# ETL and ELT: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "ETL tool" and as "data pipeline and ELT platform", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/etl-and-elt/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/etl-and-elt/index.md

**Standing:** Airbyte (tied with Fivetran) leads with 32% of first choices; verdict contested. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Airbyte](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/airbyte/index.md) | 32% | 4% | 50 |
| 2 | [Fivetran](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/fivetran/index.md) | 32% | 17% | 53 |
| 3 | [Integrate.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/integrate-io/index.md) | 15% | 8% | 24 |
| 4 | [Hevo Data](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/hevo-data/index.md) | 6% | 12% | 25 |
| 5 | [Stitch](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/stitch/index.md) | 4% | 21% | 29 |
| 6 | [Talend](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/talend/index.md) | 4% | 40% | 30 |
| 7 | [Apache NiFi](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/apache-nifi/index.md) | 2% | 18% | 11 |
| 10 | [dbt](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/dbt/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 39 |
| 11 | [Apache Airflow](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/apache-airflow/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 27 |
| 12 | [Matillion](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/matillion/index.md) | 0% | 12% | 26 |
| 13 | [Azure Data Factory](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-data-factory/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 15 |
| 14 | [AWS Glue](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-glue/index.md) | 0% | 17% | 18 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 60 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, Talend; alternatives AWS Glue, Apache Airflow, Azure Data Factory
- GPT-5.4 mini: Airbyte, Fivetran; alternatives AWS Glue
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Fivetran; alternatives Airbyte, Estuary Flow, Hevo Data, Integrate.io
- Perplexity Sonar: Integrate.io; alternatives Airbyte, Fivetran, Matillion, dbt
- Grok 4.20: Fivetran, Integrate.io
- Mistral Small: Fivetran; alternatives Apache Airflow, Integrate.io, dbt
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Fivetran; alternatives Airbyte, Apache Airflow, Hevo Data, Integrate.io
- Llama 4 Maverick: Integrate.io; alternatives Apache Airflow, Fivetran, dbt
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Integrate.io; alternatives Airbyte, Fivetran, Skyvia, dbt
- Kimi K2: Airbyte, Fivetran; alternatives Integrate.io, Matillion, dbt
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Integrate.io; alternatives Airbyte, Fivetran, Matillion, Peliqan
- MiniMax M2.5: Airbyte, Fivetran; alternatives Integrate.io

## Sources the answers cite

61 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- integrate.io: 44 answers, 70 citations
- hevodata.com: 33 answers, 54 citations
- airbyte.com: 22 answers, 35 citations
- fivetran.com: 22 answers, 28 citations
- datacamp.com: 22 answers, 22 citations
- dataquest.io: 21 answers, 21 citations
- estuary.dev: 20 answers, 23 citations
- skyvia.com: 17 answers, 17 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://integrate.io/blog/top-7-etl-tools (28 answers)
- https://datacamp.com/blog/a-list-of-the-16-best-etl-tools-and-why-to-choose-them (22 answers)
- https://dataquest.io/blog/etl-tools-practical-guide-with-examples (21 answers)
- https://sqream.com/blog/best-etl-tools (17 answers)
- https://estuary.dev/blog/etl-tools-list (14 answers)
- https://integrate.io/blog/best-ai-etl-tools-for-mid-market-teams (14 answers)
- https://fivetran.com/learn/etl-tools (12 answers)
- https://stacksync.com/blog/26-best-etl-tools-2025-curated-list (11 answers)
- https://weld.app/blog/etl-tools-compared (9 answers)
- https://coalesce.io/all-things-data/hidden-costs-of-etl-tools (8 answers)

## Warned against

- Talend: 12 of 30 labels negative. "Why to avoid: Any existing Talend Open Studio pipelines are running on frozen, unpatched 2023-era Java and JDBC drivers." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Fivetran: 9 of 53 labels negative. "One of the most widely-cited cautionary examples right now... Users report bills jumping 35–70%" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services: 5 of 8 labels negative. "Why to avoid: Tightly coupled to Windows ecosystem, difficult to maintain, poor schema evolution support" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud: 6 of 14 labels negative. "Legacy ETL Tools with Vendor Lock-in
Examples: Older Informatica versions, IBM DataStage, legacy SAP Data Services" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.