So our data pipeline completely ate shit during product launch week because of course it did. That's when I found Skyvia, probably through some random Google search at 2 AM while trying to figure out why our Shopify orders weren't making it to the warehouse.
It's made by Devart, which I'd never heard of but apparently they've been around since like '97 doing database tools and drivers. Makes sense why their PostgreSQL connector actually works instead of throwing those "FATAL: remaining connection slots are reserved" errors that Talend loved to shit out every Tuesday for no fucking reason.
They try to do everything - ETL stuff, backups, API publishing, even has some query interface thing. Normally when tools try to do everything they suck at everything, but somehow this doesn't completely blow up.
Actually, scratch that. I haven't really tried the API publishing part much. Might be garbage for all I know. The backup thing saved my ass though when our intern deleted half our Salesforce data.
Don't expect magic if you need real-time streaming or anything fancy. It's more like "move data from A to B without completely fucking up" which is honestly all I needed.
What You Actually Get
The drag-and-drop mapper thing is actually not terrible. You just drag fields around instead of writing YAML files that break when you look at them wrong. Basic stuff like getting Salesforce leads into our warehouse works fine. They have tutorials if you need to learn this shit.
But don't get fancy with it. I tried to do some complex join bullshit and it got weird fast. Ended up writing SQL anyway because the visual thing couldn't handle what I needed.
The backup feature is honestly the main reason I'm still using this. Our intern somehow deleted like 6 months of Salesforce data during his first week (still no idea how he managed that) and I was able to restore it in maybe 15 minutes? Made me look competent instead of the dumbass who gave an intern admin access.
There's also some API publishing thing but I've never actually used it. Supposed to turn your data into REST endpoints or whatever. Might be useful if you need that, I don't know.
Oh and they have a query interface that's basically just a web SQL client. It's fine I guess. Beats SSH-ing into prod to run queries, which our security team hates anyway.
The scheduling works most of the time. When it breaks you get helpful error messages like "Integration failed with error code 500" which tells you absolutely nothing. Found out our main pipeline died because my boss asked why the dashboard looked empty on Monday morning. Great monitoring system there.
How It Actually Works
It's all cloud stuff so you don't have to deal with servers, which is nice until something breaks and you can't do shit about it. Had this weird bug where jobs would finish but still show as "running" for like 6 hours. Made monitoring a real pain in the ass.
They say they have like 200+ connectors but half of them are probably databases from the 90s nobody uses. The ones I actually care about work fine though:
Salesforce connector is solid, they obviously spent time on that one. PostgreSQL and MySQL do what they're supposed to. Shopify worked for our Black Friday disaster. HubSpot integration is decent.
But good luck if you need some weird industry-specific API. We had a client who used this obscure inventory system and of course Skyvia didn't support it. Ended up building a custom webhook thing that took way longer than it should have.
Also, their "real-time" sync is bullshit. It's every minute at best, which isn't real-time by any definition I know. Hit our usage limits in like 11 days during Q4 because apparently moving a lot of data costs a lot of money. Who knew.
Security Stuff
They have the usual SOC 2 compliance checkboxes that make security teams happy. Role-based access works but the interface for setting it up is pretty clunky. Check their security documentation for the full list of stuff.
If you're at some massive enterprise with crazy compliance requirements, this probably isn't enterprise enough for you. You'll end up with Informatica or some other thing that costs more than a Tesla and requires 6 months of consulting to set up.
Who This Actually Works For
We're like a 60-person company and it fits us pretty well. Not too simple like Zapier, not overly complex like the enterprise monsters.
Works decent for e-commerce stuff - our Shopify to warehouse pipeline hasn't completely died yet. Marketing team uses it to pull ads data into our analytics thing.
The backup feature is honestly the killer app here. When our intern nuked production data (still can't believe that happened), I was able to restore everything in like 15 minutes instead of updating my resume.
Look, Zapier has way more connectors but gets expensive fast. Fivetran is probably better if you have unlimited money. Talend... I don't know, maybe if you hate yourself?
This thing just works for what we need without completely destroying our budget. Not perfect but good enough, which is honestly the best you can hope for with data tools.