What is dbt?
dbt (data build tool) lets analytics engineers transform data already loaded into a warehouse using SQL, with version control, automated testing and auto-generated documentation applied like software engineering practice. It grew out of Fishtown Analytics, founded in 2016 by Tristan Handy, Drew Banin and Connor McArthur, which renamed to dbt Labs in 2021; the company is headquartered in Philadelphia and merged with Fivetran in 2026. dbt Core (the CLI) is free and open source under Apache 2.0; dbt Cloud is the paid managed platform.
Read the full overview
Sources checked 27 September 2026: official website, documentation, GitHub repository.
dbtData Warehousing & LakehouseSQL-based data transformation for the modern data warehouse
Key capabilities
- SQL models with tests: Version-controlled transformations with built-in and custom data tests (dbt Core, free).
- dbt Cloud: Managed job scheduling, lineage graphs and a semantic layer (paid).
- Warehouse adapters: Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres and more.
Confirm the warehouse adapter you need is fully supported, and decide whether self-hosted orchestration of dbt Core meets your needs before paying for dbt Cloud.
“SQL-based data transformation for the modern data warehouse”
Technical details
- Access
- Self-hosted
- Source model
- Open source
- Founded
- 2016
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- API
- Not specified
- Website
- www.getdbt.com ↗
- GitHub
- Source repository ↗
What to verify
Start from the users, systems and operating responsibilities the tool needs to support.
- Confirm current features, licensing and support terms.
- Validate deployment, data location and access control.
- Test integrations, exports and recovery workflows.
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