Comparing Estuary with Rows.com 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 Rows.com
Rows.com is a next-generation spreadsheet platform that natively integrates with hundreds of SaaS APIs, databases, and BI tools. It automates data imports (ELT) directly into your spreadsheet, lets you build dashboards and reports, and supports scripting and automation—all inside a familiar spreadsheet interface.
Pros
- Native connectors to 500+ SaaS tools (partnerships with major APIs)
- Automates ELT directly into the spreadsheet—no separate pipeline to maintain
- Built-in charting, collaboration, and dashboard capabilities
- Supports JavaScript and Python formulas for advanced automation
- Free plan available with core features
Cons
- Heavy API-dependent sheets can lag when importing large datasets
- Some enterprise connectors and advanced automations require paid plans
- Not designed for full data-warehouse scale—best for mid-size data tables
From Rows.com user reviews:
What I like about Rows.com
Rows makes it incredibly easy to pull in data from our marketing, sales, and finance tools without writing a single line of code.
What I dislike about Rows.com
While powerful, complex workflows can become slow if too many API calls are chained together in a single sheet.
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 Rows.com: 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.
Rows.com
Rows.com feels like a modern spreadsheet but with built-in API connectors. Non-technical users can browse pre-built integrations, while power users can script custom workflows in JavaScript or Python.
Estuary vs Rows.com: 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.
Rows.com
A free tier covers most basic import needs. Paid plans start at $39/user/month for Pro, which unlocks advanced integrations, higher API quotas, and dedicated support. Enterprise pricing is custom.
Estuary vs Rows.com: 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.
Rows.com
Rows.com offers ELT connectors, in-sheet data transformations (via formulas or scripts), scheduling/automation, native charting and dashboards, real-time collaboration, and Jira/Slack notifications. It bridges spreadsheet flexibility with ETL and BI tooling.
Estuary vs Rows.com: 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.
Rows.com
Users can write custom JavaScript/Python functions directly in cells, chain API calls across sheets, and build automated workflows (e.g., “every morning, pull this data and send a Slack alert”). It’s highly customizable for spreadsheet-centric data work.
Summary of Estuary vs Rows.com vs Weld
| Weld | Estuary | Rows.com | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200++ | 200+ | + |
| Price | $99 / Unlimited usage | $0.50/GB consumed + per-connector fee | Free / starts at $39/user/mo for Pro |
| Free tier | No | Yes | Yes |
| Location | EU | New York, NY, USA | US |
| 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 | No |
| Version control | Yes | Yes | No |
| 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 | 4.8 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Estuary, Rows.com, 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. .
- Rows.com: rows.com offers elt connectors, in-sheet data transformations (via formulas or scripts), scheduling/automation, native charting and dashboards, real-time collaboration, and jira/slack notifications. it bridges spreadsheet flexibility with etl and bi tooling.. a free tier covers most basic import needs. paid plans start at $39/user/month for pro, which unlocks advanced integrations, higher api quotas, and dedicated support. enterprise pricing is custom..
- 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..
