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ETL and ELT · November 2026 Edition

Airbyte vs Apache Airflow

Zero of fourteen models named Airbyte first on the direct prompt; zero named Apache Airflow. Airbyte was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and Apache Airflow by ten and Airbyte carries 75 labels and Apache Airflow 21, so the shares are not directly comparable.

Airbyte

endorsed leader

Named in two categories this edition.

Apache Airflow

accepted challenger

Named in two categories this edition.

First-choice share40%2%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate4%10%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#6A position in a field of 19; printed, not drawn.
Labels7521A 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 thirteen of the fourteen direct answers. Airbyte vs Fivetran · Airbyte vs Integrate.io · Airbyte vs dbt

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 modelsApache Airflow
Direct00
Paraphrase801 against Apache Airflow
Comparative40
Budget-constrained131
Scale-constrained10
Negative212 against Airbyte · 1 against Apache Airflow
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.

Every model, every framing

The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Airbyte and Apache Airflow stood in it.
ModelDirectParaphraseComparativeBudget-constrainedScale-constrainedNegative
Claude Haiku 4.5
GPT-5.4 mini
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Perplexity Sonar
Grok 4.20
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 Apache Airflow first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Airbyte on the left and Apache Airflow on the right.

The direct prompt

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

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.
GPT-5.4 miniFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Matillion
Gemini 3.5 FlashFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Matillion, Rivery, dbt
Perplexity SonarHevo Data alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran, Integrate.io, Matillion
Grok 4.20Integrate.io alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran, Matillion, dbt
DeepSeek V4 FlashFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Hevo Data, Integrate.io
Qwen 3.7 FlashFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, Matillion
Kimi K2Integrate.io alternatives: Airbyte, Apache Airflow, Fivetran, Kleene.ai, dbt
GLM 4.7 FlashXIntegrate.io alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran, Hevo Data, Matillion, Stitch
MiniMax M2.5Integrate.io alternatives: Airbyte, Apache Airflow, Fivetran, dbt
GPT-6 LunaFivetran alternatives: Airbyte, dbt
Muse Glimmer 30BIntegrate.io, Kleene.ai alternatives: Airbyte, Fivetran, Hevo Data

Neither was named

3 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choice
Mistral SmallFivetran alternatives: Integrate.io, Kleene.ai, Matillion
Llama 4 MaverickFivetran, Integrate.io, Kleene.ai

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-five points.
Airbyte35%#1 of 15
Apache Airflow0%#14 of 15
The full small business standing →
Mid-marketThe figures above
Airbyte leads by thirty-eight points.
Airbyte40%#1 of 19
Apache Airflow2%#6 of 19
The full mid-market standing →
Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Airbyte2%#7 of 14
Apache Airflow2%#8 of 14
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.

“infrastructure, upgrades, monitoring, connector fixes, and incident response create substantial engineering costs” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“Self-Hosted Airbyte/OSS ... this path is often discouraged for startups and mid-market companies” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“These can be good products, but usage-based billing may rise sharply with data volume” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“Most mid-market teams land on a combination like Fivetran or Airbyte (ingestion) + dbt (transformation) + an orchestrator (Airflow/Dagster)” DeepSeek V4 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“Go with Airbyte Cloud + dbt Cloud + BigQuery/Snowflake if you want the best balance of cost efficiency, scalability, and flexibility.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Best default on a tight budget: Airbyte Core, if your team can host and maintain it. It's free and open source, with 600+ connectors” GPT-6 Luna · budget prompt · first choice

What the models said about Apache Airflow

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

“Apache Airflow or Airbyte are popular choices because they're free, have strong community support” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
Also compared

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.