Comparing Estuary with Informatica Cloud and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
What is Estuary
Estuary Flow is a real-time ETL/ELT and data integration platform for both batch and streaming pipelines. It provides sub-100ms latency using Change Data Capture (CDC), supports automated schema evolution, and allows users to build entire pipelines with low- or no-code connectors in minutes. It can target data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery), BI tools, and operational systems for analytics, operations, and AI use cases.
Pros
- Purpose-built for real-time CDC and streaming ETL with sub-100ms latency.
- Automatic schema evolution with exactly-once delivery guarantees.
- 200+ no-code connectors for databases, SaaS apps, and message queues.
- Flexible deployment: public cloud, private cloud, or self-hosted (BYOC).
Cons
- Premium pricing model ($0.50/GB consumed + connector fees) can be expensive for small teams.
- Still growing connector catalog; niche or very new APIs may require custom work.
- Smaller community compared to older open-source tools, meaning fewer community-built resources.
Estuary Pricing Page:
What I like about Estuary
Estuary’s real-time, no-code model is magical—getting data instantly with minimal effort and near-zero pipeline maintenance. Plus, their support is fantastic.
What I dislike about Estuary
Pricing can be high for lower-volume teams, and some less-common connectors are still in development, which limits immediate use cases for niche sources.
What is Informatica Cloud
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) is a cloud-native iPaaS that provides ETL/ELT, application integration, API management, and data quality in a single SaaS platform. It offers hundreds of pre-built connectors for SaaS apps, cloud databases, and on-premises systems via Secure Agents. Key features include drag-and-drop flow designer, real-time integrations, and monitoring dashboards.
Pros
- Hundreds of SaaS, cloud DB, and on-prem connectors via a lightweight Secure Agent.
- Unified services: ETL/ELT, data quality, API integration, and B2B/EDI flows.
- Low-code, drag-and-drop interface for rapid flow development; pre-built templates accelerate common integrations.
- Hybrid integration capability: connect cloud and on-prem data sources securely via Secure Agents.
Cons
- Pricing can be difficult to estimate—charges apply per environment, per connector, data volume, and usage of additional services.
- Performance throttling on large bulk loads; premium packaging is needed for high-throughput scenarios.
- Learning curve for advanced features: API Designer, Data Quality transformations, and complex flow orchestration.
Informatica Cloud Pricing:
What I like about Informatica Cloud
IICS provides an all-in-one cloud integration suite: ETL, API management, and data quality, all managed by Informatica. Connector coverage is unmatched.
What I dislike about Informatica Cloud
Complex pricing (per user, per connector, data volume) and occasional performance issues for large data volumes.
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.
Estuary vs Informatica Cloud: Ease of Use and User Interface
Estuary
Estuary’s UI is intuitive: users can add connectors, configure CDC streams, and specify destinations in a few clicks. Complex transformations can be written in SQL or TypeScript directly in the Flow editor, but most tasks are handled via no-code connectors.
Informatica Cloud
The IICS web UI provides a unified workspace where users build mappings and tasks using drag-and-drop. Pre-built templates simplify common use cases, but advanced features (e.g., data quality) require additional learning.
Estuary vs Informatica Cloud: Pricing Transparency and Affordability
Estuary
While Estuary provides a 10 GB/month free tier and a 30-day trial, its consumption-based pricing ($0.50/GB + connector fees) can become costly at scale. Teams processing hundreds of GBs per month should budget accordingly.
Informatica Cloud
Informatica Cloud’s pricing includes a base license fee plus charges per connector, environment, and data usage. Small teams may find entry costs high, but larger enterprises benefit from consolidated integration and data services.
Estuary vs Informatica Cloud: Comprehensive Feature Set
Estuary
Key features include real-time CDC (sub-100ms latency), batch and streaming pipelines, automated schema evolution, and in-stream or post-load transformations via SQL/TypeScript or dbt. It also supports Kafka-compatibility and private storage for data replay.
Informatica Cloud
Key features: ETL/ELT mappings, real-time integrations, API & application integration, data quality, data masking, and B2B/EDI flows. It also includes monitoring dashboards, alerts, and SLA management.
Estuary vs Informatica Cloud: Flexibility and Customization
Estuary
Estuary allows custom TypeScript transforms in-stream or SQL in-destination. Pipelines can be managed via CLI (flowctl) and integrated into CI/CD. While most connectors are no-code, custom connectors can be built using the open-source Flow SDK.
Informatica Cloud
Users can create custom connectors via REST/SOAP or use the Generic Connector. Secure Agents allow on-premise integration. Mapping Designer supports custom transformations via Java or Groovy.
Summary of Estuary vs Informatica Cloud vs Weld
| Weld | Estuary | Informatica Cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200++ | 200+ | 200+ |
| Price | $99 / Unlimited usage | $0.50/GB consumed + per-connector fee | Subscription-based (custom quotes); typically starts ~$20k/year for base ETL usage |
| Free tier | No | Yes | No |
| Location | EU | New York, NY, USA | Redwood City, CA, USA |
| Extract data (ETL) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL) | Yes | No | No |
| Transformations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Assistant | Yes | No | No |
| On-Premise | No | Yes | No |
| Orchestration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lineage | Yes | Yes | 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 | Yes |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.4 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Estuary, Informatica Cloud, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- Estuary: key features include real-time cdc (sub-100ms latency), batch and streaming pipelines, automated schema evolution, and in-stream or post-load transformations via sql/typescript or dbt. it also supports kafka-compatibility and private storage for data replay. . while estuary provides a 10 gb/month free tier and a 30-day trial, its consumption-based pricing ($0.50/gb + connector fees) can become costly at scale. teams processing hundreds of gbs per month should budget accordingly. .
- Informatica Cloud: key features: etl/elt mappings, real-time integrations, api & application integration, data quality, data masking, and b2b/edi flows. it also includes monitoring dashboards, alerts, and sla management. . informatica cloud’s pricing includes a base license fee plus charges per connector, environment, and data usage. small teams may find entry costs high, but larger enterprises benefit from consolidated integration and data services. .
- 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..
