It usually starts as a safe bet. You need to replicate data from Oracle or SQL Server, so you reach for Fivetran HVR. It’s a well-known name, and for good reason, it has historically handled high-volume Change Data Capture (CDC) and hybrid deployments well.
But as your data volumes grow, the cracks often start to show. Whether it’s the pricing model based on Monthly Active Rows (MAR) that makes forecasting your budget a nightmare. Or the “micro-batch” architecture isn’t fast enough for your new real-time AI use cases. Or perhaps you simply need more control over your deployment than a managed black box allows.
When you hit that ceiling, it’s time to evaluate the landscape.
In this guide, we’ll walk through seven leading alternatives to Fivetran HVR. We’ll compare their strengths in log-based CDC, true real-time streaming, deployment flexibility, and pricing: so you can choose the right platform for your stack.
The alternatives we’ll examine include:
- Striim
- Qlik Replicate
- Oracle GoldenGate
- AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
- Debezium
- Airbyte
- Hevo Data
Fivetran HVR: The Baseline
Before we look at the alternatives, it is worth establishing what Fivetran HVR is—and isn’t.
Fivetran HVR is a log-based CDC engine designed for high-volume replication. It captures changes from transaction logs and replays them to targets. Since Fivetran acquired HVR, the tool has been positioned as the “high-volume” engine within the broader Fivetran ecosystem.
However, the integration has shifted the focus toward a fully managed, “set-it-and-forget-it” model. While this is convenient for small teams, it often introduces friction for enterprises. The reliance on Monthly Active Rows (MAR) pricing means costs can spike unpredictably during high-volume events or full resyncs.
Furthermore, the move toward a vertically integrated stack (especially with the recent dbt Labs merger news) means adopting HVR increasingly ties you into the Fivetran ecosystem.
If flexibility, real-time performance, or avoiding vendor lock-in are your priorities, you’ll want to weigh the following options carefully.
1. Striim
If Fivetran is about moving data in efficient batches, Striim is about moving data the instant it’s born.
Striim is a unified data integration and streaming intelligence platform. While many tools focus solely on getting data from point A to point B, Striim processes, analyzes, and transforms that data in-flight. This means you aren’t just replicating raw data; you are delivering analysis-ready data to your warehouse, lakehouse, or AI models with sub-second latency.
For teams outgrowing Fivetran HVR (or evaluating Striim vs. Fivetran), Striim solves the two biggest pain points: latency and flexibility. Because Striim uses an in-memory streaming engine rather than micro-batches, it delivers true real-time performance critical for fraud detection, customer personalization, and AI. And unlike the black-box SaaS model, Striim offers full deployment flexibility: run it fully managed in the cloud, self-hosted on-prem, or in a hybrid architecture that suits your security needs.
Key Products and Features
- Real-time Data Integration with CDC: Captures and replicates data changes from enterprise databases (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.) in real-time using log-based Change Data Capture.
- Streaming SQL: A unique feature that lets you use standard SQL to filter, mask, transform, and enrich data while it is moving, reducing the load on your destination warehouse.
- Enterprise-Grade Connectors: Over 150 pre-built connectors for databases, messaging systems (Kafka), and clouds (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery).
- Built-in Intelligence: Unlike simple pipes, Striim can run correlation and pattern detection on the stream, making it ideal for anomaly detection and real-time alerts.
Key Use Cases
- Real-Time Generative AI: Feed vector databases and LLMs with live data to prevent hallucinations and ensure context is always current.
- Hybrid Cloud Integration: Move data seamlessly between legacy on-prem mainframes/databases and modern cloud environments without downtime.
- Financial Services & Fraud: Detect fraudulent transactions in milliseconds by analyzing patterns in the data stream before it even lands in a database.
- Customer 360: Instantly sync customer interactions across CRM, billing, and support systems to give agents a live view of the customer.
Pricing
Striim’s pricing is designed for predictability, avoiding the “sticker shock” of row-based metering.
- Striim Developer (Free): For learning and prototyping with up to 25M events/month.
- Striim Cloud: A fully managed SaaS model with transparent, consumption-based pricing (pay for what you move, but with predictable metering).
- Striim Platform (Self-Hosted/Enterprise): Custom pricing based on throughput and connectors, ideal for mission-critical deployments where cost predictability is paramount.
Who It’s Ideal For
Enterprises that have graduated beyond simple “daily syncs” and need mission-critical reliability. It is the top choice for industries like finance, retail, and healthcare where sub-second latency and data integrity are non-negotiable, and for technical teams who want the power to transform data in-flight using SQL.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- True Real-Time: Sub-second latency (milliseconds) vs. minutes.
- In-Flight Transformation: Filter and enrich data before it hits the target, saving storage and compute costs downstream.
- Deployment Choice: Full control to run on-prem, in the cloud, or as a managed service.
- Zero Downtime Migration: Proven capabilities for complex, high-stakes database migrations.
Cons
- Learning Curve: It’s a powerful platform, not just a connector. While the UI is drag-and-drop, streaming at enterprise scale takes time to master.
- Overkill for Simple Batch Jobs: If you only need to update a spreadsheet once a day, Striim is more power than you need.
2. Qlik Replicate
Qlik Replicate (formerly Attunity) is a “universal” data replication platform that specializes in moving data across heterogeneous environments. It is often the go-to choice for organizations that have a heavy footprint in legacy systems—think mainframes and SAP—and need to move that data into modern cloud platforms like Snowflake or Databricks.
Unlike Fivetran HVR, which feels like a modern SaaS tool, Qlik Replicate feels more like traditional enterprise middleware. It excels at the “heavy lifting” of massive, complex datasets.
Key Products and Features
- Universal Data Connectivity: One of the broadest sets of connectors on the market, covering everything from DB2 on Mainframe to modern NoSQL stores.
- Log-Based CDC: Like Striim and HVR, Qlik uses log-based capture to minimize impact on source systems.
- No-Code GUI: A visual interface that allows administrators to set up replication tasks without writing code, appealing to teams with fewer developer resources.
- SAP Integration: Deep, specialized capabilities for decoding complex SAP application data structures.
Key Use Cases
- Mainframe Offloading: Moving DB2 or IMS data to the cloud to reduce MIPS costs.
- SAP Analytics: Unlocking data from SAP ERP systems for analysis in modern data lakes.
- Cloud Migration: Lifting and shifting large on-prem databases to the cloud with minimal downtime.
Pricing
Qlik typically operates on a traditional enterprise licensing model. Pricing is not public and is usually based on cores or source/target combinations. This can make it expensive for smaller deployments, though it offers predictable annual contracts for large enterprises.
Who It’s Ideal For
Large legacy enterprises. If your data stack includes Mainframes, SAP, or legacy IBM systems, Qlik Replicate is a strong contender because of its specialized connectors for those older technologies.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Legacy Support: Unmatched connectivity for Mainframe and SAP environments.
- Ease of Use: The “click-to-replicate” interface is intuitive for administrators.
- Broad Platform Support: Works with many sources and targets.
Cons
- Cost: High licensing fees can be a barrier for mid-market companies.
- “Black Box” Troubleshooting: The no-code nature can make it difficult to debug when replication breaks or performance lags.
- Separate Automation: Full data warehouse automation requires buying a separate product (Qlik Compose).
3. Oracle GoldenGate
For decades, Oracle GoldenGate was the gold standard for high-availability replication in Oracle environments. It is the tool of choice for mission-critical banking systems and global enterprises where “down” is not an option.
Compared to Fivetran HVR, GoldenGate is less of a “connector” and more of a deeply integrated infrastructure component. It provides the lowest possible latency for Oracle databases because it reads directly from the Redo Logs at a native level that few other tools can match.
Key Products and Features
- Deep Oracle Integration: As an Oracle product, it offers native, highly optimized access to Oracle Redo Logs, often outperforming third-party CDC tools in pure Oracle-to-Oracle scenarios.
- Active-Active Replication: Supports complex bi-directional and multi-master replication topologies, ensuring data consistency across geographically distributed systems.
- Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM): Allows massive databases to be migrated to the cloud without interrupting business operations.
- Veridata: A specialized tool for verifying data consistency between source and target, ensuring 100% accuracy.
Key Use Cases
- Disaster Recovery: Creating exact, real-time replicas of production databases for failover.
- High-Frequency Trading: Environments where microseconds matter and data loss is unacceptable.
- Oracle-to-Cloud Migration: Moving mission-critical Oracle workloads to OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) or other clouds with near-zero downtime.
Pricing
GoldenGate is known for its premium price tag.
- Core-Based Licensing: Traditionally priced per core (CPU), which can become extremely expensive for large multi-core servers.
- OCI GoldenGate: A fully managed cloud service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure that offers a more flexible, pay-as-you-go model (priced per OCPU/hour).
Who It’s Ideal For
“Oracle shops.” If your organization runs its core business on Oracle databases and has a dedicated team of DBAs, GoldenGate is the default choice. It is overkill for simple replication needs but indispensable for complex, high-stakes Oracle environments.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Reliability: Battle-tested in the world’s most demanding environments.
- Complex Topologies: Handles active-active and bi-directional replication well.
Cons
- Cost: Licensing can be prohibitively expensive, especially for non-Oracle targets.
- Complexity: Requires specialized skills to configure and maintain; definitely not a “low-code” tool.
- Oracle-Centric: While it supports other databases, its primary strength and tooling are heavily skewed toward the Oracle ecosystem.
4. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
If you are already deep in the AWS ecosystem, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is the utility player you likely already have access to. It is a fully managed service designed primarily to help you migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely.
Unlike Fivetran HVR or Striim, which act as independent data platforms, AWS DMS is a purpose-built tool for moving data into the AWS cloud. It’s effective for one-time migrations (lift-and-shift) but can struggle with the low latency and complex transformations required for long-running, continuous replication.
Key Products and Features
- DMS Schema Conversion (SCT): An automated tool that assesses and converts your source database schema (e.g., Oracle) to be compatible with your target (e.g., Aurora PostgreSQL). This is a massive time-saver for modernization projects.
- Serverless Option: Automatically provisions and scales resources based on demand, meaning you don’t have to manually guess how many instances you need.
- Heterogeneous Migration: Supports moving data between different database engines, such as from Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon Aurora.
- Continuous Replication (CDC): Offers ongoing replication to keep source and target databases in sync, though often with higher latency than log-based tools like GoldenGate or Striim.
Key Use Cases
- Lift and Shift: Moving on-premise databases to RDS or EC2 with minimal downtime.
- Database Modernization: Converting expensive commercial databases (Oracle, SQL Server) to open-source engines (PostgreSQL, MySQL) on AWS.
- Archiving: Replicating old data from production transactional databases to S3 for long-term storage and analysis.
Pricing
AWS DMS is budget-friendly, especially compared to enterprise alternatives.
- On-Demand Instances: You pay hourly for the replication instances you use.
- Free Tier: AWS often offers a free tier for DMS, covering a certain amount of usage for specific instance types.
- DMS Schema Conversion: Free to use (you only pay for the S3 storage used).
Who It’s Ideal For
Teams fully committed to AWS who need a cost-effective way to migrate databases. It is perfect for “one-and-done” migrations where you move the data and then shut off the service.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- AWS Integration: Seamlessly works with RDS, Redshift, S3, and Kinesis.
- Schema Conversion: The SCT tool is excellent for heterogeneous migrations (e.g., Oracle to Postgres).
Cons
- Latency: “Real-time” in DMS can often mean seconds or minutes of lag, which may not be fast enough for modern operational use cases.
- Limited Transformations: Basic mapping and filtering are supported, but you cannot perform complex in-flight enrichment or stream processing.
- Operational Overhead: Troubleshooting errors often involves digging through obscure CloudWatch logs, and “resyncs” can be frequent and painful.
5. Debezium
Debezium is the open-source standard for Change Data Capture. If you have a strong engineering team and are building an event-driven architecture on top of Apache Kafka, Debezium is likely already on your radar.
Unlike Fivetran HVR, which is a complete, managed platform, Debezium is a set of distributed services. It sits on top of Kafka Connect, monitoring your databases and streaming row-level changes as events. It’s powerful and free to license, but it shifts the cost from “software” to “engineering hours.”
Key Products and Features
- Kafka Native: Built explicitly for the Kafka ecosystem, making it the natural choice if you are already using Kafka Connect.
- Debezium Server: A configurable, ready-to-use application that streams change events to messaging infrastructure (like Google Pub/Sub or Kinesis) without needing a full Kafka cluster.
- Embedded Engine: A library that allows you to embed CDC directly into your Java applications, removing the need for external clusters entirely.
- Snapshotting: Capable of taking an initial snapshot of a database and then seamlessly switching to streaming changes, ensuring no data is lost.
Key Use Cases
- Microservices Data Exchange: Streaming data changes from a monolith database to decouple microservices.
- Cache Invalidation: Automatically updating a Redis or Elasticsearch cache whenever the primary database changes.
- Audit Logging: creating a permanent, queryable log of every change made to your data for compliance.
Pricing
Debezium is open-source (Apache 2.0) and free to use. However, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can be high. You are responsible for the infrastructure (Kafka brokers, Zookeeper, Connect workers) and the engineering time required to configure, monitor, and scale it.
Who It’s Ideal For
Engineering-led organizations. If you have a team of Kafka experts who prefer “do-it-yourself” flexibility over managed ease-of-use, Debezium offers incredible power without vendor lock-in.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Open Source: No licensing fees and a vibrant community.
- Log-Based Precision: Captures every single insert, update, and delete in the exact order they happened.
- Flexibility: Deploy it as a connector, a server, or an embedded library.
Cons
- Operational Complexity: Running Debezium at scale requires managing a full Kafka stack, which is no small feat.
- No Built-in Transformations: It captures raw data. If you need to filter, mask, or join that data, you have to build that logic yourself (often in Kafka Streams or Flink).
- Scaling Pain: High-velocity workloads can create backlogs that require manual tuning of partitions and resources to resolve.
6. Airbyte
If Fivetran represents the “Managed ELT” standard, Airbyte is the open-source challenger that disrupted the market.
Unlike Fivetran HVR’s proprietary black box, Airbyte is built on the premise that data integration should be a commodity. If you need to move data from a niche SaaS API to Snowflake and then transform it with dbt, Airbyte is a sought-after tool for engineers.
Key Products and Features
- Long-Tail Connectivity: With 600+ connectors (and counting), if a data source exists, Airbyte likely connects to it.
- ELT Focus: Designed to extract data and load it into a warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift) where it can be transformed later using tools like dbt.
- Connector Development Kit (CDK): Allows teams to build custom connectors in Python or Java quickly, solving the “missing connector” problem that plagues closed platforms.
- PyAirbyte: An open-source Python library that lets you run Airbyte pipelines directly within your code, offering immense flexibility for developers.
Key Use Cases
- Marketing Analytics: Consolidating data from dozens of ad platforms (Facebook, Google, TikTok) into a single warehouse for reporting.
- Modern Data Stack (MDS): Serving as the default ingestion layer for teams using the “dbt + Snowflake” architecture.
- Custom API Integration: Quickly building pipelines for internal or niche tools that big vendors don’t support.
Pricing
Airbyte offers a flexible model that appeals to startups and scale-ups.
- Open Source: Free to use if you self-host (you pay for your own infrastructure).
- Airbyte Cloud: A consumption-based model using “credits.” You pay for the compute time and volume processed.
Who It’s Ideal For
Data Engineering teams and startups. If you are comfortable managing some infrastructure and love the flexibility of open source—or if you need to connect to a very specific long-tail data source—Airbyte is unmatched.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Massive Library: The largest catalog of connectors in the industry.
- No Vendor Lock-in: The open-source core means you can always take your data and code with you.
- Customizability: If a connector breaks or is missing features, you can fix it yourself.
Cons
- Batch Latency: Airbyte is fundamentally an ELT tool. While it has CDC, it is typically scheduled (e.g., every 5 or 15 minutes), not true sub-second streaming like Striim.
- Reliability at Scale: Users often report that connectors for high-volume sources can be “flaky” or require frequent maintenance compared to enterprise-grade tools like HVR or GoldenGate.
- Limited Transformations: It moves data; it doesn’t really transform it in-flight. You need a separate tool (like dbt) to clean and model the data after it lands.
7. Hevo Data
Hevo Data is one of the most user-friendly alternatives on this list. It is a no-code platform designed to make data pipelines accessible to everyone, not just data engineers.
If Fivetran HVR feels too “heavy” or complex for your needs, Hevo is the opposite. It’s designed to get you from zero to a populated warehouse in minutes, making it a favorite for marketing agencies and smaller analytics teams.
Key Products and Features
- No-Code UI: An exceptionally simple interface that allows non-technical users to set up data pipelines in clicks.
- Automated Schema Mapping: Automatically detects schema changes in the source (e.g., a new column in Salesforce) and updates the destination warehouse without breaking the pipeline.
- Real-Time Replication: Uses log-based CDC for databases, offering near real-time latency (though not typically sub-second like Striim).
- dbt Integration: Like Airbyte and Fivetran, it integrates with dbt for post-load transformations.
Key Use Cases
- Marketing 360: Quickly pulling data from Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and HubSpot into BigQuery for analysis.
- Startup Analytics: Small teams that need to centralize data but don’t have a dedicated data engineer.
- SaaS Reporting: Aggregating data from various SaaS tools for operational reporting.
Pricing
Hevo offers a straightforward, volume-based pricing model.
- Free Plan: A generous free tier for small volumes (up to 1M events).
- Starter/Professional: Monthly subscription based on the number of events (rows) you sync.
Who It’s Ideal For
Marketing teams, agencies, and lean startups. If you don’t have a data engineer and need to get data flowing now, Hevo is an excellent choice.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Usability: Simple setup for basic use cases.
- Maintenance-Free: Fully managed SaaS; no infrastructure to worry about.
- Cost: Often cheaper than Fivetran for small-to-medium volumes.
Cons
- Limited Control: It’s a “black box” by design. If you need complex filtering or custom network configurations, you might hit a wall.
- Scale Limitations: While great for mid-market, it may struggle with the massive throughput and complex topologies that tools like HVR, GoldenGate, or Striim handle easily.
The Verdict: Which Alternative is Right for You?
Choosing an alternative to Fivetran HVR isn’t just about picking a tool; it’s about choosing your architecture.
- Choose Striim, Airbyte or Hevo if your priority is Simplicity & ELT. These are intuitive solutions for teams that need to centralize marketing or SaaS data into a warehouse for daily reporting and don’t mind the latency of batch processing.
- Choose Striim, Oracle GoldenGate or Qlik Replicate if your priority is Legacy Connectivity. If your world revolves around Mainframes, SAP, or mission-critical Oracle-to-Oracle replication, these options offer the stability you need.
- Choose Debezium if you are building an open source, event-driven architecture. For engineering teams that want to build microservices on Kafka and have the resources to manage the infrastructure, Debezium is the go-to solution for open-source CDC.
Why Striim Stands Out
Integration isn’t just about moving data; it’s about making it useful the instant it’s born.
Striim is the only alternative that unifies real-time log-based CDC with in-flight streaming SQL and AI integration. It is built for enterprises that have outgrown the limitations of batch processing and need to power the next generation of real-time applications.
Striim supports this shift with:
- Zero-Lag CDC for sub-second data delivery across hybrid clouds.
- Streaming SQL to enrich, filter, and mask data in motion, reducing compliance risk and storage costs.
- Unified Intelligence that turns raw data streams into actionable insights for AI and analytics.
Curious to learn more? Book a demo to explore how Striim helps enterprises break free from batch processing and power real-time AI.
