[HN Gopher] Dbt Labs acquires SDF Labs
___________________________________________________________________
Dbt Labs acquires SDF Labs
Author : karakanb
Score : 88 points
Date : 2025-01-14 14:42 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.getdbt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.getdbt.com)
| qeternity wrote:
| Interesting that their pricing page is already 404'ing:
| https://www.sdf.com/pricing
| mritchie712 wrote:
| they were charging for compute: $0.16/vCPU min
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20241217210804/https://www.sdf.c...
| mritchie712 wrote:
| older version:
|
| Professional
|
| For development teams looking to scale fast.
|
| $1,250/mo
|
| Annually
|
| Everything in Plus
|
| Up to 1,500 models
|
| Unlimited Team Members
|
| Direct Slack Connect support
|
| Unlimited compile, test, & runs
| dark-star wrote:
| For a second I thought that this was about sdf.org ... but it is
| about sdf.com (which I have never heard of before)
| DrillShopper wrote:
| As someone who has been MetaARPA for about 20 years at this
| point I would be _pissed_ if they sold out.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Heh, I was just starting to look at SDF and SQL Mesh to see if
| they actually addressed any of the dbt pain points.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Same. dbt feels like angularjs, I want the svelte alternative.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| What is your initial impression and pros and cons?
|
| (Asking as I kinda wish my company's opinionated dbt had made
| some different choices)
| apwell23 wrote:
| con is some ppl just go crazy with jinja and create a mess.
| Its fine if you just stick to the basics.
| talos_ wrote:
| dbt needs to play catch up against SQLMesh feature-wise, so
| they bought their other competitor SDF. SQLMesh seems to have
| more development velocity, and dbt will need to execute a
| smooth transition and integration to catch up.
|
| For context, the team behind SQLMesh also develops SQLGlot,
| which powers the features dbt attempts to implement
| NortySpock wrote:
| To expand on this, dbt uses Jinja templating in your SQL to
| allow the developer to modify the query so it can be expanded
| at "compile-time" into the target database SQL dialect. (uni-
| directional, write once deploy anywhere). The key features
| are CICD, test automation, and transformation sequence
| automation.
|
| SQLGlot is a Abstract Symbol Tree SQL Dialect transpiler that
| could (in theory) convert from one dialect to another (bi-
| directional).
|
| SQLMesh appears to combine both of the above into one tool
| that sounds like it's even better.
| trickyager wrote:
| Congrats to the SDF team for their exit.
|
| Alas, dbt Labs has developed a reputation for rug pulling
| functionality from dbt Core and gating most of their
| differentiating features behind dbt Cloud. I cannot see this type
| of consolidation being in the best interest of the dbt community.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| I've been on the lookout for a lighter, faster version of dbt
| and I was hoping sdf might be it.
|
| For our (https://www.definite.app/) use case, I'd love to have
| something that compiles client-side, but in general dbt just
| feels like a lot of work to set up for what most of our
| customers actually need (simple transform to create tables and
| views).
| thenaturalist wrote:
| A lot of work to set up?
|
| I'm quite surprised to hear that.
|
| It's literally pip install, a single file for your DB config
| and that's it. 30-40 seconds.
|
| I'm in no way affiliated with dbt but have worked with the
| tool since 2018.
|
| Lighter, faster, sure, but hard to set up?
|
| I'm not sure where you'd want to cut corners on setup.
| apwell23 wrote:
| I think they mean setting up in production.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| Even that... the beauty of it and why it took off as much
| as it did is simplicity.
|
| Dockerfile, env var injection and you're done.
| dangoldin wrote:
| I'm sure you've heard of SQLMesh but that seems like a
| potential fit. Or is it still too heavy handed?
| suchar wrote:
| Could you point to some functionalities removed from dbt Core?
| I love dbt and use it where applicable but I have not yet
| encountered a loss of features upon upgrade yet - it would be
| useful to be aware what kind of features get removed
| juanramos wrote:
| Checking their own post, https://www.getdbt.com/product/dbt-
| core-vs-dbt-cloud, stuff such as the semantic layer and
| column-level lineage are Cloud exclusive
| apwell23 wrote:
| those were never in the core though.
| trickyager wrote:
| A brief list of features withheld or removed from Core:
|
| - The dbt docs functionality is no longer maintained in favor
| of dbt Explorer in dbt cloud. A natural consequence is that
| larger dbt Core projects simply cannot leverage local docs
| due to performance defects.
|
| - Multi-project support was widely discussed in the core repo
| w/ tooling contributions from the community, but that was
| locked behind enterprise-tier dbt cloud accounts
|
| - Metricflow was a full OSS application that used to work in
| tandem with dbt Core. Post-acquisition, the original code was
| re-licensed and the functionality added to Cloud only (and
| you have to pay per semantic layer query now).
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Not to mention the sudden pricing change at the end of 2022
| that doubled costs for most cloud customers.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| dbt Labs is a Series D company with hundreds of millions in
| funding and a 4.2 billion USD valuation at their last round.
|
| Their CEO and founder spoke of an IPO in 2022.
|
| Let's not pretend they are still remotely close to their humble
| beginnings or were able to get this far without credibly
| demonstrating they have a plan for how to make enterprises
| bleed through their nose for their product.
|
| That's the future.
|
| On the flipside, building a dbt adjacent product enhancing or
| complementing capabilities is basically a sure way of how to
| get bought.
| trickyager wrote:
| I agree with you 100%, and we may both be correct!
| CalRobert wrote:
| We're using Dagster cloud with integrated DBT core and I don't
| really see what the draw of DBT cloud is - perhaps a bit easier
| to get set up?
| nxm wrote:
| Column level lineage for one
| jmclnx wrote:
| I first thought this was SDF (https://sdf.org/) and thought how
| could this happen.
|
| Again shows we have run out of 3 letter acronyms :)
| barrrrald wrote:
| Congrats to everyone, very excited to see how these come together
| hkt wrote:
| I briefly thought this was about sdf.org and was very, very sad.
| Congrats on the exit to the sdf.com people though, and relief to
| the sdf.org userbase :)
| capital_guy wrote:
| Seems like a great pair. Especially the bit about static analysis
| instead of using string parsing.
|
| Frankly, the dbt product hasn't really evolved much. I've been a
| bit disappointed with its lack of evolution toward this stuff
| organically. The "modern data stack" is in kind of in a magic
| position where they are working at very technical companies but
| the people using it are not SWEs who can build out the tooling
| themselves so they are just getting buckets of money without a
| really big value proposition. My team self hosts a dbt core
| workflow and it's been almost trivial to build out dbt's paid
| product ourselves
| thenaturalist wrote:
| It hasn't evolved 'cause there is no free lunch.
|
| It has evolved quite a bit behind the paywall - as has the
| paywall.
|
| Most if not all of this stuff will land behind, not before said
| wall.
| capital_guy wrote:
| I guess if they integrate this then that will be the case,
| I'm not sure I'm convinced that much stuff is going on in dbt
| cloud that I can't do in dbt core.
|
| A comparison that's obvious to my team is the release cadence
| of Metabase, which we also self-host. The frequent rollout of
| new features in Metabase is great and gives me more
| confidence in the product. But I'm not in the position to
| decide whether to cough up the $ for the paid version so I
| suppose it's moot.
| GoToRO wrote:
| What does Dbt Labs do? I've read their website, but I need a
| concrete example.
| sullivanmatt wrote:
| You can tell when this deal started to come together by looking
| at the history of the website on Wayback Machine. In fall of
| 2024, the website had a checklist comparing SDF to dbt and
| claiming SDF had a better feature set than dbt Core (page
| rendering is hit and miss right now for whatever reason):
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240919110243/https://www.sdf.c...
|
| In December 2024 the page had been updated to now compare "dbt
| Core" against "SDF with dbt":
| https://web.archive.org/web/20241217172451/https://www.sdf.c...
|
| Little marketing switcharoo there to avoid pissing off their
| future owners.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-14 23:00 UTC)