Airbyte vs Stitch

Quick verdict

Airbyte is a data integration (ELT) platform. Airbyte Core is free and self-managed on Kubernetes; the managed offerings are the cloud plans Standard, Plus and Pro, plus Enterprise Flex, a hybrid option with separate data planes. According to Airbyte's licences page, the platform and the connectors in its public repositories are under the Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2); only the Airbyte Protocol is MIT. Airbyte states 700+ connectors, and its latest Self-Managed release is 2.3 (15 September 2026).

Stitch is a cloud ELT service built on the open source Singer standard: Qlik's documentation says data is pulled on a schedule using Stitch's Singer-based replication engine, and that Stitch aims to deliver data to the destination "in a useful, raw format". Stitch was owned by Talend, which Qlik acquired, and the Stitch home page now reads "Stitch is now part of Qlik". Stitch documentation has moved to Qlik Help.

Side by side

Key differences

Product direction: active platform versus a product being folded into Qlik

This is the deciding difference. Airbyte ships regular releases (2.0 in October 2025, 2.1 in April 2026, 2.2 in August 2026 and 2.3 in September 2026, per its Self-Managed release notes) and is the company's core product.

Stitch is still running and still has a pricing page, but Qlik directs new users to Qlik Talend Cloud. Qlik's Migration Center has a "Migrating from Stitch to Qlik Talend Cloud" guide, its Cloud Migration Toolkit can inventory a Stitch account's sources and destinations, and Qlik sells a Stitch to Qlik Talend Cloud Migration Coaching service aimed at customers approaching contract renewal. In our view, choosing Stitch for a new pipeline means planning a second migration later, which is why we do not recommend it for new projects.

Openness and hosting

Airbyte can be self-hosted for free (Core), and its connectors are open source. The ELv2 platform licence allows commercial use but forbids offering Airbyte to others as a managed service. Stitch is a hosted service only. Its extraction is based on Singer, an open source standard, and Stitch's documentation points to Singer taps, the Import API and Incoming Webhooks for sources without a native integration, but there is no self-hosted Stitch platform.

Connectors and maintenance

Airbyte documents connector support levels: Airbyte-maintained (certified) connectors covered by support, Enterprise connectors for Pro and Enterprise customers, community Marketplace connectors that Airbyte does not maintain and that carry no SLA, and custom connectors that you maintain. Stitch lists more than 200 integrations and labels integration versions as Latest, Deprecated or Sunset, so check the status of each one you rely on. Stitch Standard plans include only "Standard" sources; "Enterprise" sources need Advanced or Premium, according to the pricing page.

Database replication and CDC

Both support log-based replication for the major engines. Stitch documents Log-based Incremental Replication for Amazon DynamoDB, SQL Server, MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle and PostgreSQL. It reads INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE events, cannot be used with views, and for most databases needs a table reset after a structural change. Stitch recommends keeping at least three, preferably seven, days of logs, and for PostgreSQL supports only master instances. Airbyte documents CDC for Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, Oracle DB, SAP HANA and IBM Db2; CDC generally needs primary keys, works on tables not views, and starts with an initial snapshot.

-- PostgreSQL: settings logical replication (used by log-based CDC tools) depends on
SHOW wal_level;            -- must be 'logical'
SELECT slot_name, plugin, active FROM pg_replication_slots;

Transformations

Neither is a transformation tool. Qlik's Stitch documentation says Stitch performs only the transformations needed for destination compatibility (for example data type translation and de-nesting) and suggests Talend's products for anything more. Airbyte deprecated custom dbt transformations in Open Source as of v0.57.0 (April 2024). With either, run dbt or SQL models in the warehouse after loading, typically from an orchestrator; see Apache Airflow vs Airbyte and ETL vs ELT.

Pricing and licensing

Airbyte. Listed on airbyte.com/pricing in October 2026 (USD): Standard from USD 20 per month with extra credits at USD 5 each, billed by data volume; Plus credit packages from USD 189 (40 credits) to USD 4,999 (2,000 credits) per month; Pro and Enterprise Flex priced by capacity (Data Workers) on quotation. A 14-day trial with 400 credits applies to Standard and Plus. Airbyte Core is free to self-host; you pay for infrastructure.

Stitch. Listed on stitchdata.com/pricing in October 2026 (USD): Standard from USD 100 per month, billed monthly or annually, for 5 to 300 million rows a month, 1 destination, 10 Standard sources and 5 users; Advanced USD 1,500 per month billed annually for 100 million rows, 3 destinations and unlimited Enterprise sources and users; Premium USD 3,000 per month billed annually for 1 billion rows and 5 destinations. The page mentions a 14-day free trial, but its trial link now opens a Qlik Talend Cloud trial. Given the product status, confirm with Qlik whether these plans are still offered to new customers.

Pricing checked on the vendors' official pages on 7 October 2026. Prices change; confirm before buying.

Where each one leads

Limitations

When to choose each

When neither is right

• You want a fully managed service with vendor-maintained connectors: see Airbyte vs Fivetran and Fivetran vs Stitch.
• You are already a Qlik or Talend customer: compare Airbyte vs Talend and Fivetran vs Talend.
• You want a code-first Singer-based tool you run yourself: see Airbyte vs Meltano.
• You need orchestration rather than ingestion: see Apache Airflow vs Airbyte.

Final recommendation

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Stitch home page (Stitch is now part of Qlik)
• Stitch pricing
• Qlik Help: Migrating from Stitch to Qlik Talend Cloud
• Qlik Help: Stitch basic concepts and system overview
• Stitch docs: log-based incremental replication
• Stitch docs: integrations and destinations
• Airbyte pricing
• Airbyte: licence FAQ
• Airbyte: connector support levels
• Airbyte: change data capture
• Airbyte: Self-Managed release notes

Checked October 2026.

How we research comparisons: our editorial method.