Build it yourself with Azure Data Factory and dbt, or Yres?
Building yourself on Azure Data Factory and dbt has no licence: the cost is in your engineers' hours, first for the build and then for the upkeep. You are completely free in design and tooling, and everything is yours. Yres delivers, for €350 to €997 per month, the loading layer with history, per-change deployment, monitoring, health checks, a test suite and maintenance ready-made, provisioned in your own tenant in about twenty minutes. Everything still sits in your Azure and keeps running if you stop. So the difference is not ownership, but what you build and maintain yourself.
Last checked:
The differences that matter most
- Building yourself has no licence cost and no package limits: the price is the number of hours your engineers spend on building and maintenance.
- Yres stands provisioned in your own tenant in about twenty minutes; a setup of your own takes weeks before the first source loads with history.
- Building yourself gives complete freedom in target platform, modelling method and tooling; Yres chooses Azure SQL with a Parquet feed to the Data Lake, and Microsoft Fabric as a target platform is planned for the end of 2027.
- Yres ships seven load types with SCD2 history, per-table rollback, about 80 health checks, a test suite of ±1,655 checks and four maintenance pipelines; when building yourself you write and maintain all of that yourself.
- Yres records every change automatically under a change, blocks a release on unreleased dependencies and logs every DDL in the database; when building yourself you handle deployment through Git and build audit and impact analysis yourself.
Everything side by side
The same rows as on the full comparison, now only Yres and Build it yourself (dbt + ADF).
✅ yes · ◐ partly or through a workaround · ❌ no · – not publicly documented
| Yres | Build it yourself (dbt + ADF) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sources and connectors | ||
| REST APIs | ✅Anonymous, Basic, OAuth2 client credentials and any token or API key through free headers; 6 pagination forms; endpoints picked from an OpenAPI specification; nested JSON becomes a table automatically, up to 10 levels deep[1][2] | Build it yourself |
| OData | ✅OData v2 and v4; anonymous, Basic or OAuth2 (client credentials or authorization code with refresh token)[3][4] | Build it yourself |
| Files | ✅CSV, Excel and Parquet; from Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake, a file server or SharePoint[5][6][7] | Build it yourself |
| Databases | ✅SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2 and Snowflake[8] | Build it yourself |
| SAP | ✅Official SAP partner. S/4HANA and SAP ERP through OData services; SAP HANA through XS OData; SAP Analytics Cloud, Datasphere and Business Data Cloud. Without third-party middleware[9][10][11][12] | ADF connectors |
| Microsoft | ✅SQL Server, Azure SQL, SharePoint, Teams and Microsoft 365 through Microsoft Graph, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake and Power BI; Dynamics 365 Business Central through OData (OAuth2 sign-in in development)[13][7][14] | ADF connectors |
| Oracle | ✅Oracle Database; Oracle NetSuite is planned for October 2027[15] | ADF connectors |
| Dutch business software | ✅AFAS and Exact Online with their own connection (official partner of both); also TOPdesk and Simplicate[16][17] | Build it yourself |
| Type mapping | ✅Organisation-wide + per source + per column, travels along with changes[18] | Build it yourself |
| Loading and history | ||
| Load types | 7: FULL, DELTA, DELTAIMAGE, IMAGE, OVERWRITE, RELOAD, ADDITIONAL[19] | Build it yourself |
| History (SCD2) | ✅Default for 6 of the 7 load types, set per table[20] | Build it yourself |
| Rows that disappear from the source | ✅Keep / close / close within the delta window[19] | Build it yourself |
| Change detection | ✅Hashes (SHA2-512) on key and content. A field can be kept out of the comparison: if only that field changes, the row is not updated and the new value only comes along when another field changes[19] | Build it yourself |
| Two delta columns | ✅12 source types[19] | Build it yourself |
| Override the load type per run | ✅"Alternative load"[19] | Build it yourself |
| Delta after a failed load | ✅Watermark only advances after success[19] | Build it yourself |
| Roll back a table to a point in time | ✅Per table to a point in time; dry run via the stored procedure[21] | Build it yourself |
| Large tables | ✅Paginated merge, 100M+ rows[19] | Build it yourself |
| Modelling and delivery | ||
| Have the model generated (Kimball, Data Vault) | ❌Deliberately not. Yres delivers the layer with full history; you build the model on top yourself, in the method of your choice[22] | Free choice |
| Your own model on top of the data | ✅Any method, from Kimball to Data Vault, is built with your own views and procedures on the history layer. Views can be persisted as tables, and your own objects travel to test and production through changes[23][24] | ✅Yes |
| Generate a semantic model | ❌No | Build it yourself |
| Lineage | ◐Object level + impact analysis[25] | Build it yourself |
| Data quality / enrichment | ❌Not as a module | Build it yourself |
| Target platforms | Azure SQL, with a Parquet feed to the Data Lake that Fabric, Databricks and Synapse can read. Microsoft Fabric as a target platform is planned for the end of 2027[34][26] | Free choice |
| MCP server for AI | Announced, October 2027 | ❌No |
| Changing and deploying | ||
| Environments | ✅Release → import → install, incl. ADF; 1 environment in Essentials, 2 in Advanced, 6 in Ultimate[27][37] | Build it yourself |
| Deploy only the change you want | ✅Per change (changes system: Advanced and up)[28] | Via Git |
| Changes recorded automatically | ✅Per change, within a project (changes system: Advanced and up)[28] | ❌No |
| Block on unreleased dependencies | ✅Yes (changes system: Advanced and up)[27] | ❌No |
| Impact analysis before installing | ✅Yes (also: print the SQL first)[27] | ❌No |
| Deployment safeguards | ◐Impact analysis, review the SQL beforehand | Build it yourself |
| Name translation per environment | ✅Rules per environment[29] | Build it yourself |
| Audit of changes made directly in the database | ✅Every DDL: who, when, full command[30] | Build it yourself |
| Compare versions of an object | ✅Diff between two versions of an object[24] | Via Git |
| Compare definitions between environments | ✅Yes[24] | Build it yourself |
| Track source changes | ✅Source ↔ dictionary ↔ STAGE ↔ HIS; automatic adjustment; REST grows along[18] | Build it yourself |
| Running and operating | ||
| Scheduling and orchestration | ✅Visual master pipeline with 7 building blocks and paths on success and failure. Refreshing your Power BI models is one of those blocks: the report refreshes right after the data has loaded[31] | Build it yourself |
| Maintenance included | ✅Four maintenance pipelines (cleanup, log retention, archiving, index maintenance), which you combine into a master pipeline yourself[32] | ❌No |
| Monitoring per table | ✅Status, counts, steps, planned/skipped, locks, slow queries[31][30] | Build it yourself |
| Health checks | ✅About 80 checks in 9 groups; some with a ready-made fix script[29] | ❌No |
| Test suite in the product | ✅±1,655 checks / 195 objects[33] | ❌No |
| Scale the database up and down | ✅From Advanced up, with arbitration between concurrent workflows[34][37] | Build it yourself |
| Archiving | ✅Per table, old history moves to Parquet in the Data Lake, by age or by a date field. Deleting from the database only happens after the number of copied rows matches exactly, and is off by default[35] | Build it yourself |
| Database and Data Lake as one dataset | ✅One view combines the table in the database with the archive in the Data Lake. Reports keep seeing the full dataset, even after old data has been archived[35] | Build it yourself |
| Log retention | ✅Per log table, dry run[30] | Build it yourself |
| What you have to run yourself | No server of its own: Yres runs on Azure Data Factory and Azure SQL. Only for sources inside your own network do you install a Microsoft self-hosted integration runtime[34] | Everything |
| Security and ownership | ||
| What is stored where | Data, metadata, credentials and secrets live in the customer's Azure tenant, in the region you choose yourself. Yres only holds the settings of the web app (Azure West Europe), never customer data or credentials[34][36] | Your own environment |
| Secrets | ✅Key Vault only; managed identity[34] | Build it yourself |
| Certifications | ISO 27001. Plainwater, the maker of Yres, is a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data & AI (Azure)[36] | N/a |
| Web application firewall | ✅In every plan[37] | Build it yourself |
| What remains when you stop | ✅Everything keeps running in your own tenant, and your own data engineers can continue developing on it | Everything |
| Getting started, support and cost | ||
| Installation (with the right permissions in Azure in place) | ✅Automated in your own tenant, ±20 min[38] | Weeks |
| Documentation | Extensive knowledge base in Dutch and English, with an AI assistant that answers your questions[39] | — |
| Training | Academy: 3 public courses, quizzes, simulators, verifiable certificates[40] | — |
| The Netherlands | Dutch product and team | N/a |
| Price (public) | Essentials €350, Advanced €674, Ultimate €997 per month; fixed and public. Per year: €4,200 to €11,964[37] | No licence; the cost is in engineers' hours. Per year: depends on the hours spent on building and maintenance |
| Ongoing Azure costs | Small default database; scales up only while loading[34] | Depends on your own setup |
| Independent reviews | ❌None yet | N/a |
Which one fits you?
Build it yourself (dbt + ADF)
Build it yourself if you have a strong data engineering team of your own that will still be there in three years, you have few sources, and complete freedom in platform, model and tooling matters more than lead time and maintenance load. If you already have a working setup with dbt and Azure Data Factory, with history, tests and monitoring, there is little reason to switch.
Yres
Choose Yres if you want a data warehouse with full history provisioned in about twenty minutes instead of weeks of building, with AFAS, Exact Online, SAP and your other sources, and you would rather not maintain a loading engine, monitoring, health checks and a deployment process yourself. Everything sits in your own Azure, your engineers build the model on top in SQL, and you pay a fixed price of €350 to €997 per month.
Frequently asked questions
What does building yourself really cost, compared with Yres?
Building yourself has no licence; the cost is engineers' hours for the build and then for the upkeep, plus your Azure consumption. Yres costs €350 to €997 per month, fixed and public, plus the Azure costs in your own resource group, with a small default database that only scales up while loading. So count in hours per year, not in licence.
What do I have to build myself that Yres ships?
A loading engine with SCD2 history and deltas, handling of rows that disappear, per-table rollback, connectors for AFAS, Exact Online, SAP and REST, change management with audit and impact analysis, monitoring per table, health checks, a test suite, database scaling, archiving to Parquet and log retention. With Yres that is in the product; when building yourself you write and maintain it.
Am I locked in to a vendor with Yres?
Everything runs in your own Azure tenant: Azure Data Factory, the database, Key Vault and optionally a Data Lake. If you stop using Yres, your environment keeps running, including loading new data, and your own data engineers can continue developing on it. The SQL surface is documented and your own objects live in a schema of their own.
Can my team still write its own SQL and model with Yres?
Yes. Yres deliberately generates no data model: it delivers the layer with full history, and on top of it you build Kimball, Data Vault or another method with your own views and procedures. You put those in the CustomYres schema and they travel to test and production through changes. Yres can also be operated through SQL without the web app.
Sources
Everything about the other vendor comes from that vendor's own public material or from a named analyst. We only use ❌ when the vendor itself or an open customer request says so; otherwise it reads 'not publicly documented'. Is something incorrect or out of date? Email us: feedback@yres.app.
- [1] Yres — REST service source. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/restservice · checked 2026-09-21
- [2] Yres — REST: JSON interpretation. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/restservice-json · checked 2026-09-21
- [3] Yres — OData source. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/odata · checked 2026-09-21
- [4] Yres — OData with OAuth. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/odata-oauth · checked 2026-09-21
- [5] Yres — Azure Blob Storage source (file formats). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/azure-blob-storage · checked 2026-09-21
- [6] Yres — File server source. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/file-server · checked 2026-09-21
- [7] Yres — SharePoint source. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/sharepoint · checked 2026-09-21
- [8] Yres — Integration catalogue (all sources). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/catalogus · checked 2026-09-21
- [9] Yres — SAP S/4HANA. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/sap-s4hana · checked 2026-09-21
- [10] Yres — SAP HANA. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/sap-hana · checked 2026-09-21
- [11] Yres — SAP Analytics Cloud. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/sac · checked 2026-09-21
- [12] Yres — SAP Datasphere. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/sap-datasphere · checked 2026-09-21
- [13] Yres — Microsoft Graph. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/microsoft-graph · checked 2026-09-21
- [14] Yres — Dynamics 365. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/dynamics-365 · checked 2026-09-21
- [15] Yres — Oracle. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/oracle · checked 2026-09-21
- [16] Yres — AFAS. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/afas · checked 2026-09-21
- [17] Yres — Exact Online. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/integraties/bronnen/exact-online · checked 2026-09-21
- [18] Yres — Data sources screen (type mapping, metadata compare). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/frontend/data-sources · checked 2026-09-21
- [19] Yres — Load types. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/load-types · checked 2026-09-21
- [20] Yres — History (SCD2). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/historie-scd2 · checked 2026-09-21
- [21] Yres — Rollback and reset. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/rollback-reset · checked 2026-09-21
- [22] Yres — Data flow: STAGE, HIS and views. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/gegevensstroom · checked 2026-09-21
- [23] Yres — SQL interaction. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/referentie/sql-interaction · checked 2026-09-21
- [24] Yres — Data engineering (views, persisted views, compare). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/frontend/data-engineering · checked 2026-09-21
- [25] Yres — Features (lineage and impact analysis). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/product/features · checked 2026-09-21
- [26] Yres — Lake feed (Parquet change feed). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/lake-feed · checked 2026-09-21
- [27] Yres — CI/CD and DTAP. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/architectuur/cicd-dtap · checked 2026-09-21
- [28] Yres — Change process. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/wijzigingsproces · checked 2026-09-21
- [29] Yres — Admin (health checks, settings, environments). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/frontend/admin · checked 2026-09-21
- [30] Yres — Monitoring and logging. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/referentie/monitoring-logging · checked 2026-09-21
- [31] Yres — Load management (master pipelines, monitoring). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/frontend/load-management · checked 2026-09-21
- [32] Yres — Maintenance master pipeline. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/setup/onderhouds-master-pipeline · checked 2026-09-21
- [33] Yres — Test suite. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/referentie/testsuite · checked 2026-09-21
- [34] Yres — Azure architecture. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/referentie/azure-architectuur · checked 2026-09-21
- [35] Yres — Archiving. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/concepten/archivering · checked 2026-09-21
- [36] Yres — FAQ (security, certification). https://yres.eu/en/wiki/faq · checked 2026-09-21
- [37] Yres — Pricing and packages. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/prijzen · checked 2026-09-21
- [38] Yres — Installation. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/setup/installatie · checked 2026-09-21
- [39] Yres — Knowledge base. https://yres.eu/en/wiki/ · checked 2026-09-21
- [40] Yres — Yres Academy. https://yres.eu/academy/en · checked 2026-09-21
