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DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

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Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#51

Post by roeja »

Having deployed DBT Core I am glad I spent the effort to set up self hosting with ci/cd for both dbt runs and docs.

A point of frustration I have is the idea that Data Analysts need a specialized cloud based ide to work in because vscode and git is too difficult to learn. I worked at a large company where analysts would complain the database was down due to the cloud ide falling over and stop work until it is fixed. Meanwhile the group of us using a local ide and a jdbc connection kept working.

Any good data analyst should be able to use vscode and git. Any good data engineer should be able to setup the ci/cd side to the point for the analyst doesn't need to think about deployment.

Analyst writes code -> creates pr when ready to test -> pr builds models into temp location and runs tests -> analyst iterates -> pr review -> merge to main -> deploy to prod runner

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#52

Post by maximilianroos »

While the timeline is rushed and the explanation is disingenuous, the sentiment here is way too reactionary.

- dbt has made a huge impact on the data ecosystem. It's made data engineers' lives way better, speaking from experience. It's so central that most new data tooling builds on top of or integrates with dbt.

- The core product is completely open-source, they have dozens of people working on it.

- It's good for the world if open-source companies can be profitable! We should want more of that. The overflow from open-source is much bigger than closed-source companies.

- It's good for the world if they can stay independent — getting acquired by e.g. Azure would be a decent exit for them, but would balkanize the ecosystem.

- dbt cloud was fairly cheap relative to competitors — something like Looker is multiples more expensive.

I wish Tristan had written "We need to increase our prices — we've had a huge impact on the space but don't yet have a reasonable path to profitability. And we're cheaper than these 5 comparable services!" rather than "isn't this great for you all". But they deserve a bit of leeway given their contributions.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#53

Post by data-ottawa »

tehalex wrote: post #26
datalopers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is their cloud offering if it’s just sql templating? Why would anyone pay for that?

Most people will just use the sql templating and scheduled cron jobs features of the cloud, which is very easy to self host. There is cloud IDE, which is just ok in my opinion. I'd rather use a local editor, but might be a value add for some. The cloud plans also has metadata features and APIs, which could be worth it for some use cases. The most interesting thing tied to the cloud is the new metrics feature, but I d…

I'm not a fan of the IDE myself, but I knew a few people who are less technical and prefer the IDE over managing a local python environment.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#54

Post by oxfordmale »

maximilianroos wrote: post #52

While the timeline is rushed and the explanation is disingenuous, the sentiment here is way too reactionary. - dbt has made a huge impact on the data ecosystem. It's made data engineers' lives way better, speaking from experience. It's so central that most new data tooling builds on top of or integrates with dbt. - The core product is completely open-source, they have dozens of people working on it. - It's good for t…

It is only the timeline I have a major problem with. If they had given us 6 months notice it would allows us to either negotiate a larger budget with the C-suite or migrate to a cheaper solution. With one month notice we are being held hostage. That doesn't take away from the fact that DBT is a great product.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#55

Post by karakanb »

Disclaimer: I am working on a competitor that can also run Python, on a closed beta period yet.

It is an interesting choice to increase the prices with such a short notice indeed. The cloud business for DBT is competing with its open-source version, and utilizing dbt-cloud could mean a nice inconvenience, one that can be exchanged with a steep, sudden increase in prices. In the end, what dbt does can be replicated within the existing environments the customers have along with dbt core, e.g. running them in Airflow. This might be happening because of the pressure their business is getting inline with their recent investment rounds and valuation.

If anyone is interested in an alternative, I'd be happy to share what we are working on, the link is in my profile.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#56

Post by blakeburch »

One of the main benefits we hear from people using dbt Cloud is the IDE + scheduler. The price increase can make that main benefit a bit less palatable, especially when you can develop locally and orchestrators allow you to run more than just dbt itself.

If you're looking for a way to quickly automate dbt Core, our team at Shipyard (low-code, cloud-hosted orchestration) recently built out some guides to start running dbt Core in the Cloud for all of the major databases. Plus, you gain the ability to connect to other tools in your data stack, run Python scripts alongside dbt, and still not worry about infra.

Text Guides: https://www.shipyardapp.com/docs/data-packages/dbt-core/dbt-... Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdbEiPHfKS4&list=PLsy6kuGU_w...

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#57

Post by kaustavm98255 »

Disclaimer: I am working on an analytics operating system on top of dbt, and we have overlaps with dbt cloud.

I think dbt is a great tool but such a significant price increase at this time of the year + forcing people to upgrade to Enterprise, on a product that is quite feature limited, is quite draconian - reminded me of the 90s IT software selling.

I have heard time again from data leaders how the dbt cloud price-value curve is broken - very little product updates & hefty price increases. As y'all have been saying, I think some of the options going forward are:

1. You can cut down your dbt-cloud seats and move people to VSCode (Cost: $100k+/yr) - zero tool cost, but very high time & FTE cost to build and maintain.

2. You accept the price hike and increase your budget (Cost: 100 - 600% up, likely no budget left for 2023)

3. Migrate to alternatives such as paradime.io (up to 70% cheaper) - and you get a fuller platform covering 80% of your daily analytics work + Looker / Tableau integration, Github apps, CI/CD etc.

If anyone is interested, I am happy to demo what we've been building.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#58

Post by ralphc »

gizmodo59 wrote: post #49
cristiandima wrote: post #30

I appreciate the no bs hn submission title, it made me click the link just so I can read and laugh at the PR approved title. I was not disappointed: “Updating dbt Cloud pricing to support long-term community growth” - though I reckon they could have gotten “journey” in there as well.

This made me laugh.. “We actually get community members reaching out to us concerned that we are under-charging them because they want our business to be successful! “ May be it’s true but it’s beyond me that people are asking for a price increase??

I'd be sympathetic to that pitch if it was a one-person passion project, and the increase was from $5 to $10, but a whole company going up that much? No.

Re: DBT Cloud increase Team plan price by 100% and limit features at the same time

#59

Post by AnEro »

Ftuuky wrote: post #36
AnEro wrote: post #6

Only reason I'm kinda okay with this is because of the open source side is still strong. It's 90% of the features needed for a product, but the cloud offering is the same 90% but better for teams bigger than 3 and larger organizations. I genuinely think that this pricing increase is justifiable, and also will spark more competition to DBT Cloud's features in the open source space to get select cloud features. Since t…

We use at this company the open source dbt for multiple teams, all bigger than 3, just fine.

Oh I just meant you actually start getting value at a team size of 3, not that once 3 people touch a repo it's unmanageable lol
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