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FME vs Fivetran comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Fivetran
Ranking in Data Integration
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Data Replication (3rd), Cloud Data Integration (6th)
FME
Ranking in Data Integration
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Fivetran is 2.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FME is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Erik Jones - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 14, 2022
Solution reduces time-to-value; high ROI
Fivetran has room for improvement in data pipeline observability. The Fivetran logs are fairly basic, compared to, for example, the insight Fivetran gives into helping users understanding the performance of data pipelines. So I think their observability into the pipeline itself could be improved. In addition, Fivetran is in the very early stages of allowing other companies to access its metadata API, but that's something that could use improvement, and I know that they're working on right now. We use a separate tool for "reverse ETL", which is the opposite of what Fivetran does; it pushes data from your data warehouse back out to business applications. If Fivetran pulls data from those same applications, they should also enable users to push it back. I would love to do both ETL and reverse ETL in the same tool. It would be nice if Fivetran offered both their regular offering plus the reverse ETL option as well.
Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 8, 2023
Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high
When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable feature."
"The general data ingestion is valuable. It's used for a lot of data. It provides about 90% of the data we use in our data warehouse without needing data engineering."
"Fivetran offers native connectivity with Sybase"
"The most important feature of the solution is its ability to build data pipelines in less time."
"The ease of usability is the most valuable feature. It's very easy and quick to set up. It also has a central hub as opposed to GoldenGate which is one direct interface. For GoldenGate I would have needed three interfaces whereas with HVR I have a central interface that manages everything."
"The solution is stable. We've never faced any stability issues."
"Its arrays are powerful enough to handle migrations even when the replication is happening in the background, without causing any trouble with the ongoing traffic."
"Fivetran can perform data migration incredibly fast, depending on the source and target."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."
 

Cons

"We use a separate tool for "reverse ETL", which is the opposite of what Fivetran does; it pushes data from your data warehouse back out to business applications. If Fivetran pulls data from those same applications, they should also enable users to push it back. I would love to do both ETL and reverse ETL in the same tool."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"The documentation is decent, but it's hard to find information online about Fivetran. For example, if you try to search for an error code, you won't find much information about it in forums."
"Fivetran should add more connectors because its competitors, like Airbyte, have more connectors."
"Fivetran could improve in the area of customization, especially in how they socialize their tools."
"I would like Fivetran to implement additional resource monitoring and restriction policies."
"Fivetran would be improved by adding the ability to integrate the data from third-party APIs."
"The solution is very expensive. I would like to have a better integration of the solution with Azure."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can't give exact amounts because that's based on usage, but it's more expensive than some of its competitors."
"I would say they're a little bit on the expensive side, and their contract process is not particularly good, but there is a lot of potential flexibility."
"The solution is affordable."
"I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"In the first year, we were given a very good discount. It was approximately 20,000 Euros per year. In the third year, we purchased credit for two years and the price was 33,000 Euros per year."
"The licensing costs are extremely high for the usage of somebody who has one GB or two GB of usage per day for real-time traffic. There are many other players in the market which are similarly priced or competitively priced. On average per month, it used to come around 12,000-15,000 USD, which is very high."
"When you have a lot of workflows and complex use cases, pricing goes down as you use it more."
"I don't have the exact information, but I know it is high, and it is on a yearly basis. There is no additional cost for what we're doing. We're always open to doing things cheaper, so we might potentially implement a different solution."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
"The product's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
30%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What's the deal with the HVR software acquisition?
As a user of HVR Software I followed this deal closely. Fivetran is apparently trying to establish more in its sector and by buying an already established data replication software, they become som...
Does HVR Software provide reliable insights?
I honestly can't think of another data replication software that can give you better statistics and insight than HVR Software. There's the feature for topology and statistics and both of them can ...
How much traffic can HVR Software handle?
As someone who works at a company where a high volume of information is replicated and has tried several data replication softwares, I can tell you that you're looking at the right one. HVR Softwar...
What do you like most about FME?
We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?
The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...
What needs improvement with FME?
The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point. There must be a technical or comm...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DocuSign, Oldcastle Infrastructure, Crossmedia, Talkdesk, Chubbies, Brandwatch
Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Find out what your peers are saying about FME vs. Fivetran and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.