Domo ETL Explained, Pricing, & Top ETL Tools

What Is Domo?

Domo is a cloud-based platform for business intelligence and data visualization. It enables organizations to aggregate data from various sources. Then Domo turns those data into actionable insights to help make better business decisions.

Domo streamlines the business process and drives growth with its features, such as:

• Its user-friendly interface

• Real-time data integration

• Data science capabilities

Domo provides a complete view of business data by integrating with

• SaaS apps

• Data warehouses

• Business intelligence tools

• CRMs

• Modern data stack software and services

Additionally, sales reps can use Excel to access KPIs and track progress with ease.

Is Domo an ETL Tool?

Yes, Domo includes ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) capabilities as part of its platform.

Magic ETL lets you cleanse and transform your business data without SQL skills.

You can add datasets, actions, and connectors using the drag-and-drop interface. Analytics teams can visualize Domo's data integrations and workflows in real time.

Moreover, you can create advanced data transformations with custom queries in SQL.

How Do I Use Domo ETL?

You can create a magic ETL DataFlow with Domo's drag-and-drop interface. You can simply drag DataSets to Canvas. Then you can use desired tiles to show how to join and transform datasets.

Its interface lets business users:

• Easily visualize their dataflow across various source systems

• Add, combine, or split columns into different formats

• Filter rows in their datasets to enhance data flows

Advanced data science users can quickly build and automate complex data pipelines with SQL.

Domo DataFusions is a great way to combine multiple data sources. This feature helps achieve data quality.

Domo ETL also includes features for predictive data modeling and advanced data processing using R or Python.

Domo ETL Pricing

Domo doesn't disclose pricing plans on its website. You must contact their sales to get a price based on your use case.

However, GetApp mentions that the monthly price for the Standard plan is $83/user, the Professional plan is $160/user, and the Enterprise plan is $190/user.

For more extensive data needs, AWS Marketplace notes that it costs $41,000 annually for five users with 50M rows and a Bronze support package.

Advantages of Using Domo ETL

• Domo has an intuitive, user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. This makes it an excellent option for businesses with few data experts, saving time and effort.

• Automated Data Transformation enables you to quickly and easily prepare your dataset for analysis. Additionally, the automated process minimizes errors during manual data transformations.

• Domo's Magic ETL dataflow centralizes your data sources. This feature allows businesses to integrate data from multiple source systems eliminating data silos.

• Offers more than 1,000 pre-built, bi-directional cloud connectors.

• Federated data with support for several top cloud data warehouses.

Does Domo ETL Use SQL?

Yes, Domo accepts SQL syntax to build complex data pipelines and automate data flows. Domo comes with an integrated SQL editor. Savvy database administrators can execute MySQL and RedShift SQL expressions within Domo itself.

You can write subqueries, advanced joins, and sub-selects to perform operations. You can also choose your own indexing and system tables.

Disadvantages of Using Domo SQL

• Domo SQL capabilities are limited compared to traditional data warehousing solutions. This constraint can limit the ability of users to perform complex data analysis and data governance. Therefore, business users may need more tools or scripting to meet their needs.

• Domo SQL has a limited number of data connectors. This limitation curbs the usefulness of the ETL process for certain automation use cases.

• Domo is more expensive compared to other ETL tools on the market. The lack of transparent pricing makes it hard to know if it fits a small business budget.

When to Use a Dedicated ETL Tool

Although Domo provides ETL capabilities, it's not a dedicated ETL tool. As such, Domo is not suitable for the following situations:

• Handling complex ETL processes, including Reverse ETL

• Large-scale big data transformations

In such cases, it's better to use a dedicated ETL tool. Some of them are mentioned below.

Portable

Portable is a cloud-based ETL tool. It offers a no-code ETL solution for building data pipelines.

It supports over 300 hard-to-find connectors. They include long-tail connectors, which are rare to find in other services.

Portable's team can develop custom connectors on request with fast turnaround times. Therefore, it is ideal for teams to focus on data insights rather than pipeline development.

Key features:

• Free to set up and sync multiple data sources manually

• Unlimited destinations and volumes

• Supports over 300 long-tail connectors

• Customers can request custom data connectors with a short turnaround time

Jitterbit

Jitterbit is an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) solution that simplifies data integration for organizations. It provides native connectivity to a wide range of data sources. These include enterprise applications, databases, and SaaS/cloud data. Jitterbit leverages artificial intelligence to streamline the data integration process.

Key features:

• Enables seamless integration of cloud-based and on-premise data flows.

• Utilizes AI for efficient data integration. It also has an auto-mapper with prebuilt templates for quick data transformation.

• Employs high-performance parallel processing algorithms for large data sets.

• Includes data cleansing and smart reconstruction tools for complete reliability.

Talend

Talend provides end-to-end data integration and data management solutions. It has a forever-free plan with limited features and self-service support.

Key features:

• Comprehensive cloud data integration

• Flexibility in deployment on-premises, cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid-cloud

• Has partnered with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, and other data warehouses

SnapLogic

SnapLogic is a cloud-based data integration solution. It has had a significant influence on the data visualization landscape.

To help organizations to automate their cross-functional workflows, SnapLogic uses:

• Artificial intelligence technology called Iris

• Drag-and-drop visual platform

• Pre-built connections called "Snaps" create integrations without code

Key features:

• Supports integrations for cloud applications, big data, and IoT

• Real-time data integration capabilities

• SnapLogic offers over 600 Snaps to choose from

Hevo

Hevo is an end-to-end data pipeline platform. It simplifies the process of transferring data from various data sources to your data warehouse.

Hevo offers a growing library of integrations and destinations. With Hevo, you can easily run transformations and gain valuable insights. And then, you can deliver operational intelligence to business tools.

Key features:

• Hevo offers support for popular data warehouse destinations. Some examples are Snowflake, AWS Redshift, and Google BigQuery.

• Automatic schema detection makes it easy to work with new data sets. It eliminates the need for manual mapping.

• Over 150 pre-built connectors to quickly connect to a variety of SaaS apps, databases, and data warehouses.

Bottom Line

Although Domo is a powerful business intelligence tool, it is not a dedicated ETL tool. Domo provides many features for connecting to different data sources and transforming data. 

However, other alternative ETL tools are available to handle large data sets and complex extraction, transformation & loading processes --- and usually for a lower cost. 

Cloud-based ETL tools like Portable offer better performance, scalability, and advanced features for ETL. Organizations requiring a robust ETL solution should try it free for their dedicated data transformation needs.