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Does Meltano Connect to Snowflake?

Does Meltano Connect to Snowflake? Find The Best Snowflake ETL Solution!

Snowflake is one of the premier data warehouses on the market, and Meltano is a notable ETL tool to evaluate. Let's evaluate your options for Snowflake ETL and the capabilities of Meltano specifically.

Need a Snowflake ETL Solution Today?

If you want to start moving data from 300+ business applications into Snowflake with no code, you can use Portable for free.

It takes only a few minutes to start syncing data to Snowflake with Portable.

  1. Create your Portable account
  2. Choose one of the 300+ data sources we support (or request a new source)
  3. Input your credentials using the instructions in the Portable application
  4. Create a Snowflake environment and authenticate with your credentials
  5. Connect your data source to Snowflake by creating a data flow
  6. Sync data to Snowflake to try things out
  7. Run your data flow on a cadence (daily, hourly, etc.)

Why do Companies Evaluate Meltano for Snowflake ETL?

Meltano was founded in , an open-source ELT tool. Meltano is an open-source data operations platform for engineers. It spun out of GitLab in 2021, making Meltano one of the newest entrants to the space.

When data teams evaluate SaaS ETL / ELT solutions, it is common for Meltano to be on the list. As teams build out their Modern Data Stack, it's common to first pick a solution like Snowflake for data warehousing, and then to evaluate the best ETL solutions.

Let's walk through the pros and cons of using Meltano for Snowflake ETL.

The Pros And Cons of Meltano for Snowflake ETL?

When evaluating ETL tools for Snowflake, the goal is to automate the process of extracting data from APIs, databases, or files, and the data pipeline that loads the data into Snowflake.

Before the advent of cloud-hosted ETL / ELT solutions like Portable and Meltano, it was common for data engineers to write Python code, deploy infrastructure, use an open source framework, or pay consultants to manage these data pipelines.

With no-code solutions, this process is now much simpler. Let's take a look at Meltano's capabilities.

What functionality is included with Meltano?

  1. 300+ connectors
  2. Integration with Singer data format for source integrations
  3. Open-source platform with MIT license
  4. Version control through Git built-in
  5. Detailed public-facing product roadmap

Whether you're on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. Using a no-code solution can make the data syncing process extremely simple.

It's common for companies to use Meltano connectors for the largest data sources and to use Portable for hard-to-find systems.

What functionality is included with Portable?

  1. 300+ data source connectors
  2. Support for the major data warehouses as destinations
  3. Unlimited data volumes
  4. Free development of new data sources
  5. Email and Slack notifications
  6. Hands-on support and maintenance

Now, let's take a look at the process of replicating data with Meltano.

Extracting Data with Meltano

Meltano specializes in data integration. Extracting data from disparate data sources and then loading into destinations like Snowflake.

Can Meltano Load Data to Snowflake?

Meltano supports a number of destinations - Here are some of the destinations that Meltano supports:

At Portable, we support Snowflake, and we support the most common data warehouses.

  • Snowflake
  • BigQuery
  • Redshift
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL

Now let's dig into the types of data sources that you will be able to connect to your data warehouse.

Which Data Sources Does Meltano Support?

When you evaluate ETL tools, there are two main considerations when it comes to connectors. The prebuilt connectors that are already supported, and custom connector development.

Meltano Prebuilt Connectors

Meltano includes 300+ connectors out of the box.

Portable Prebuilt Connectors

Portable provides access to 300+ data sources out-of-the-box. With a catalog larger than most other ETL tools, it's easy to connect the sources you need to your analytics environment of choice.

Uniquely, Portable focuses on long-tail business applications. This means that the connectors in Portable's catalog are hard-to-find and are great for augmenting your primary ELT vendor for the no-code connectors you need as your responsibilities expand.

Meltano to Snowflake Pricing?

So, how much will it cost to connect your data sources to Snowflake? First, let's walk through Meltano's pricing model.

Meltano's offering is open-source.

Currently, Meltano only offers a free open-source platform. However, a SaaS solution called Managed Meltano is currently planned and will be open to the public in 2023.

If you need long-tail integrations that aren't supported by Meltano, you should give Portable a try.

Portable's pricing model is focused on simplicity. It's easy to understand, easy to forecast, and easy to get started.

  1. Anyone can get started for free
  2. Manually synced data flows are free. You can try all of the connectors without paying a dime
  3. Scheduled data flows have simple to understand FIXED PRICES with UNLIMITED DATA VOLUMES
  4. You can pay monthly, or annually, and cancel any time

Now, let's talk about Snowflake.

Snowflake Data Ingestion

Snowflake offers a SaaS data warehouse for analytics teams. Because Snowflake is not associated with a larger cloud platform (like AWS, GCP, or Azure), it is a neutral solution in the market relative to most data warehousing alternatives and has built a strong ecosystem of technology partners. The Snowflake Data Cloud is one of the best data warehousing solutions for analytics teams.

Data warehouses are great platforms on which to store information, build data models, and run compute to analyze your data; however, most data teams care less about the infrastructure and more about the value they can generate for the business with a tool like Snowflake.

Snowflake Use Cases

There are three main ways to create value with a data warehouse.

  1. Analytics – This is the most common use case for a tool like Snowflake. Data engineering teams will centralize all of their data into a warehouse to then write SQL and build dashboards. In most scenarios, the data being analyze is 1st party data, but at times, teams will use data sets from partners or third party data providers.
  2. Process Automation – Every organization has workflows that need to be streamlined. In most scenarios these use cases are closer to real-time, and business value is created by removing manual steps from the process.
  3. Product Development – Product development is the most concrete form of value creation, but also typically the largest investment. In these scenarios, data teams look a lot like product and engineering organizations. By using data transformation to convert raw data into products for clients, teams are able to generate direct revenue from their endeavors.

Your Options for Snowflake ETL

With the advent of cloud data warehousing (tools like Snowflake), and the decoupling of data replication (the EL in ELT) and data transformation (with tools like DBT Labs, Coalesce.io and Narrator), ETL is simpler than ever.

If you are just getting started with ETL and your need your product database, your CRM system, or your HRIS system connected to Snowflake, Meltano can be a great choice.

When you need to connect business unit specific business applications to Snowflake, Portable offers over 300+ data connectors to make your life simple. We'll even build new data sources at no cost to you.

Ready to get started? Sign Up For Portable Today!

Pricing is simple, predictable, and based on connectors instead of data volume. Data is loaded into ready-to-query schemas so you can start building in minutes.

It's free to sign up and start moving data to Snowflake.