Is the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools Saying the Modern Data Stack is Dead?

Even Fivetran, the largest of the ELT vendors, isn’t even close to being a leader. They all scored low on vision, and lower on the ability to execute, compared to the traditional ETL vendors.

I wouldn’t say ELT is dead … not just yet. But the MQ does say quite clearly that the modern stack needs to change. It’s for the same reason that ELT vendors became so popular. ELT makes it easy to get started with a cloud data warehouse and ignore some of the most important steps.

The pay-as-you-go cloud data warehouse completely changed data warehousing for the better. It cut many of the up-front costs of starting a data warehouse, which allowed many companies to start much earlier a cloud data warehouse. This is a great thing. If you’re just getting started, you need to consider ELT with a cloud data warehouse.

But most ELT vendors also have limited transform support, relying mostly on dbt, limited metadata management and governance support, and don’t support a many-to-many integration architecture like a data mesh or fabric.

All of these capabilities are needed for operational real-time analytics and data sharing, and for AI projects. Why? Because data needs to be consistent across apps, APIs, and the data warehouse(s), and these new uses of data are much more real-time. If you use different tools for integrating apps, APIs, data warehouses, and now AI models and RAG pipelines, you often end up with more inconsistent results. Remember, analytics and AI are only as good as their data.

Nexla’s gotten an honorary mention for 3 years in the Gartner MQ because it has all these capabilities as part of the only converged integration platform. It combines the ease of use and modern pipeline features of ELT with the reusable transforms and metadata-driven data governance of ETL, and the common data model, bi-directional integration, and workflow of an iPaaS. It’s the only vendor that supports integration for analytics, operational integration, and B2B data sharing with the same platform.

Why isn’t Nexla included as a vendor? Remember, Nexla’s a startup. It doesn’t quite yet meet the requirement of having at least $40M in revenues. But Nexla is proven and growing fast. It’s already used by leaders including American Express, Bloomreach, Carrier, Door Dash, Instacart, Johnson & Johnson, LinkedIn and more. for analytics, operations, and GenAI RAG projects.

So how should you use the Gartner MQ for Data Integration Tools?

1. Map out where you are and need to go in your analytics, integration, and AI journey
2. Consider ELT for its ease of use and pay-as-you-go model if you’re getting started 
3. But don’t let your ELT vendor create an analytics silo. Map out how you’ll govern your data and support your operations, B2B, and AI projects. 

If you are considering alternative solutions and looking for the right technology partner, request a demo and our specialists will be happy to help you identify the right solutions for your needs.