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Deployment Options

On this page, you will:

  • Compare Airbyte Cloud and self-hosted deployments
  • Understand the cost implications of each approach
  • Choose the right deployment for your team

Overview

Airbyte offers two deployment models:

  1. Airbyte Cloud — fully managed SaaS, pay per usage
  2. Self-Hosted — run Airbyte on your own infrastructure

Both provide the same connectors and sync capabilities. The difference is operational overhead vs cost control.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                       DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS                                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                             │
│  Option 1: Airbyte Cloud              Option 2: Self-Hosted (ECS)           │
│  ─────────────────────────             ──────────────────────────           │
│                                                                             │
│  ┌───────────────────────┐             ┌───────────────────────┐            │
│  │  Airbyte manages:     │             │  You manage:          │            │
│  │  • Infrastructure     │             │  • ECS Fargate tasks  │            │
│  │  • Upgrades           │             │  • RDS PostgreSQL     │            │
│  │  • Scaling            │             │  • ALB                │            │
│  │  • Monitoring         │             │  • Upgrades           │            │
│  └───────────────────────┘             └───────────────────────┘            │
│                                                                             │
│  Cost: $99+/month                      Cost: ~$81/month                     │
│  Setup: Sign up + configure            Setup: Terraform + deploy            │
│  Maintenance: None                     Maintenance: Ongoing                 │
│                                                                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Airbyte Cloud

How It Works

Airbyte Cloud is a fully managed service. You:

  1. Sign up at cloud.airbyte.com
  2. Configure sources and destinations via the UI
  3. Airbyte handles infrastructure, scaling, and upgrades

Pricing

Airbyte Cloud uses a credit-based pricing model:

Tier Monthly Cost Connections Records Included Record Overage
Free $0 5 Limited credits N/A
Starter $99 4 4M records $15 per 1M records
Team $499 10 20M records $10 per 1M records
Enterprise Custom Unlimited Custom Custom

Record Counting

Airbyte counts records across all connections. A single HubSpot contacts sync of 10,000 contacts counts as 10,000 records. Full refresh syncs re-count all records each time.

Cost Example: HubSpot Contacts Only

For a small HubSpot instance with 5,000 contacts:

Scenario Monthly Records Monthly Cost
Incremental daily (100 changes/day) ~3,000 $99 (Starter minimum)
Full refresh daily ~150,000 $99 (within Starter allowance)
Full refresh + 5 other connectors ~500,000 $99 (within Starter allowance)

For most small-to-medium teams, the Starter tier is sufficient.

Advantages

  • No infrastructure to manage: No servers, databases, or upgrades
  • Quick setup: Functional within an hour
  • Built-in monitoring: Dashboard, alerts, and sync history
  • Automatic updates: New connector versions deployed automatically
  • SOC 2 compliance: Enterprise security built in

Disadvantages

  • Cost at scale: Per-record pricing adds up with many connectors or high volumes
  • Data residency: Data passes through Airbyte's infrastructure (US or EU region)
  • Less control: Cannot customise connectors or infrastructure
  • Vendor lock-in: Dependent on Airbyte's pricing and availability

Self-Hosted on ECS

How It Works

You deploy Airbyte's open-source platform on AWS ECS Fargate. This gives you full control over infrastructure and eliminates per-record pricing.

Infrastructure Components

Component Service Purpose
Airbyte Server ECS Fargate API server, scheduler, UI
Airbyte Workers ECS Fargate Run connector jobs
Metadata Database RDS PostgreSQL Stores configuration, state, logs
Load Balancer ALB HTTPS access to UI and API
Container Registry ECR Stores Airbyte Docker images

Cost Breakdown

Component Specification Monthly Cost
ECS Fargate (server) 1 vCPU, 2 GB ~$30
ECS Fargate (workers) 1 vCPU, 2 GB (scales to 0) ~$20
RDS PostgreSQL db.t4g.micro, 20 GB ~$15
ALB 1 ALB ~$16
Total ~$81/month

Worker Scaling

Workers scale to zero when no syncs are running, so actual worker costs depend on sync frequency and duration. The $20 estimate assumes ~8 hours of active syncs per day.

Advantages

  • No per-record pricing: Pay only for infrastructure
  • Data stays in your VPC: No data leaves your AWS account
  • Full control: Customise connectors, infrastructure, and configuration
  • Open source: No vendor lock-in, can migrate to another hosting method

Disadvantages

  • Operational overhead: You manage upgrades, scaling, and monitoring
  • Setup complexity: Terraform infrastructure + networking + security
  • Upgrade management: Major version upgrades can require migration steps
  • No built-in alerting: Need to set up CloudWatch alarms separately

Decision Matrix

Factor Airbyte Cloud Self-Hosted
Time to first sync Fast Slower
Monthly cost (small scale) $99 ~$81
Monthly cost (large scale) $499+ ~$81 (fixed)
Infrastructure management None Ongoing
Data residency US/EU (Airbyte servers) Your VPC
Connector customisation No Yes
Upgrades Automatic Manual
SOC 2 Included Your responsibility

Recommendation

Start with Airbyte Cloud if:

  • You have fewer than 5 SaaS sources
  • Total monthly records are under 4M
  • You want to validate the approach before investing in infrastructure
  • Your team is small and cannot dedicate time to infrastructure management

Use self-hosted if:

  • You have strict data residency requirements
  • Monthly record volumes exceed 20M (cost savings outweigh operational overhead)
  • You need to customise connectors
  • You already have ECS infrastructure and operational experience

Migration Path

You can start with Airbyte Cloud and migrate to self-hosted later. Connection configurations can be exported and imported. The Snowflake infrastructure (database, roles, schemas) remains the same regardless of deployment.

This Guide's Approach

This guide documents both approaches:

The Snowflake infrastructure, HubSpot connection, and Prefect orchestration pages apply to both deployment methods.

Summary

You've evaluated the deployment options:

  • Airbyte Cloud: managed, $99+/month, no infrastructure to manage
  • Self-hosted on ECS: ~$81/month fixed, full control, operational overhead
  • Chosen your deployment approach

What's Next

Set up your chosen deployment.

Continue to Airbyte Cloud Setup → (or skip to Self-Hosted Setup if deploying on ECS)