[swyx]

(i work at airbyte) this was announced last month at our conf to a very positive response (https://movedata.airbyte.com/, keynote)

The context is that Airbyte is now (after pivoting 3x during YC https://airbyte.com/blog/how-we-pivoted-3-times-in-the-1st-m...) the largest/fastest growing open source community (see our github https://github.com/airbytehq/airbyte) of data pipeline connectors[0], so in a sense they have always been free if you are self hosting. But now using them on Airbyte Cloud is going to be free as well aka "we will do your ELT for free no matter the volume as long as our connectors are not GA yet".

This is a massive commitment to improve the quality of our connectors, which is also something we have been pushing the industry on: https://airbyte.com/blog/connector-release-stages :

Alpha: new, basic docs, works, passes acceptance tests

Beta: Alpha + at least 25 active users + >90% sync success rate + snapshot tests + all streams + severe issues handled + security + supports checkpointing + SLA on cloud

GA: Beta + >99% sync success rate + more than 50 active users + <24 hours downtime + polished docs + performant

It's been going very well; you can see how many connectors we promote to GA each month in our slack (https://slack.airbyte.io/) and changelogs, and our new lowcode CDK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7VSL2bDvmw) is helping new connectors insta-promote to beta.

We hope to set the new standard in data integration and this is still only day 1.

[0]: good explainer on why companies are moving towards ELT in the first place for the uninitiated https://airbyte.com/blog/elt-pipeline

[sixhobbits]

I like the idea but practically I wonder how it works out. I feel like I would have a double disincentive to use an alpha/beta connection as a) it might fail and b) it might hit GA and then suddenly my free workflow breaks?

Maybe I am thinking about it wrong and this is more aimed at people who were previously paying for something and now get the same thing for free.

[swyx]

i dont understand, why would it break when it goes from beta to GA?

and failures happen, anyone who promises you otherwise is lying. you'd have them yourself if you DIY. what helps is having good monitoring, a large open source community with strong first party support, and a good development/testing framework so most breakages can be fixed the same day they happen.

[sixhobbits]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I mean two personas

- a) maybe I don't care about 99% reliability and I am attracted by the fact that it's free. But I have no control over when it will stop being free, so I don't implement it.

- b) I have money to pay but I need reliability.

They pull in different directions but both seem to pull away from a free alpha version. I would imagine if you could offer them as alternatives you might get both personas but with this model you kind of lose both?

Again, I am sure this is a hole in my understanding, not the model. Just curious as to where it is.

[jeanlaf]

Hi! Here's how we think about it. Given the economical context, I would say pricing becomes a strong argument. It's also one of the reasons we built the program, it's a way for us to give back to the community.

Having more usage on our side will help us tremendously at bringing all those connectors to higher reliability standards as we're exposed to more and more use cases. We do believe most people will be willing to pay for reliability and will stay with us when those connectors will become GA. We will also give a grace period for them to switch if they want to (I guess Airbyte Open Source will be the best alternative then :) )

[hiddencost]

Previously it wasn't free, so you wouldn't ever have used it.

[Centigonal]

nice way of internally motivating connector stability and adoption! It literally costs you money to keep connectors in an immature state for too long.