What is Airbyte used for?

Airbyte is an open-source data movement platform with hundreds of connectors for ELT pipelines from APIs, databases and files into warehouses, lakes and AI applications. It is a good fit for syncing SaaS and database data to a warehouse, building data pipelines without custom code, and feeding business data to AI agents.

Is Airbyte open source?

Yes. Airbyte is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at airbytehq/airbyte and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Airbyte is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available, with paid plans from $189 per month.

Can I self-host Airbyte?

Yes. Airbyte can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Airbyte an alternative to?

Airbyte is an open-source alternative to Fivetran, Informatica, Supermetrics and Funnel. Other open-source alternatives to Fivetran include Duckle, Mage AI and Bruin.

Is Airbyte actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Airbyte was on 16 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.0.0, published on 15 October 2025. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.

Airbyte: open-source alternative to Fivetran, Informatica

About Airbyte

Airbyte is an open-source data movement platform for moving data from APIs, databases and files into data warehouses, data lakes and AI applications. Its premise is that only an open-source project can reach the long tail of data sources while letting engineers tailor existing connectors, with the aim of moving data from any source to any destination.

It offers a catalog of 600 or more connectors for APIs, databases, warehouses, lakes and AI applications, with warehouse destinations such as BigQuery, Redshift and Snowflake, and topics also mention change data capture. The README distinguishes products by job: Airbyte Open Source or Airbyte Cloud for ELT and ETL into warehouses, lakes or databases, and Airbyte Agents, a managed data and context layer, plus an open-source Agent SDK for giving AI agents and MCP clients real-time access to business data.

Airbyte is written in Python and Java, and its license is listed as 'Other' on GitHub because the project uses a mix of licenses, so review the terms for your use. It can be self-hosted or run as the managed Airbyte Cloud, and suits data teams that need many integrations without writing each pipeline by hand.

Key features

600+ source and destination connectors
ELT pipelines into warehouses and lakes
Change data capture support
Customizable open-source connectors
Agent SDK for AI agent data access
Self-hosted or Airbyte Cloud

Good fit for

Syncing SaaS and database data to a warehouse
Building data pipelines without custom code
Feeding business data to AI agents

Built with: Python tools; Java tools; MySQL tools; PostgreSQL tools
Tags: elt; etl; data-integration; data-pipelines; connectors; data-engineering; cdc; self-hosted; ai-agents

Airbyte: questions and answers

What is Airbyte used for?: Airbyte is an open-source data movement platform with hundreds of connectors for ELT pipelines from APIs, databases and files into warehouses, lakes and AI applications. It is a good fit for syncing SaaS and database data to a warehouse, building data pipelines without custom code, and feeding business data to AI agents.
Is Airbyte open source?: Yes. Airbyte is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at airbytehq/airbyte and is written mainly in Python.
Is Airbyte free?: Yes. Airbyte is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence. A managed cloud version is also available, with paid plans from $189 per month.
Can I self-host Airbyte?: Yes. Airbyte can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Airbyte an alternative to?: Airbyte is an open-source alternative to Fivetran, Informatica, Supermetrics and Funnel. Other open-source alternatives to Fivetran include Duckle, Mage AI and Bruin.
Is Airbyte actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Airbyte was on 16 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.0.0, published on 15 October 2025. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.