dbt vs Windmill
dbt and Windmill are both data integration & ETL tools aimed at developers. Windmill costs less, from $10/mo versus $100/mo for dbt. Both have a free plan.
dbt
Transform data in the warehouse with SQL
Windmill
Open-source developer platform for scripts, flows and apps
| Pricing | Freemium · $100 | Open source · $10 |
| Starting price | $100/mo | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | 14 days | — |
| Built for | Developers | Developers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2016 | FR · 2022 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose dbt if
Data teams with a warehouse who want tested, documented, version-controlled transformations.
- Industry standard with huge community
- Brings software engineering practices to analytics
- Free open-source core
Look elsewhere if: Organizations without a warehouse or with only spreadsheet-scale data.
Choose Windmill if
Developers wanting code-first automation.
- Very fast engine
- Code-first
- Open source
Look elsewhere if: No-code users.
dbt vs Windmill pricing
dbt
- Developer$01 seat, 3,000 models built/mo, 1 project
- Starter$100/user/mo5 seats, 15,000 models built/mo, 1 project
- EnterpriseCustomBilled annually; 100,000 models built/mo, 30 projects
- Enterprise+CustomUnlimited projects
Windmill
- Community Edition$0Self-hosted, unlimited executions, max 10 users with SSO
- Cloud Team$10/seat/moManaged cloud; per seat (from page structured data)
- Enterprise (self-hosted)from $120/mo$20/dev/mo + $50/worker/mo compute; audit logs, SAML
- Enterprise (cloud)CustomBased on seats and compute units
dbt · Key features
- SQL models with ref() dependencies and DAG
- Tests, documentation and lineage graphs
- Incremental models, snapshots and seeds
- dbt Cloud IDE, scheduler and CI/CD
- Semantic Layer for consistent metrics
- dbt Mesh for cross-team projects
Cons
- Cloud pricing per developer seat adds up
- Jinja templating can get complex
- Long-running DAGs need orchestration tuning
Windmill · Key features
- Scripts to workflows
- Schedules and triggers
- Auto-generated UIs
- App builder
- Multi-language
- Self-hosting
Cons
- Developer-oriented
- Smaller community
- Learning curve
dbt vs Windmill: FAQ
Which is cheaper, dbt or Windmill?
Windmill starts at $10/mo and dbt at $100/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do dbt and Windmill have a free plan?
Yes, both dbt and Windmill have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.