantly increases costs. While a small deployment (2M MARs/month) can cost $700-$2667, 10M MARs/month get you into $10K a month. It is not unheard of for...
Source: estuary.dev
10 Best ETL Tools (October 2023)
It is a cloud-based ETL solution that supports data integration with data warehouses like Redshift, BigQuery, Azure, and Snowflake. One of the top selling points of Fivetran is its array of data sources, with nearly 90 possible SaaS sources and the ability to add custom integrations.
Source: www.unite.ai
15+ Best Cloud ETL Tools
Fivetran is a cloud-based automated ETL tool that simplifies the process of transporting data from various sources to a database or data warehouse. It offers an array of more than 200 connectors to help you to collect data seamlessly from multiple sources at the same time.
Source: estuary.dev
Top 14 ETL Tools for 2023
Overall, Fivetran is a great ETL solution for businesses looking to streamline their data integration process. The platform makes it easy for organizations of any size to move and transform data from multiple sources into an analytics-ready form quickly and cost-effectively. While there have been some issues reported with Fivetranโ€™s customer service and pricing model, the...

PlanetScale Reviews

We have no reviews of PlanetScale yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PlanetScale should be more popular than Fivetran. It has been mentiond 105 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Fivetran mentions (12)

  • Sync Snowflake and Google Sheets
    Even looking past these limitations, internal scripts invariably require development and maintenance time, and as any developer knows, can break at the worst of times :) Method #2: Use Zapier? (https://zapier.com) Want to use Zapier to do this? You canโ€™t. Not only because it doesnโ€™t track deletes, updates to existing records, and only does one way syncs. But because Snowflake isnโ€™t supported. Method #3:... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Big problem with companies now is they hire data scientist for task that don't require data science practices.
    Disclaimer: I work for Fivetran, a data integration company. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • I love data science but hate data engineering
    Disclaimer: I'm a product evangelist for a data integration company called Fivetran, so I'm shamelessly shilling here. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Which webflow theme is this?
    I really like the theme theyโ€™re using on https://fivetran.com. Source: about 4 years ago
  • A modern data stack for startups
    From experience then, believe me when I say you don't want to build these. Thankfully, ETL products like Fivetran and Stitch run and maintain these extraction processes for you. - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago
View more

PlanetScale mentions (105)

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2026)
    PlanetScale | https://planetscale.com/ | Software Engineer - PlanetScale Postgres | Remote (AMER, LATAM & EMEA) | Base range: $120,000 - $290,000 USD I'm the hiring manager for this position. Come build the best Postgres product on the planet with super talented folks, very high autonomy, tier-zero databases for some of the biggest and fastest growing data sets. Apply at... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • PlanetScale announces Postgres is GA
    i'll take the opposite side. I was very impressed with their website. The very first line: > The worldโ€™s fastest and most scalable cloud databases the second line: > PlanetScale brings you the fastest databases available in the cloud. Both our Postgres and Vitess databases deliver exceptional speed and reliability, with Vitess adding ultra scalability through horizontal sharding. I know exactly what they do. Zero... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Serverless Backend: A New Era for Developers
    Database: It helps storing, managing and retriving data in a structured manner (e.g. NeonDB, PlanetScale, DynamoDB). - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What's the best free database provider out there?
    Https://planetscale.com/ would be a good bet. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • List of 45 databases in the world
    PlanetScaleโ€Šโ€”โ€ŠServerless database platform built on MySQL and Vitess. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Fivetran and PlanetScale, you can also consider the following products

Stitch - Consolidate your customer and product data in minutes

Supabase - An open source Firebase alternative

Talend Data Integration - Talend offers open source middleware solutions that address big data integration, data management and application integration needs for businesses of all sizes.

Datomic - The fully transactional, cloud-ready, distributed database

Xplenty - Xplenty is the #1 SecurETL - allowing you to build low-code data pipelines on the most secure and flexible data transformation platform. No longer worry about manual data transformations. Start your free 14-day trial now.

Vercel - Vercel is the platform for frontend developers, providing the speed and reliability innovators need to create at the moment of inspiration.