What is our primary use case?
I have chosen Coalesce.io to replace PowerCenter, and we are doing the ELT work for VodafoneZiggo with the help of Coalesce, which provides a way to streamline and standardize our working process.
For VodafoneZiggo, we have created templates from data ingestion, starting from data ingestion through exports, which we provide to downstream applications as a file. When I need to onboard a source in VodafoneZiggo or in our data warehouse, we use a data ingestion template that we have created which can read files from S3, whether XML, JSON, or CSV. Using that template, we can load the data into Snowflake, and then when the data is in Snowflake, we load the data using another three templates of Data Vault: hub, link, and satellites. That is our warehouse where we store the data for years, and from there, when the data is loaded, we load the data into our business data vault, which has another three templates that we have created for users to use. Finally, when the data is in the business vault, we load the data into Data Marts, which are dimensions and facts. If someone wants to give a file to a third party or within VodafoneZiggo, we have created export templates that can be used to export the data into a file. The advantage of Coalesce.io is that if a company has a good naming convention, a lot can be done under the hood in the template, and developers have to do very minimal work on the template, so there are fewer chances of making mistakes or typos.
Regarding my main use case with Coalesce.io, I would say the APIs are really helpful in retrieving log information and dumping it into Snowflake. We are looking for those APIs to create nodes in bulk, which helps us in migrating simple mappings of PowerCenter into Coalesce, and the advantage of Coalesce.io is the bulk edits that we can do at the node or column level. For example, if we want to change a column end-to-end, we can just do a bulk edit and replace the source with a new source. I also appreciate the column level lineage; if the developer fills in the source column correctly, you can see the usage of that column along with the transformation from the ingestion node to the export node. If there is any change in the middle of your pipeline, you can easily find out where the change will impact and who will be impacted by it. The introduction of the SQL node is a game-changer, at least in VodafoneZiggo, because many SQL enthusiasts can simply write their SQL, and based on the template, it will create the mapping grid, map the data type, and create a table or view based on the template we have set behind it.
What is most valuable?
The best features Coalesce.io offers in my experience include lineage, which is the most important from the Ziggo perspective, and the APIs, which I would rank as the second most valuable. The third feature is the bulk edit option, so we don't have to do repetitive tasks again and again. The new SQL feature they are introducing, where you can dump your SQL and have your table or view created without manually creating columns, is also valuable. These are the four features I appreciate the most, and the fifth one would be the recently implemented GUI change where you can put a node in a spotlight to see the upstream and downstream based on what you need, setting up the depth and those settings.
Coalesce.io has positively impacted my organization by reducing our development time and the time to market from around 15 days to a couple of days. This is the biggest impact we have experienced, and we are able to enforce a standardized way of working among developers, eliminating silos or customized solutions that developers create for themselves. If a satellite is loaded by ten different processes, all ten different processes generate the same type of SQL, making it easier to debug later if someone new joins the team. Additionally, since it is a SaaS solution, there is no need to maintain any software or install anything on laptops, which has helped us at VodafoneZiggo. Another feature is the API feature and the CLI command tool, which aid us significantly in moving from PowerCenter to Coalesce, enabling the migration of mappings from PowerCenter to Coalesce in bulk.
What needs improvement?
Coalesce.io can be improved regarding the APIs that still do not support all types of scenarios within a node, which is a blocking issue for us and potentially for other companies as well. If they could strengthen their APIs, that would help. The SQL node I mentioned can also be improved, as there are some issues or features that need refinement. Furthermore, the GUI can still be somewhat cluttered, and there could be more filters available in the deploy section to filter jobs and search for different jobs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Coalesce.io for almost two and a half years.
How are customer service and support?
I chose a rating of seven because the aspects VodafoneZiggo wants to achieve, such as customization, a standardized way of working, templating, lineage, and customer support for Coalesce have improved, particularly with the addition of new features which were quite slow in 2025 but now are more proactive and useful. Another thing I should mention is the AI part, which is improving. Coalesce.io's Co-pilot has evolved significantly from the first version to the current one, but there is still a need for improvement, such as losing context and other issues. The AI Co-pilot could be noted as a sixth feature that I appreciate about Coalesce.io, as it handles basic tasks if I give it an example.
Regarding Coalesce.io's AI capabilities, I would rate the accuracy and reliability of the output from Co-pilot at about 60 percent because it sometimes hallucinates or gives a different answer for the same question. Therefore, I would estimate it at 60 or at most 70 percent.
What was our ROI?
I don't have specific numbers or costs because I don't look into that part, but I can say, for example, that when transitioning from PowerCenter to Coalesce.io, initially we would estimate it would take one sprint, around 10 working days, for one developer to create one hub link and satellite. When that developer started working on Coalesce.io, he finished in a couple of days or at most three days, including testing. Thus, I would say we saved about 70 percent, as one developer booked for 10 days eventually had an extra seven days for other tasks.
What other advice do I have?
From the governance and security perspective, Coalesce.io looks good from a user standpoint. However, we haven't yet explored the MCPs and those aspects of Coalesce.io; we are just using the inbuilt Coco. By nature, Coalesce.io is a metadata tool, so there is not too much worry until we start using MCP servers extensively, which we plan to do in the near future.
If you want to standardize your ELT process and are more into SQL-related tasks, then I think Coalesce.io can be your way forward, as it offers low-code development and allows you to define your path for your organization. In such scenarios, Coalesce.io can be a good choice, but I haven't yet explored whether Spark can be utilized or if those functionalities are feasible using DataBricks.
I believe our relationship with this vendor is just as a customer; I don't know if we have any other business relationship such as a partner or reseller. My overall rating for this product is seven.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?