Comparing Blendo with Qlik Replicate and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
What is Blendo
Blendo is a cloud-based ETL service that simplifies collecting data from popular SaaS tools (marketing, analytics, CRM) and loading it into a data warehouse or BI tool. It focuses on quick setup, automated schema updates, and easy data enrichment for marketers and analysts.
Pros
- Quick setup for popular marketing and product analytics sources with pre-built dashboards.
- Handles incremental syncs and auto-updates when source schemas change.
- Offers a unified metrics layer with common definitions (e.g., MRR, CAC) out-of-the-box.
Cons
- Niche focus on marketing/product analytics—fewer connectors for general-purpose ETL.
- Transformation capabilities are limited to simple mappings; complex needs require additional tools.
- Pricing scales quickly as more sources are connected or higher sync frequency is needed.
Blendo Pricing:
What I like about Blendo
Blendo’s turnkey dashboards and consolidated metrics saved us weeks of manual work—data from all our marketing tools was in BigQuery overnight.
What I dislike about Blendo
Limited customization: can’t define complex transformation logic beyond basic field mappings and date handling.
What is Qlik Replicate
Qlik Replicate (formerly Attunity) is a change data capture (CDC) and replication platform that moves data in real-time from databases, mainframes, and cloud sources into data warehouses, data lakes, and analytics platforms. It provides a graphical UI to configure replication tasks, automated schema change handling, and supports a wide range of sources (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MongoDB) and targets (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Kafka).
Pros
- High-performance CDC with minimal source impact; supports heterogeneous sources and targets.
- Automated schema change handling—table/column additions in source auto-reflected in target.
- GUI-based configuration for tasks, monitoring dashboards, and robust error handling.
- Cloud-native or on-prem installations; integrates with Qlik’s broader ecosystem (e.g., Qlik Sense).
Cons
- No built-in ELT/transformations—only replication. Users need a separate tool for data transformations.
- Enterprise pricing (per-core licensing) can be high, particularly for large-scale replication across many tables.
- Learning curve for setting up advanced replication scenarios (e.g., multi-target replication, filters).
Qlik Replicate Documentation:
What I like about Qlik Replicate
Replicate’s CDC capabilities ensure minimal latency and zero-impact on source databases. Schema changes in the source are automatically captured and propagated to targets.
What I dislike about Qlik Replicate
Licensing is expensive, and it’s focused solely on replication (no transformations). For broader ETL, additional tools are needed.
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.
Blendo vs Qlik Replicate: Ease of Use and User Interface
Blendo
Blendo’s web UI focuses on connecting predefined sources (select connector, authenticate, choose tables). Once set, data flows automatically on a schedule. Very little configuration needed—ideal for marketers/analysts.
Qlik Replicate
The Qlik Replicate UI provides wizards to create replication tasks quickly, monitors latency and throughput, and auto-detects schema changes. Setup for common CDC tasks is straightforward, but advanced filtering and tuning require expertise.
Blendo vs Qlik Replicate: Pricing Transparency and Affordability
Blendo
Plans start at $100/month for 1 source, 1 warehouse, and 1 dashboard sync. Higher tiers add connectors and more frequent syncs. Good value for small analytics use cases, but costs increase if you add many sources.
Qlik Replicate
The licensing model is per-engine/core, often starting at $50k+/year for smaller environments. While expensive, the high reliability and low-latency replication justify cost for mission-critical use cases.
Blendo vs Qlik Replicate: Comprehensive Feature Set
Blendo
Features: SaaS connectors (marketing, CRM, product), incremental sync, metrics layer, pre-built BI dashboards (Data Studio, Looker), monitoring & alerts. Limited to analytics-focused data; no general-purpose ETL features.
Qlik Replicate
Features: CDC-based replication, automated schema drift handling, support for 100+ sources/targets (databases, mainframes, cloud), multi-target replication, and basic transformations (e.g., data type conversions). No deep transformation engine.
Blendo vs Qlik Replicate: Flexibility and Customization
Blendo
Users can define custom SQL transformations on the loaded data via a “SQL runner” feature, but most heavy transformations are done post-load in the warehouse or BI tool. No built-in Python/JS transforms.
Qlik Replicate
Users can configure advanced mapping rules, filters, and transformations (limited) via the UI or JSON configs. For deeper transforms, integrate with Qlik Compose or third-party ETL. Qlik Replicate can be automated via CLI and REST API.
Summary of Blendo vs Qlik Replicate vs Weld
| Weld | Blendo | Qlik Replicate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200++ | 30+ | 100+ |
| Price | $99 / Unlimited usage | Small plan starts ~$100/month; scales by data volume and connector count | Subscription/perpetual license (custom quotes; six-figure enterprise costs) |
| Free tier | No | Yes | No |
| Location | EU | Sofia, Bulgaria (HQ) + USA offices | King of Prussia, PA, USA (Qlik HQ) |
| Extract data (ETL) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL) | Yes | No | No |
| Transformations | Yes | No | No |
| AI Assistant | Yes | No | No |
| On-Premise | No | No | Yes |
| Orchestration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 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 | No |
| dbt Cloud Integration | Yes | No | No |
| OpenAPI / Developer API | Yes | No | Yes |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.3 | 4.7 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Blendo, Qlik Replicate, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- Blendo: features: saas connectors (marketing, crm, product), incremental sync, metrics layer, pre-built bi dashboards (data studio, looker), monitoring & alerts. limited to analytics-focused data; no general-purpose etl features. . plans start at $100/month for 1 source, 1 warehouse, and 1 dashboard sync. higher tiers add connectors and more frequent syncs. good value for small analytics use cases, but costs increase if you add many sources. .
- Qlik Replicate: features: cdc-based replication, automated schema drift handling, support for 100+ sources/targets (databases, mainframes, cloud), multi-target replication, and basic transformations (e.g., data type conversions). no deep transformation engine. . the licensing model is per-engine/core, often starting at $50k+/year for smaller environments. while expensive, the high reliability and low-latency replication justify cost for mission-critical use cases. .
- 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..
