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Azure Data Factory vs dbt comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Data Integration
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)
dbt
Ranking in Data Integration
27th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 3.2%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of dbt is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure Data Factory3.2%
dbt1.7%
Other95.1%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

KandaswamyMuthukrishnan - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Integrates diverse data sources and streamlines ETL processes effectively
Regarding potential areas of improvement for Azure Data Factory, there is a need for better data transformation, especially since many people are now depending on DataBricks more for connectivity and data integration. Azure Data Factory should consider how to enhance integration or filtering for more transformations, such as integrating with Spark clusters. I am satisfied with Azure Data Factory so far, but I suggest integrating some AI functionality to analyze data during the transition itself, providing insights such as null records, common records, and duplicates without running a separate pipeline or job. The monitoring tools in Azure Data Factory are helpful for optimizing data pipelines; while the current feature is adequate, they can improve by creating a live dashboard to see the online process, including how much percentage has been completed, which will be very helpful for people who are monitoring the pipeline.
Shubham-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Projects at Cognizant
Incremental data models have cut full refresh time and support trusted executive reporting
I am not very familiar with dbt's version control system. I cannot identify any improvements in dbt because I am still exploring more functionality. I have been working with dbt for only three years, so I am exploring more functionalities and cannot see any limitations or improvement areas at this time. In the past, I used the seed functionality, which is used to load raw files, individual files, or static files into the database. Going forward, if dbt can improve or implement more features on the seed side, that would be beneficial, especially when we have large files available that take time to load the data into Snowflake database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like best about Azure Data Factory is that it allows you to create pipelines, specifically ETL pipelines. I also like that Azure Data Factory has connectors and solves most of my company's problems."
"It's extremely consistent."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Data Factory is the core features that help you through the whole Azure pipeline or value chain."
"From my experience so far, the best feature is the ability to copy data to any environment. We have 100 connects and we can connect them to the system and copy the data from its respective system to any environment. That is the best feature."
"The scalability of the product is impressive."
"I value the integration capabilities with other platforms and software in Azure Data Factory the most."
"We use the solution to move data from on-premises to the cloud."
"Azure Data Factory's most valuable features are the packages and the data transformation that it allows us to do, which is more drag and drop, or a visual interface. So, that eases the entire process."
"There is operational efficiency achieved, and data quality and governance have also been achieved with modular SQL and version controlling, which reduced duplication of data and data errors."
"dbt has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to create our data pipelines much faster, going from ingestion of data to creating a data product in weeks instead of months, and we can do it in-house with the skillset we already have."
"Since we migrated from SSIS to dbt model architecture, it takes around four hours only to complete a full refresh, and the client is now happy because our downtime was drastically reduced when we perform a complete refresh of the data."
"The product is developer-friendly."
 

Cons

"I have not found any real shortcomings within the product."
"Azure Data Factory can improve the transformation features. You have to do a lot of transformation activities. This is something that is just not fully covered. Additionally, the integration could improve for other tools, such as Azure Data Catalog."
"On the UI side, they could make it a little more intuitive in terms of how to add the radius components. Somebody who has been working with tools like Informatica or DataStage gets very used to how the UI looks and feels."
"You cannot use a custom data delimiter, which means that you have problems receiving data in certain formats."
"When we initiated the cluster, it took some time to start the process."
"The inability to connect local VMs and local servers into the data flow is a limitation that prevents giving Azure Data Factory a perfect score."
"Real-time replication is required, and this is not a simple task."
"The product's technical support has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution must add more Python-based implementations."
"Since dbt has a license cost, if a company is small and does not have much budget, they can explore other tools because there are other tools that provide the same functionality at a lower cost."
"dbt can be improved as I find the co-pilot in dbt is not very good, and my team has tried using it but opted to move off it and use other co-pilots such as GitHub."
"Dbt is not as stable as preferred, as it has had a few outages in the current year itself, so improvement should be made in the outages section as it is not stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I can't specify the actual cost, I believe it is reasonably priced and comparable to similar products."
"The solution is cheap."
"It's not particularly expensive."
"The licensing cost is included in the Synapse."
"I would not say that this product is overly expensive."
"Data Factory is expensive."
"I would rate Data Factory's pricing nine out of ten."
"This is a cost-effective solution."
"The solution’s pricing is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise57
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for dbt?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was simple enough.
What needs improvement with dbt?
dbt can be improved as I find the co-pilot in dbt is not very good, and my team has tried using it but opted to move off it and use other co-pilots such as GitHub. Additionally, the debugging capab...
What is your primary use case for dbt?
My main use case for dbt is for data transformation and data engineering.A specific example of how I use dbt for data transformation and engineering is that we use it to connect and ingest data fro...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. dbt and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.