FME vs Fivetran comparison

Fivetran and Safe Software are both solutions in the Data Integration category. Fivetran is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.9, while Safe Software is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.7. Fivetran holds a 2.2% mindshare in DI, compared to Safe Software’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Fivetran users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Safe Software users who would recommend it.

Fivetran

Read 25 Fivetran reviews

3,872 Views
2,678 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

FME

Read 5 FME reviews

2,692 Views
2,001 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fivetran

FME

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

FME and Fivetran are key players in the data integration market. FME is preferred for its ability to handle complex spatial data transformations, whereas Fivetran is favored for its ease of setup and automated capabilities in cloud environments.

Features: FME shines with its comprehensive geospatial analysis abilities, support for complex data types, and a wide array of connectors facilitating diverse system integration. Its graphical interface simplifies the debugging and optimization processes. Fivetran's strongest features include automated data pipeline management, easy integration with systems like DBT, and the ability to handle large data volumes with minimal manual intervention. The solution's change data capture capability ensures efficient data flow between platforms.

Room for Improvement: FME could enhance its cloud deployment options and streamline its setup process to reduce the initial complexity. Users also seek more intuitive interfaces for non-specialist users. Fivetran might improve by offering more detailed customization options for advanced users, expanding its native connector list to cover less common databases, and optimizing its pricing structure for smaller data loads.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FME excels in offering robust, customizable on-premise deployment solutions with extensive configuration options, catering to specific data needs. Conversely, Fivetran provides a quick, cloud-based deployment model that minimizes setup time and maintenance through its automated updates. While FME supports more detailed configurations, Fivetran simplifies deployment, backed by effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: FME requires a higher upfront investment due to its feature-rich environment and customization potential, yielding a higher ROI in complex data transformation cases. Fivetran uses a subscription model with lower initial costs, delivering quicker ROI for fast-paced cloud integrations, especially beneficial for organizations looking to implement swiftly and scale efficiently.

To learn more, read our detailed FME vs. Fivetran Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FME vs. Fivetran

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fivetran

Ranking in Data Integration

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Replication (3rd), Cloud Data Integration (7th)

FME

Ranking in Data Integration

27th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Fivetran is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FME is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Erik Jones

Head of BI and Analytics at HyperScience

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.

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Alan Bloor

Geographic Information System Developer at Public Sector

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The simplicity and scalability are the strongest features of Fivetran."

"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."

"You can manage all of your connectors individually, which gives you a very good ability to trace which one of your ETL processes is running and when."

"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."

"The ease of setting up the connectors and transformations is highly valuable."

"The portal is very intuitive and easy to use."

"Fivetran is remarkably easy to use; I haven't encountered any other data integration tool that is as user-friendly."

"There's the general feature of the platform where it just makes it very easy to integrate different things, but I would say a specific difference is their integration of DBT,."

More Fivetran pros

"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."

"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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."

"We experience cost issues because Fivetran is charged on a usage basis. When you reach a certain level, the tool should focus on reducing the costs. The solution is expensive when you are moving gigabytes and petabytes of data. It should also focus more on REST APIs and webhooks."

"Fivetran would be improved by adding the ability to integrate the data from third-party APIs."

"It should have a few more monitoring functionalities."

"This solution needs to improve its real-time data and transformation availability."

"There was a random change to our contract in a unilateral manner after the first year. The overall cost of using Fivetran was then unclear and this is the reason I would not recommend this solution."

"There is not a lot of options to customize the pipeline, and the cost is high."

"The biggest area for improvement is in customization, particularly in how Fivetran socializes its tools."

More Fivetran cons

"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."

"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."

"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."

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."

"When you have a lot of workflows and complex use cases, pricing goes down as you use it more."

"The product is reasonably expensive"

"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."

"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."

"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 pricing model is okay and mid to large companies will not have an issue with it."

"I've heard that the license for HVR is a bit costly compared to its competitors, but since it's reliable and efficient, I think the customer shouldn't be bothered about the cost."

More Fivetran pricing and cost advice

"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."

"The product's price is reasonable."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

31%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

29%

Energy/Utilities Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

Alteryx Designer vs FME

Compared 13% of the time

SSIS vs FME

Compared 7% of the time

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs FME

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fivetran

February 2025

Download Fivetran product report

Buyer's Guide

FME

February 2025

Download FME product report

Overview

Fivetran is a data integration and migration solution that centralizes data from various sources into a data warehouse (such as Snowflake or BigQuery) for analytics. Its most valuable features include replication and managed pipelines, integration with DBT for data transformation, and many source connections.

Fivetran is easy to use, with fast data migration and an intuitive portal for easy setup and troubleshooting. It has helped organizations integrate and manage data, saving time and resources.

Fivetran

FME is the data integration platform with the best support for spatial data. Run workflows on the desktop or deploy them in a server or cloud environment.

Safe Software

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

Buyer's Guide

FME vs. Fivetran

January 2025

Free Report: FME vs. Fivetran

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