What is Azure Data Factory used for?

Azure Data Factory is a Microsoft Azure's managed hybrid data integration service for building ETL and ELT pipelines at enterprise scale, with or without writing code. It is a good fit for loading data into Azure analytics stores, orchestrating nightly data refresh jobs and migrating on-premises ETL to the cloud.

How much does Azure Data Factory cost?

Azure Data Factory is a paid product with no free plan.

Is Azure Data Factory open source?

No. Azure Data Factory is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Azure Data Factory include Airbyte, Mage AI and Duckle.

What are some alternatives to Azure Data Factory?

Azure Data Factory competes with AWS Glue, Informatica and Fivetran. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Azure Data Factory alternatives.

Azure Data Factory: features, pricing and alternatives

About Azure Data Factory

Azure Data Factory is Microsoft's cloud data integration service. It lets teams build pipelines that copy, transform and orchestrate data between many sources and destinations, spanning cloud services and on-premises systems, and Microsoft promotes it as usable without hand-writing code.

Pipelines are assembled visually from activities, scheduled or triggered by events, and monitored from the Azure portal. Typical work includes loading data into analytics stores, running transformation steps and coordinating other Azure services. The same capabilities now appear inside Microsoft Fabric as Fabric Data Factory, which sits next to Azure's wider data and analytics portfolio.

Azure Data Factory is a proprietary managed service that runs in Azure rather than on your own servers. It is billed under Microsoft's Azure pricing, with current rates published on the Azure pricing pages.

Key features

Visual pipeline authoring without code
Hybrid integration of cloud and on-premises data
Scheduling and event-based triggers
Pipeline monitoring in the Azure portal
Orchestration of other Azure services

Good fit for

→Loading data into Azure analytics stores
→Orchestrating nightly data refresh jobs
→Migrating on-premises ETL to the cloud

Tags: azure; etl; elt; data-integration; orchestration; no-code; hybrid; cloud-service

Azure Data Factory: questions and answers

What is Azure Data Factory used for?: Azure Data Factory is a Microsoft Azure's managed hybrid data integration service for building ETL and ELT pipelines at enterprise scale, with or without writing code. It is a good fit for loading data into Azure analytics stores, orchestrating nightly data refresh jobs and migrating on-premises ETL to the cloud.
How much does Azure Data Factory cost?: Azure Data Factory is a paid product with no free plan.
Is Azure Data Factory open source?: No. Azure Data Factory is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Azure Data Factory include Airbyte, Mage AI and Duckle.
What are some alternatives to Azure Data Factory?: Azure Data Factory competes with AWS Glue, Informatica and Fivetran. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Azure Data Factory alternatives.