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Census vs Fivetran comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Census
Ranking in Data Integration
37th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fivetran
Ranking in Data Integration
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Data Replication (3rd), Cloud Data Integration (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Census is 0.5%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fivetran is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fivetran1.8%
Census0.5%
Other97.7%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2784462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Data activation has become faster and business teams access consistent customer insights
Census has been very useful to us as a reverse ETL layer. We have reduced engineering efforts, which has translated into tens of thousands of euros per year in avoided development and maintenance costs, faster and more accurate customer activation, and other improvements that we achieved using Census. Census is faster than our previous approach. Census has enabled faster activation of analytic data into CRM and marketing platforms in our case. Another key benefit is the elimination of manual exports and custom integration scripts, consistent customer data across analytical and operational systems. The best feature that Census offers is that it works directly on top of the data warehouse, preserving a single source of truth. Another valuable feature is that Census provides excellent support for CRM, marketing, and customer-facing platforms. Census creates a single source of truth by making the data warehouse the only place where business logic and data definition live and by ensuring that all downstream operational systems are consumers, not owners of data. All customer attributes, metrics, and segments are defined once, directly in the data warehouse, using SQL and existing data models. Census was useful for us because of the fast time to value, as new syncs can be configured and deployed quickly without custom development. It also ensures that data models are clean and well-defined in the data warehouse after we start using Census. Based on delivery metrics and team feedback, the benefit is that the time to activate new use cases was reduced from weeks to days. Engineering effort dedicated to reverse ETL pipelines decreased by sixty to seventy percent. Maintenance overhead for custom integration was almost completely eliminated, and marketing and growth teams accelerated experimentation cycles significantly. From a cost perspective, reduced engineering effort translated into tens of thousands of euros per year in avoided development and maintenance costs, and faster and more accurate customer activation improved campaign effectiveness and business responsiveness.
Hafiz Usman - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead Data Engineer at Data Pilot
Has accelerated data integration workflows and supports seamless development of custom connectors
I've worked extensively with Fivetran, mainly used for extraction purposes, and I've worked with the transformation element in it as well. Fivetran not only has built-in connectors but also provides SDK connectors, allowing us to develop our own connectors in an easy manner. I don't have to write raw Python scripts or dumping scripts; it offers straightforward examples and guidelines, making it much simpler to develop custom connectors inside Fivetran. We've been able to develop many custom connectors as well, which is unique and beneficial for having everything centralized instead of having those connectors located elsewhere. One of the best features by Fivetran is its clean, simple, and intuitive UI. It includes a transformation section where I can deploy my DBT queries and scripts. It also supplies good tracking capabilities for billing estimates and user permissions, allowing for customization to the desired level. The number of connectors it has remains a standout feature, and within connectors, the options available are very helpful. Although it sometimes appears static due to its built-in nature, it offers good flexibility for data transformation and caching, which I appreciate because it saves us extensive script-writing time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Based on delivery metrics and team feedback, the benefit is that the time to activate new use cases was reduced from weeks to days, engineering effort dedicated to reverse ETL pipelines decreased by sixty to seventy percent, maintenance overhead for custom integration was almost completely eliminated, and marketing and growth teams accelerated experimentation cycles significantly."
"Making the decision to implement Fivetran was supported by the fact that they have better connectors than other competitors."
"The compare feature is the most valuable piece of it."
"The most valuable feature of Fivetran so far is the data replication; the real-time data replication is what I see best in the market where it reduces the overhead of customers needing to maintain the pipeline."
"It is not like a traditional ETL, but it gives quite a lot of flexibility."
"Overall, I would rate Fivetran nine out of ten."
"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 is remarkably easy to use; I haven't encountered any other data integration tool that is as user-friendly."
"It is easy for users to get accustomed to the tool due to its gentle learning curve and clear error transparency."
 

Cons

"The areas for improvement are complex transformation logic because it must still be handled upstream in the warehouse, and cost predictability requires attention at high data volumes."
"The documentation can be laid out better to make it easier to find things, and I really wish there was built-in support for changing passwords. Some features don't work as advertised for the platform/repository database, and HVR is not always the fastest at getting results."
"The customization could improve because Fivetran gives more thought to people who don't want to manage analytics workflows rather than engineers who want to be able to customize pipelines more thoroughly."
"More connectors are needed for exotic, popular, and rising star portals."
"Fivetran should add more connectors because its competitors, like Airbyte, have more connectors."
"The environment must be more development-friendly."
"There is not a lot of options to customize the pipeline, and the cost is high."
"Some of the pain points we're looking at are trying to integrate some of the items in the Microsoft stack, so SharePoint and Excel, and then some of the newer Azure services."
"In our case, we ultimately did not end up using Fivetran because we were able to do custom connects at a lower cost compared to Fivetran. From a cost perspective, if the number of connectors is lesser, then Fivetran is not the most cost-efficient option."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Fivetran is very expensive, and its database-driven pricing model is outdated."
"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."
"The product is reasonably expensive"
"I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"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."
"When you have a lot of workflows and complex use cases, pricing goes down as you use it more."
"I can't give exact amounts because that's based on usage, but it's more expensive than some of its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Census?
The areas for improvement are complex transformation logic because it must still be handled upstream in the warehouse, and cost predictability requires attention at high data volumes. Customization...
What is your primary use case for Census?
My main use case for Census is related to a customer that had well-modeled and reliable customer data in Amazon Redshift but struggled to make it usable in day-to-day business operations. Key custo...
What advice do you have for others considering Census?
Census proved to be a powerful enterprise-ready reverse ETL platform. I recommend that you start to use Census while ensuring data models are clean and well-defined in the warehouse. You can monito...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Autodesk, Condé Nast, JetBlue, Morgan Stanley, OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer, Verizon, SpotifyNational Australia Bank, Saks, Cemex, Okta, Dropbox, Pitney Bowes, World Fuel Services,Lufthansa, AutoZone, ASICS, ASOS, Coupa, Databricks, Hermes, New Relic, Intercom,Canva, Honeywell, Square, DocuSign, Nandos, Oldcastle Infrastructure
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