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ETL and ELT · October 2026 Edition

Airbyte vs dbt

Two of fourteen models named Airbyte first on the direct prompt; zero named dbt. Airbyte was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and dbt by twelve and Airbyte carries 63 labels and dbt 35, so the shares are not directly comparable.

Airbyte

accepted challenger

Named in one category this edition.

dbt

accepted challenger

Named in five categories this edition.

First-choice share28%2%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate5%3%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#2#6A position in a field of 18; printed, not drawn.
Labels6335A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Airbyte reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Fivetran was named alongside these two in twelve of the fourteen direct answers. Fivetran vs Airbyte · Fivetran vs dbt · Airbyte vs Hevo Data

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the ETL and ELT page.

By framing

How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
AirbyteFirst choices, of fourteen modelsdbt
Direct20
Paraphrase31
Comparative101 against dbt
Budget-constrained90
Scale-constrained10
Negative113 against Airbyte
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.

Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Airbyte and dbt were named in the same answer seventy-four times, of the 168 answers naming Airbyte and the 100 naming dbt. In those answers dbt took the first choice three times and Airbyte eighteen.

Every model, every framing

The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Airbyte and dbt stood in it.
ModelDirectParaphraseComparativeBudget-constrainedScale-constrainedNegative
Claude Haiku 4.5
GPT-5.4 mini
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Perplexity Sonar
Grok 4.1 Fast
Mistral Small
DeepSeek V4 Flash
Llama 4 Maverick
Qwen 3.7 Flash
Kimi K2
GLM 4.7 FlashX
MiniMax M2.5
GPT-6 Luna
Muse Glimmer 30B
Airbyte dbt first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Airbyte on the left and dbt on the right.

The direct prompt

The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Airbyte and dbt stood in it.

Airbyte first, dbt not the choice

2 of 14 modelsdbt was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
GPT-5.4 miniAirbyte, Fivetran alternatives: Matillion
Qwen 3.7 FlashAirbyte alternatives: Fivetran, Hevo Data

Neither was the first choice, one was named

11 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.
Gemini 3.5 FlashFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Hevo Data, Rivery
Perplexity SonarFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Hevo Data
Grok 4.1 FastFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Hevo Data, Integrate.io
Mistral SmallFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Celigo, Workato
DeepSeek V4 FlashHevo Data alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran
Llama 4 MaverickFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Databricks Lakeflow, Domo
Kimi K2Hevo Data alternatives: Airbyte, Rivery, Stitch
GLM 4.7 FlashXHevo Data, Stitch alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran
MiniMax M2.5Integrate.io alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran
GPT-6 LunaFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Matillion
Muse Glimmer 30BFivetran alternatives: Apache Airflow, Estuary Flow, Integrate.io, Matillion, dbt

Neither was named

1 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice

Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Airbyte leads by thirty-six points.
Airbyte36%#1 of 11
dbt0%#8 of 11
The full small business standing →
Mid-marketThe figures above
Airbyte leads by twenty-six points.
Airbyte28%#2 of 18
dbt2%#6 of 18
The full mid-market standing →
Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Airbyte0%#11 of 15
dbt0%#8 of 15
The full enterprise standing →

What the models said about Airbyte

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.

“"Airbyte & Fivetran are bad products." ... That view is not consensus, but it is representative of complaints about pricing models” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“citing frequent job failures, slow sync times, regular timeouts, missing records” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Unreliable connectors – Community-built connectors are frequently buggy” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Airbyte – Best Overall Value ... For most mid-sized B2B companies, I recommend: Airbyte (or Fivetran if budget allows) + dbt + Snowflake/BigQuery” Kimi K2 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Cost/predictability option: Airbyte. ... Choose Airbyte + Snowflake/BigQuery + dbt if you want open-source flexibility” Muse Glimmer 30B · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“If you have a software developer on staff, self-host the open-source version of [Airbyte](https://airbyte.com)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · first choice

What the models said about dbt

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of four in this category shown.

“dbt is usually a complement, not a full ETL replacement” GPT-6 Luna · comparative prompt · soft negative
“use modern ELT orchestrators like dbt (Data Build Tool) coupled with lightweight extractors” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · first choice
“ELT / transformations: dbt” GPT-5.4 mini · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Better Alternative: For most teams, a SQL-based transformation tool like dbt or a visual low-code tool is faster and cheaper to maintain.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · alternative
Also compared
Fivetran vs AirbyteFivetran vs dbtAirbyte vs Hevo DataAirbyte vs StitchAirbyte vs TalendAirbyte vs MeltanoAirbyte vs Apache NiFiHevo Data vs dbtStitch vs dbtTalend vs dbtdbt vs Meltanodbt vs Apache NiFiAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full ETL standing

Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.