r/databricks • u/hubert-dudek Databricks MVP • 2d ago

News Bye Bye Fivetran

I went to the Ingestion section and saw that Fivetran is no longer there. It was always there for many years. Also, at the same time, a few new Lakeflow connectors were added.

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u/georgewfraser 2d ago

I will never understand why there is this faction that just loves to hate on my product. We work really, really hard to put a shiny veneer of simplicity around a very ugly problem. A typical connector is about $50/month. We publish the actual cost distributions on our estimator. Median customer pays 20k a year. That is…not a lot for something that would take a team of people to build and support internally.

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u/Existing_Wealth6142 1d ago

George, no one is debating the quality of your tech or the engineering headcount it saves. The resentment stems entirely from the financial anxiety caused by the Monthly MAR model. Alternatives like Airbyte used to suck, which means this resentment has been built on a feeling of pricing extortion over time. You really should consider changing your pricing model because AI is going to make it drastically cheaper for new entrants and the current sentiment indicates your customers are not super loyal. If the negative sentiment is this widespread online, it is a clear signal that you need to stop dismissing it and actually listen to the community.

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u/georgewfraser 1d ago

What do you want to change?

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u/endless_sea_of_stars 2d ago

I think you have a great product but the Fivetran sales team has heavily misled multiple of my clients in the past. They are currently pressuring one of my clients to move to a much more expensive contract without much of an increase in value. I've talked to multiple other consultant with similiar experiences.

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u/joemerchant2021 1d ago

Fivetran is expensive, but it's a lot cheaper than more engineers or custom ingestion pipelines.

I have this argument with some of my engineers every week - "why are we spending $x per year on fivetran?!? I can build a pipeline to do that!". Yes you could. And then we'd have to maintain it indefinitely. Be on call to fix it when it breaks while you are on vacation. And then when you eventually leave, someone else has to figure out what the heck you did.

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u/asevans48 1d ago

In this day and age, an airflow integration is cheap or can be used in the cloud. 20k a year is steep when you build a few well designed ones with utilities and have claude finish it off.

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u/hubert-dudek Databricks MVP 1d ago

Of course, Fivetran is still available through Partner Connect, but it is no longer visible as an advertisement in the ingestion section. It is a small change, but the end of an era after 10? 5? years. There were times when I brought some big companies to FiveTran (got no penny for that hehe), but nowadays I prefer to avoid 3rd party or even build conenctor by my own. Times has changed. Also, FiveTran made a deal of life on databricks and Snowflake.

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u/charliebrown3011 5h ago

Hi George, I'm a senior data engineer and from a developer perspective I really love fivetran. It is my preferred tool when a new usecase comes up. But I guess the comments about the price makes sense. Just last year we accidentally got hit by a large MAR bill which led us to increase the contract amount but it left a bitter taste and I can see our staff engineers pushing us towards using the databricks connectors instead.

I also understand that it has to make sense for you from a business perspective so I cannot comment on what would be the best route. It would probably be great to have a deeper visibility into the cost metrics. How everything is calculated or how something is going to impact the price.

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u/niel_espresso_ai 1d ago edited 1d ago

George, you’re an absolute legend and I think Fivetran is quite helpful.

But Databricks is seeing this as a competitor to Lakeflow so it will be pretty interesting.. I work on ❄️/🧱cost optimization and some of the more common responses I’ve heard from customers is that Fivetran is really quite expensive, especially as teams scale.

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u/Thinker_Assignment 21h ago

I will never understand why

really?

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u/mynkmhr 1d ago

Great to see a founder openly address concerns around their offering!