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Comparing Census with FME and Weld

Carolina Russ
Carolina Russ6 min read
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What is Census

Census is a leading Reverse ETL platform that syncs data from your data warehouse back into SaaS tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Marketo. It integrates deeply with dbt and modern warehouses, enabling no-code mapping, incremental upserts, and reliable syncs to operational systems in near real time.

Pros

  • Warehouse-centric: works directly on tables or dbt models
  • No-code field mapping with live previews
  • Broad destination support: Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Google Sheets, etc.
  • Incremental upserts ensure data consistency with no duplicates
  • Deep dbt integration and “analytics-as-code” workflows (YAML config)
  • Flexible scheduling and API triggers for near real-time use cases

Cons

  • Focuses only on reverse ETL—requires a separate ELT tool for ingestion
  • Pricing based on rows or syncs can be expensive at very large volumes
  • Complex transformations must be done upstream in the warehouse/dbt
  • Dependent on destination API rate limits, which can slow large syncs
  • SaaS-only (no on-prem deployment)

Census Overview (G2):

What I like about Census

Census is the fastest and most reliable reverse ETL platform with 99.5% uptime and premium support for all plans. It delivers transformed data at time-of-use—fueling rapid data activation in operational tools without relying on leaky pipelines.

What I dislike about Census

Read full review

What is FME

FME (by Safe Software) is a data integration and transformation platform primarily focused on spatial and GIS data, but it also supports a wide range of non-spatial ETL. It provides a graphical workspace where users can build data pipelines, handling over 450 formats and applications, with strong data quality and validation capabilities.

Pros

  • Supports 450+ data formats, making it ideal for GIS and non-GIS integration.
  • Graphical Workspaces with extensive transformer library for spatial (coordinate reprojection, topology) and non-spatial transformations (joins, data cleansing).
  • FME Server enables automated scheduling, breakout clustered processing, and REST API for triggering workflows.
  • Strong data validation and quality features—users can apply conditional checks and notifications when data doesn’t meet criteria.

Cons

  • High licensing costs for desktop (FME Desktop) and server components; often priced per core for server deployments.
  • Primarily geared toward GIS/spatial use cases; non-spatial ETL use is possible but the interface and transformers are optimized for spatial workflows.
  • Large learning curve for complex workspaces—dragging many transformers can become unwieldy visually.

FME Product Overview:

What I like about FME

FME’s ability to handle complex spatial transformations and 450+ formats is unmatched. The drag-and-drop workspace builder drastically speeds up geospatial ETL.

What I dislike about FME

Licensing can be expensive for smaller organizations. Focus on spatial means some general ETL features are less polished than GIS-specific functions.
Read full review

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.
Read full review

Census vs FME: Ease of Use and User Interface

Census

Census provides an intuitive UI for mapping warehouse fields to destination fields, with live previews—non-technical business users quickly adopt it for operational data syncs.

FME

FME’s Workbench is a desktop application where users connect Reader and Writer transformers to map and transform data. While powerful for spatial, the GUI can feel cluttered for workflows with hundreds of transformers.

Census vs FME: Pricing Transparency and Affordability

Census

While there’s a free tier to get started, professional plans based on usage can add up for large enterprises. Still, ROI often justifies the investment by automating data activation in CRM/marketing tools.

FME

FME Desktop licenses start around $2,000/year. FME Server pricing is per-core (often $20k+/core for an annual license). Expensive for small teams, but justified where spatial data integration is critical.

Census vs FME: Comprehensive Feature Set

Census

Census focuses on reverse ETL: no-code mapping, incremental upserts keyed on primary keys, scheduling, and deep dbt integration. It provides monitoring dashboards, alerting, and a CLI/API for GitOps workflows.

FME

Supports reading/writing 450+ formats (GIS, CAD, JSON, XML, databases), transformer library (spatial & non-spatial), workflow orchestration via FME Server, automation (event-based, scheduled), and REST API endpoints for triggering.

Census vs FME: Flexibility and Customization

Census

Mapping logic is as flexible as your SQL—any complex query can feed Census. Users can customize scheduling (cron or event triggers) and configure failure handling. It adapts well but relies on warehouse transformations for complex logic.

FME

Users can embed Python, R, or Shell scripts within transformers for custom logic. FME Server can be deployed in any environment (on-prem, AWS, Azure) and scaled horizontally. However, no built-in data catalog or lineage; separate tools needed.

Summary of Census vs FME vs Weld

WeldCensusFME
Connectors200++130+450+
Price€99 / Unlimited usageFree tier; Pro ~$350/mo for 2 destinationsPer-seat for FME Desktop ($2,000+/year) and per-core for FME Server (custom)
Free tierNoYesNo
LocationEUUSSurrey, BC, Canada (Safe Software HQ)
Extract data (ETL)YesNoYes
Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL)YesYesNo
TransformationsYesNoYes
AI AssistantYesNoNo
On-PremiseNoNoYes
OrchestrationYesYesYes
LineageYesNoNo
Version controlYesYesNo
Load data to and from ExcelYesNoYes
Load data to and from Google SheetsYesYesNo
Two-Way SyncYesNoNo
dbt Core IntegrationYesYesNo
dbt Cloud IntegrationYesNoNo
OpenAPI / Developer APIYesYesYes
G2 Rating4.84.54.7

Conclusion

You’re comparing Census, FME, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:

  • Censuscensus focuses on reverse etl: no-code mapping, incremental upserts keyed on primary keys, scheduling, and deep dbt integration. it provides monitoring dashboards, alerting, and a cli/api for gitops workflows.while there’s a free tier to get started, professional plans based on usage can add up for large enterprises. still, roi often justifies the investment by automating data activation in crm/marketing tools..
  • FMEsupports reading/writing 450+ formats (gis, cad, json, xml, databases), transformer library (spatial & non-spatial), workflow orchestration via fme server, automation (event-based, scheduled), and rest api endpoints for triggering. fme desktop licenses start around $2,000/year. fme server pricing is per-core (often $20k+/core for an annual license). expensive for small teams, but justified where spatial data integration is critical. .
  • Weldweld 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..
Review the detailed sections above—connectors, pricing, feature set, and integrations—and choose the one that best matches your technical expertise, budget, and use cases.

Want to try a better alternative? Try Weld for free today.