Comparing Alooma with Hevo and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
What is Alooma
Alooma (acquired by Google Cloud in 2019) was a streaming ETL platform that enabled real-time ingestion of data from various sources into BigQuery. It provided a visual pipeline editor to map, transform, and route data with minimal code, automatically handling schema changes and ensuring exactly-once delivery. While Alooma as a standalone product is retired, many of its features have been integrated into Google Cloud’s Dataflow and Pub/Sub pipelines.
Pros
- Real-time streaming ETL with automatic schema drift handling.
- Minimal coding: visual pipeline UI with built-in connectors to databases, Kafka, APIs, and SaaS apps.
- Exactly-once delivery guarantees to BigQuery, eliminating duplicate data.
Cons
- Standalone Alooma product is discontinued—functionality now lives in GCP services (e.g., Dataflow, Data Fusion).
- Migrating legacy Alooma pipelines to GCP-native services requires rework, as UI and features differ from original Alooma.
Google Cloud’s Dataflow (Alooma integration):
What I like about Alooma
Alooma’s ease of connecting live streaming data sources directly into BigQuery with automated schema management was revolutionary for our real-time analytics.
What I dislike about Alooma
Since Google integrated Alooma into its native services, the standalone product no longer exists, so new users must migrate to Dataflow or Data Fusion.
What is Hevo
Hevo Data has ETL, ELT, and reverse-ETL capabilities, and is code-free with integrations to various tools and data warehouses. For non-technical users who want to get up and running with their data, Hevo can help.
That said, experienced data specialists may wish for some more technical depth in the platform, giving them room to do more complex work.
Pros
- Supports both ELT, ELT, and reserve ELT
- Plenty of fully maintained connectors
- Great for non-technical users
- Simple UI that's easy to work with
- Affordable pricing
Cons
- Limited features for more advanced use cases
- Limited custom scheduling features
- Only 50 connectors are available on the Free plan
- Lack of flexibility when wanting to edit pipelines
- Error messages and status codes could be better
As one reviewer on G2 puts it: :
What I like about Hevo
Hevo is really good for normal pipelines, but it has some limitations for more complex use cases.
What I dislike about Hevo
What is Weld
Weld is a powerful ETL platform that seamlessly integrates ELT, data transformations, reverse ETL, and AI-assisted features into one user-friendly solution. With its intuitive interface, Weld makes it easy for anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to build and manage data workflows. Known for its premium quality connectors, all built in-house, Weld ensures the highest quality and reliability for its users. It is designed to handle large datasets with near real-time data synchronization, making it ideal for modern data teams that require robust and efficient data integration solutions. Weld also leverages AI to automate repetitive tasks, optimize workflows, and enhance data transformation capabilities, ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity. Users can combine data from a wide variety of sources, including marketing platforms, CRMs, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, APIs, databases, Excel, Google Sheets, and more, providing a single source of truth for all their data.
Pros
- Premium quality connectors and reliability
- User-friendly and easy to set up
- AI assistant
- Very competitive and easy-to-understand pricing model
- Reverse ETL option
- Lineage, orchestration, and workflow features
- Advanced transformation and SQL modeling capabilities
- Ability to handle large datasets and near real-time data sync
- Combines data from a wide range of sources for a single source of truth
Cons
- Requires some technical knowledge around data warehousing and SQL
- Limited features for advanced data teams
A reviewer on G2 said:
What I like about Weld
First and foremost, Weld is incredibly user-friendly. The graphical interface is intuitive, which makes it easy to build data workflows quickly and efficiently. Even with little experience in SQL and pipeline management, we found that Weld was straightforward and easy to use. What really impressed me, however, was Weld's flexibility. It was able to handle data from a wide variety of sources, including SQL databases, Google Sheets, and even APIs. The solution also allowed us to customize my data transformations in a way that best suited my needs. Whether I needed to clean data, join tables, or aggregate data, Weld had the necessary tools to accomplish the task. Weld's performance was also exceptional. I was able to run large-scale ETL jobs quickly and efficiently, with minimal downtime via a Snowflake instance and visualization via own-hosted Metabase. The solution's scalability meant that I could process more data without any issues. Another standout feature of Weld was its support. I never felt lost or unsure about how to use a particular feature, as the support team was always quick to respond to any questions or concerns that I had. Overall, I highly recommend Weld as an ETL solution. Its user-friendliness, flexibility, performance, and support make it an excellent choice for anyone looking to streamline their data integration processes. I will definitely be using Weld for all my ETL needs going forward.
What I dislike about Weld
Weld is still limited to a certain number of integrations - although the team is super interested to hear if you need custom integrations.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Ease of Use & Interface
Alooma
Alooma’s web-based pipeline builder allowed users to drag-and-drop connectors for streaming or batch data, apply transformations, and route data to BigQuery with just a few clicks. The interface auto-generated SQL when possible.
Hevo
Hevo is designed with non-technical users in mind, offering a simple UI and code-free capabilities, making it easy for beginners to use.
Pricing & Affordability
Alooma
No longer available as a separate product. Users adopt equivalent GCP services (Dataflow, Data Fusion) which have pay-as-you-go pricing under the GCP pricing model.
Hevo
Hevo offers affordable pricing and a free plan with limited connectors, making it accessible for startups and small businesses. However, the costs can rise with data volume and feature needs.
Feature Set
Alooma
Alooma supported real-time ingestion from Kafka, databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL), logs, REST APIs, and SaaS apps, with built-in transformations (masking, enrichment). It automatically handled schema changes, and could write to BigQuery partitions.
Hevo
Hevo supports ETL, ELT, and reverse-ETL, making it versatile for different data needs. It also has plenty of fully maintained connectors, although it may lack some advanced features required by seasoned data professionals.
Flexibility & Customization
Alooma
Users could write custom JavaScript transforms or Python UDFs for complex logic. The platform managed infrastructure, but custom connectors required Eloqua code or support.
Hevo
While Hevo is great for non-technical users, it lacks flexibility and customization options for more complex data tasks, making it less suitable for advanced data teams.
Summary of Alooma vs Hevo vs Weld
| Weld | Alooma | Hevo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200+ | 100+ | 150+ |
| Price | $79 / No data volume limits | N/A (product retired; GCP service pricing applies) | $299 / 5M rows |
| Free tier | No | No | Yes |
| Location | EU | Sunnyvale, CA, USA (pre-acquisition) | INDIA |
| Extract data (ETL) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Transformations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Assistant | Yes | No | No |
| On-Premise | No | No | No |
| Orchestration | Yes | Yes | No |
| Lineage | Yes | No | No |
| Version control | Yes | No | No |
| Load data to and from Excel | Yes | No | No |
| Load data to and from Google Sheets | Yes | No | No |
| Two-Way Sync | Yes | No | No |
| dbt Core Integration | Yes | No | Yes |
| dbt Cloud Integration | Yes | No | No |
| OpenAPI / Developer API | Yes | No | Yes |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.3 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Alooma, Hevo, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- Alooma: alooma supported real-time ingestion from kafka, databases (mysql, postgresql), logs, rest apis, and saas apps, with built-in transformations (masking, enrichment). it automatically handled schema changes, and could write to bigquery partitions. . no longer available as a separate product. users adopt equivalent gcp services (dataflow, data fusion) which have pay-as-you-go pricing under the gcp pricing model. .
- Hevo: hevo supports etl, elt, and reverse-etl, making it versatile for different data needs. it also has plenty of fully maintained connectors, although it may lack some advanced features required by seasoned data professionals.. hevo offers affordable pricing and a free plan with limited connectors, making it accessible for startups and small businesses. however, the costs can rise with data volume and feature needs..
- Weld: weld integrates elt, data transformations, and reverse etl all within one platform. it also provides advanced features such as data lineage, orchestration, workflow management, and an ai assistant, which helps in automating repetitive tasks and optimizing workflows.. weld offers a straightforward and competitive pricing model, starting at $99 for 2 million active rows, making it more affordable and predictable, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises..
