Comparing Census with Pentaho Data Integration and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
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
What is Pentaho Data Integration
Pentaho Data Integration (PDI), also known as Kettle, is an open-source ETL tool from Hitachi Vantara. It provides a graphical Spoon interface for building ETL transformations and jobs, supporting over 150 data sources (relational, NoSQL, cloud, files). PDI includes built-in steps for data cleansing, join, lookup, and can execute transformations in a clustered environment. It also integrates with Pentaho’s BI platform for analytics.
Pros
- Open-source (Community Edition) with no licensing costs; Enterprise Edition provides additional features and support.
- 150+ connectors (databases, cloud storage, big data, files, NoSQL) and flexible step-based transformations.
- Graphical Spoon interface for visual ETL job design; transformations can be previewed and tested in real-time.
- Support for clustered execution (Carte server) for parallel processing and higher throughput.
Cons
- Community Edition lacks advanced features (lineage, data quality, enterprise monitoring), requiring Enterprise Edition for production readiness.
- Performance can suffer with very large data volumes if not properly tuned (Java memory, clustering).
- User interface and user experience are dated compared to newer cloud-native ETL tools.
Pentaho Data Integration Overview:
What I like about Pentaho Data Integration
PDI’s free community edition and Spoon GUI allow rapid ETL prototyping; its step library is extensive, and clustering support is solid for scale.
What I dislike about Pentaho Data Integration
Limited data quality features and slower development speed compared to modern cloud ETL. Community support can be slow for fixes.
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.
Census vs Pentaho Data Integration: 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.
Pentaho Data Integration
Pentaho’s Spoon GUI uses a canvas paradigm: drag "steps" onto a transformation, connect them, and configure. While powerful, it can feel clunky, especially for very complex flows with many steps.
Census vs Pentaho Data Integration: 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.
Pentaho Data Integration
The free Community Edition is attractive for experimentation. Enterprise Edition pricing is usage-based and includes support, lineag, and more; typically suited for mid-sized to large organizations.
Census vs Pentaho Data Integration: 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.
Pentaho Data Integration
PDI features: GUI-based transformation designer, job orchestration, data cleansing, lookups, joins, scripting (JavaScript, PDI’s built-in “User Defined Java Expression”), logging, clustering, and integration with Pentaho BI for reporting. Lineage and monitoring in Enterprise.
Census vs Pentaho Data Integration: 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.
Pentaho Data Integration
Users can embed Java, JavaScript, or invoke external scripts. PDI’s open architecture allows custom plugins for new steps/connectors. The code is open-source, so full extensibility is available, though it requires Java development.
Summary of Census vs Pentaho Data Integration vs Weld
| Weld | Census | Pentaho Data Integration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200++ | 130+ | 150+ |
| Price | €99 / Unlimited usage | Free tier; Pro ~$350/mo for 2 destinations | Community Edition: Free; Enterprise Edition: Custom pricing |
| Free tier | No | Yes | Yes |
| Location | EU | US | Santa Clara, CA, USA (Hitachi Vantara HQ) |
| Extract data (ETL) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Transformations | Yes | No | Yes |
| AI Assistant | Yes | No | No |
| On-Premise | No | No | Yes |
| Orchestration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lineage | Yes | No | Yes |
| Version control | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Load data to and from Excel | Yes | No | Yes |
| Load data to and from Google Sheets | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Two-Way Sync | Yes | No | No |
| dbt Core Integration | Yes | Yes | No |
| dbt Cloud Integration | Yes | No | No |
| OpenAPI / Developer API | Yes | Yes | No |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.1 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Census, Pentaho Data Integration, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- 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.. 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..
- Pentaho Data Integration: pdi features: gui-based transformation designer, job orchestration, data cleansing, lookups, joins, scripting (javascript, pdi’s built-in “user defined java expression”), logging, clustering, and integration with pentaho bi for reporting. lineage and monitoring in enterprise. . the free community edition is attractive for experimentation. enterprise edition pricing is usage-based and includes support, lineag, and more; typically suited for mid-sized to large organizations. .
- 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..
