Think of how many software tools you use daily in your business workflow. Many, right? According to HubSpot, only a typical marketing department uses 12 tools on average. Meanwhile, many other applications, databases, and SaaS platforms are used by businesses regularly. Taking data from all those tools onto one plate creates enormous unsystematized information. So, how is it possible to extract business performance indicators from that?
The solution exists – using no code ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tools within business IT infrastructure!
Technologies advance, so apps primarily accessible only by programmers, database administrators, and DevOps specialists are now adapted for users with essential technical expertise. No code ETL tools solutions also allow working with data without programming language knowledge.
In this article, we dive into the concept of no-code ETL tools and explain why it’s worth trying them. Also, we demonstrate and evaluate popular no-code ETL tools.
Table of Contents
Best No-Code ETL Tools
Similarly to regular ETL tools, no code alternatives address the data integration problem. They Extract data from heterogeneous sources (apps, databases, data warehouses, SaaS platforms, etc.), Transform it according to the needed format, and Load it into the target data storage.
In contrast to software with a low-code approach, no-code ETL tools don’t require any programming language experience. Drag-and-drop actions within the visual wizard allow building data pipelines and defining transformation options.
Let’s have a look at other benefits no code ETL tools offer:
- Budget-friendly. They eliminate the need for highly experienced personnel with coding skills, which usually burdens budgets.
- Easy to use. No code ETL tools are user-friendly and thus accessible for business managers and non-technical team members.
- Cloud-based. Another great benefit of such applications – they don’t require any pre-installation on a PC. It eliminates any compatibility issues that often arise for desktop apps.
Enhanced security. ETL tools implement mechanisms to mask or encrypt specific data fields for granting the privacy of clients according to modern policies such as GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA.
Skyvia
Skyvia is a universal SaaS (Software as a Service) platform for organizing data-related tasks without coding. This service is cloud-based, so it requires no software except a web browser.
This platform has the following tools for various integration scenarios:
- Import tool loads data from one cloud app, database, or CSV file to another cloud app or database according to the ETL or reverse ETL scenarios.
- Export extracts data from a cloud app or database and loads it into a CSV file on local or cloud storage.
- Replication operation creates an exact copy of the cloud app in a database, which corresponds to the ELT scenario, and maintains its up-to-date state automatically.
- Synchronization connects two sources (databases and cloud apps) and synchronizes data in both directions.
- Data Flow and Control Flow packages are suitable for building complex data pipelines with several sources based on certain conditions.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10/10 | Skyvia’s interface is a hidden gem for both programmers and non-technical users. Existing users appreciate its easy-to-understand interface with clear structure and drag-and-drop functionality. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 9/10 | Currently, this tool works with around 180+ connectors – cloud apps, relational databases, and data warehouses. Additionally, Skyvia offers: OData connector for sources supporting OData protocol. REST connector for sources with REST API. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 10/10 | It’s possible to perform data transformations with multiple mapping settings: – Map a target column to a source column. – Map a target column to an expression. – Set a target column to a constant. – Obtain a value for a target column from a target or source object through lookup. – When loading several source objects, specify the relation between them, and the system builds the corresponding relation for target data. This mapping type is available only for foreign key fields. – Zip file mapping is available for importing a CSV file together with a .zip file with imported binary data. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | Skyvia is suitable for any business size and type. There are plans with basic integration scenarios and simple data mapping settings, as well as plans with advanced options and a practically unlimited number of data records for processing and transfer. |
| Security and Compliance | 10/10 | As Skyvia resides on Microsoft Azure cloud servers kept in secure locations, it’s compliant with industry-specific standards – SOC 2, ISO 27001. Skyvia encrypts users’ data with AES 256-bit standard and complies with GDPR regulations and HIPAA requirements. |
| Pricing | 10/10 | This service offers a free plan for those looking for simple ETL tools with a basic set of features. Businesses eager to experience a greater number of data integration options and mapping functions would enjoy Standard, Professional, or Enterprise plans. See pricing details here. |
| Summary | 9.8/10 |
As you see, Skyvia could be an ideal no-code ETL tool for everyone – waste no time exploring it!
Integrate.io
Integrate.io provides various solutions, including a no-code ETL and reverse ETL tool. It allows companies to integrate data and prepare it for further use in statistical analysis, data actualization, and other processes.
Let’s have a look at Integrate.io’s ETL tool based on evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 9/10 | This tool is easy to navigate and create tasks within the five main tabs: Pipeline, Destination, Source, Observability, and Settings. Each tab’s name presumes which kind of operation a user could perform there. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 8/10 | Integrate.io ETL tool supports around 150+ connectors. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 10/10 | There are many options for data transformations, among which the most popular ones are: – Aggregate Transformation groups input data according to a certain criterion. – Assert Transformation checks data for compliance with a set of conditions. – Clone Transformation serves for splitting a dataflow into several ones. – Filter Transformation checks for duplicate records. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | Intergrate.io offers unlimited integration packages in the workflow, so it would be suitable for any business. |
| Security and Compliance | 10/10 | During data integration, there is an option to encrypt particular fields using AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Integrate.io ETL solution also allows setting up a reverse SSH channel on Windows to connect to remote databases secured under extra protection options. |
| Pricing | 8/10 | The pricing starts from $15,000/year for the most simple plan and may vary depending on the particular company’s requirements. |
| Summary | 9.2/10 |
Compare Integrate.io with Skyvia
Keboola
Keboola is another ETL solution for data integration with no coding skills as well as with low code for those willing to add more customizability to data processing. This service helps non-technical users easily collect data from various sources, schedule data collection, and load it to the required destination.
Let’s have a look at Keboola’s ETL tool based using evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10/10 | This tool has an intuitive UI that makes it easy to navigate and perform any kind of data-related operations. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 10/10 | More than 200+ connectors are already implemented in Kebools. Thus, users may easily connect to CRMs, SaaS platforms, cloud apps, databases, and a variety of other tools. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 7/10 | While Keboola generally sticks to a no-code approach, running transformations requires SWL, Python, or R programming language. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | Keboola suits any business type and size. |
| Security and Compliance | 9/10 | This ETL tool implements modern security standards on the web and complies with data protection regulations. |
| Pricing | 10/10 | Keboola offers a free plan with one hour of computational capacity on a monthly basis. Then charging occurs depending on the computational capacity consumed extra. |
| Summary | 9.3/10 |
Fivetran
Fivetran focuses on real-time data replication and transfer between sources. This helps to increase the operational capacity of the particular team or entire business and boost the basis for analytics.
Let’s have a look at Fivetran’s ETL tool based using evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 9/10 | It’s possible to build ETL pipelines and set up everything for data movement in minutes without coding knowledge. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 8/10 | Fiveran supports more than 300 data sources. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 10/10 | At this point, Fivetran requires basic SQL to set up needed data transformations. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | Both small businesses and large enterprises would find Fivetran useful in their data stack. |
| Security and Compliance | 10/10 | Fivetran meets all the requirements for digital data privacy and security standards. |
| Pricing | 8/10 | There is a free plan for those willing to work with small amounts of data. The company also offers Starter, Standard, and Enterprise plans. |
| Summary | 9.2/10 |
Stitch
To move data from any source to a data warehouse, there’s another no code ETL tool for that called Stitch. It allows setting an ETL data pipeline in minutes and applying the needed transformation settings.
Let’s have a look at Stitch’s ETL tool based using evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 9/10 | Similarly to other tools mentioned above, Stitch follows no code concept for designing ETL data pipelines. Everything is done in the visual wizard, where an integration (source) and destination (target) are selected. All other parameters of the data pipelines don’t require any coding knowledge as well. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 9/10 | Stitch supports around 160+ various SaaS apps, online services, and databases. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 7/10 | The principal concept of Stitch’s approach to transformation is to keep data as close to its original format as possible. This tool performs only arbitrary transformations to ensure data is compatible with the destination. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | Stitch would be suitable for small businesses as well as for fast-growing organizations. |
| Security and Compliance | 10/10 | This service resides on AWS services, which automatically makes it compliant with ISO/IEC 27001 security standards. It also provides an option to create SSH tunnels and IP whitelisting for sources that can handle such functions. Stitch also complies with GDPR, HIPAA, and Privacy Shield regulations so that users’ data is stored and processed in a safe manner. |
| Pricing | 9/10 | The monthly pricing starts from $100 and rises progressively depending on the amount of data rows to be operated. |
| Summary | 9/10 |
Matillion
Whether there’s a need to create a single source of truth for keeping data in one place or preparing data for business analysis, Matillion comes in handy. It also makes data ready for consumption in business apps and gets insights out of it.
Let’s have a look at Matillion’s ETL tool based using evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10/10 | Matillion’s canvas is designed for ease of utilization so that even new users can set everything up in minutes. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 9/10 | This platform offers over 100 pre-built connectors for popular data sources. Otherwise, there’s an option to create a custom connector using REST API. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 10/10 | There are over 100 pre-built transformation components (Aggregate, Pivot, Rank, Distinct, etc.), which reinforces the power of the no-code approach. At the same time, there’s a possibility to create customer scripts for custom data transformations. |
| Scalability | 10/10 | There are no restrictions on the company size or industry of operation for companies willing to implement Matillion in their data stack. |
| Security and Compliance | 9/10 | The company implements a pay-as-you-go system with Matillion Credits as the unit of charge. Thus businesses pay for the offered by Matillion resources, operational capacities, and functions on their current needs. |
| Pricing | 9/10 | The company implements a pay-as-you-go system with Matillion Credits as the unit of charge. Thus businesses pay for the offered by Matillion resources, operational capacities, and functions based on their current needs. |
| Summary | 9.5/10 |
Osmos
Osmos automates data ingestion and processing with no-code data pipelines. All one needs to do is set up source and target data applications, define data mapping transformations, and set up parameters for data cleaning.
Let’s have a look at Osmos’s ETL tool based using evaluation criteria.
| Parameter | Grade | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10/10 | Every operation in Osmos is executable via the visual wizard. |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 6/10 | At the moment, this software offers around 20 source and destination connectors. |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 8/10 | Osmos performs standard data mapping as well as formula-based transformations and quick fixes for data cleanup. |
| Scalability | 9/10 | This tool is suitable for small teams, rapidly growing businesses, and enterprise-level companies. |
| Security and Compliance | 9/10 | Osmos meets all industry-standard security requirements for application architecture, communication, and data encryption. It also respects data privacy laws to comply with legal requirements. |
| Pricing | 7/10 | The pricing starts from $5,000/year for basic packages and increases depending on the features in use. |
| Summary | 8.2/10 |
Comparison of Tools
Let’s sum up everything mentioned about the no-code ETL tools for building data pipelines with no programming. All services offer high usability and scalability, which makes them suitable for any organization. The same goes for the security and compliance parameter – all platforms offer high standards for data protection, which makes them really safe and credible.
| Parameter | Skyvia | Integrate.io | Keboola | Fivetran | Stitch | Matillion | Osmos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Data Source and Destination Compatibility | 9/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 | 6/10 |
| Data Transformation Capabilities | 10/10 | 10/10 | 7/10 | 8/10 | 7/10 | 10/10 | 8/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Security and Compliance | 10/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing | 10/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Summary | 9.8/10 | 9.2/10 | 9.3/10 | 9.3/10 | 9/10 | 9.5/10 | 8.2/10 |
Not every ETL tool offers powerful data transformations and connectivity options, which could be crucial for companies as they would want to connect data sources they use on a daily basis.
Based on our subjective evaluation of no-code ETL tools, Skyvia has the highest scores for each of the technical parameters as well as for the pricing component. So don’t hesitate to start your journey with Skyvia today!
