Airbyte vs Census For ETL/ELT in 2025

Airbyte and Census are crucial for ETL/ELT solutions, enabling seamless data integration into unified data warehouses. In this article, we'll compare Airbyte and Census to determine the best data integration solution.

What are Airbyte and Census?

Airbyte

Airbyte is an open-source data integration tool crafted to unify data across warehouses, lakes, and databases.

It provides various solutions such as Airbyte Cloud for rapid deployment, Airbyte Self-Managed Enterprise for secure data transfer, and Airbyte Open Source, which is utilized by over 40,000 organizations.

Census

Census is a Reverse ETL platform designed to transfer data from your data warehouse to various SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Hubspot, and advertising platforms.

It ensures that your business tools are always up-to-date with the latest data from your warehouse.

Feature-by-Feature Breakdown: Alternatives & Competitors

Features
Sync to Warehouse (ETL/ELT)
Sync from warehouse (Reverse ETL)
Sync directly between SaaS Applications
Self-Hosted Option
High-Scale Database CDC
2-way, Read +Write Environment as Terraform
Real-time SOQL Transformations on Salesforce
Workspaces
Entity-level RBAC Permissions
Built for Enterprise Use Cases
Support Chat Reply in Minutes from Actual US-based Engineers
First-class API with Native Clients
White-label API with Auth-handling
Robust Connectors, None in Beta Version
Fast Turnaround Time on New Connectors
Straightforward Pricing (Easy to Understand)
Polytomic
Airbyte
Census

Compare Airbyte and Census

Airbyte

Census

Key Features

  • Transfer data from various systems to data warehouses (ETL)
  • Extensive range of built-in connectors
  • Self-service capabilities
  • Thriving open-source community

Key Features

  • Sync data from your warehouse to various tools (Reverse ETL)
  • Utilize workspaces for better organization
  • Access a white-label API for seamless integration

Limitations

  • Many connectors are only “community-supported”
  • Setup process is complex
  • Can be brittle and immature when scaled
  • Cannot move data from warehouses to SaaS apps (No Reverse ETL)

Limitations

  • Limit on the number of synced fields for the Professional plan
  • Pricing model not based on scale (per field pricing)
  • Enterprise plan needed for syncs more frequent than every 15 minutes
  • Unable to sync to data warehouses

Pricing

Airbyte provides diverse pricing options, including a free Open Source plan for self-hosting, a volume-based Cloud plan, and capacity-based Team and Enterprise plans.

Each plan differs in hosting, sync frequency, and extra features, with the Cloud plan charging more for frequent syncs and the Team and Enterprise plans offering various add-ons.

Pricing

Census provides three primary pricing options: a limited free plan, a Professional plan starting at $350 per month, and custom Enterprise plans.

For real-time sync capabilities and access to their "Audience Hub" features, the Enterprise plan is necessary.

Reviews

Using Airbyte has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Users have reported issues with error reporting and poor documentation. There are also mentions of limited integrations and challenges with certain connectors, such as Google Sheets. Troubleshooting can be frustrating, especially for open-source users, and there are concerns about security when allowing Airbyte IPs to access databases. Check out more of their reviews here.

Polytomic customers that previously used Airbyte cite unreliability as they scale to millions of rows per month.

Reviews

Census has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Some users find Census to be expensive, especially for scaling companies.

There are mentions of feature limitations and missing features. A few users noted that some functionalities, like on-the-fly transformations, are lacking in certain pricing tiers. One review mentioned that the tool is still young and has limited connections to SaaS tools. Check out more of their reviews here.

WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Why customers are switching to Polytomic

Polytomic is a data integration platform that seamlessly syncs data from various sources into your data warehouse for effortless analysis.

  • Minimal API usage: Whether syncing with Salesforce, HubSpot, or other systems, you won't need to worry about API limits. Our sync engine automatically performs incremental syncs and utilizes the appropriate bulk APIs, rate limits, and throttling through its intelligent job queue.
  • No coding required: Perform Sync, ETL, Reverse ETL, ELT, and CDC streaming between databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, and applications like Salesforce and Zendesk without needing engineers. Just point, click, and go!
  • Custom SQL? No problem: If you require the full capabilities of SQL, we've got you covered. Define your preferred data model using native SQL against your databases.
  • Realtime & scheduled syncs: Automatically transfer data from databases and spreadsheets to your CRM as soon as it changes at the source, or set up a custom sync schedule that suits your needs. You have full control.

What is Polytomic?

Polytomic

Polytomic combines ETL and Reverse ETL in a single platform so you can move data to and from your data warehouse without managing brittle pipelines across multiple tools.

Business operations teams can set up powerful syncs without writing code, and data engineers get full SQL support, CDC streaming, Terraform compatibility, and an API. Built for enterprise scale, Polytomic handles billions of rows, complex models, and fine-grained access controls with reliability and speed.
Trusted by Data and ops teams
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All the features you need, on the platform that does it all

Replace multiple vendors

Reduce costs and simplify workflows

One platform for all syncs

ETL, Reverse ETL, CDC, iPaaS, APIs, and spreadsheets

Sync only what’s changed

Save on API limits and compute costs

Point and click

Select and filter your data without writing code

SQL query support

Powerful transformations when you need them

Pull from any API

No more glue code for custom integrations

Self-hosting available

Turnkey deployment to your private cloud

Enterprise-ready

SOC 2, GDPR, permissions, and audit logs

Move data between all of your favorite tools

Sync any of your proprietary data to and from your databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, and business systems.
See all integrations
"Polytomic’s customer support has been unbelievably great. The level of consistent, immediate responsiveness has been a huge benefit to us. It’s clear that Polytomic invests in the success of our business in a way that most companies talk about but don’t actually do. More than just support, we feel we have a thought partner."
Jonathan Krangel
Director of Revenue Operations
@Retool

Pricing begins at $500/month

Standard

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Everything in Basic, plus:

  • Sync to and from databases, warehouses, spreadsheets, apps, and APIs
  • Multiple sync destinations
  • Live chat support

Enterprise

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Book call

Everything in Standard, plus:

  • On-prem deployment
  • Single sign-on (SSO)
  • Dedicated engineer
  • Phone support
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See how easy it is to sync data to the tools your team actually uses—no code, no waiting.
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ETL Vendor Comparisons
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Frequently Asked Questions
How can Polytomic do both ETL and Reverse ETL when other tools can't?
Polytomic was designed from the start to do both ETL and Reverse ETL. While they are both "moving data", they require different technical architectures. WIth Polytomic, you can replace a multi-vendor stack with a single contract.
How frequent should my data syncs be?
Higher cadence means more API calls, warehouse credits, and compute, so start with the slowest interval that meets your SLA and tighten only where ROI is clear. Polytomic’s continuous mode runs as fast as every 5 minutes; for most revenue-ops or analytics cases, 15-min, 30-min, hourly, or daily schedules are cheaper and plenty fresh. We can help you determine what's best for your needs.
What is the difference between ETL and Reverse ETL?
ETL / ELT move data into a warehouse (ETL transforms first, ELT transforms after load). Reverse ETL sends modeled warehouse data back out to SaaS apps like Salesforce so teams can act on it. Think “data warehouse as a destination” vs. “data warehouse as a source.”
Why does quality of customer support matter?
When every pipeline fuels dashboards, campaigns, and revenue ops, downtime or mis-configured syncs have a direct cost. Polytomic’s proactive, engineer-led support responds in minutes to your message, not hours or days. We cut spend through proactive tuning of sync cadence and warehouse usage. We ship new connectors and features on request, quickly and reliably.
What is Fivetran?
Fivetran is a data integration platform that automatically syncs data from various sources into your data warehouse for easy analysis.