hello, not sure if this is the appropriate chat for my question, but I would like to know the audience that meltano appeals to. Is it mostly used by developers? Or do companies use it over other platforms which are managed and more UI-based like Fivetran/Airbyte?

Hey Ayush! I'd say the target audience is anyone comfortable with the command line. That tends to be developers, yes.

do companies use it over other platforms which are managed and more UI-based like Fivetran/Airbyte?

I don't think this excludes it being targeted to developers, who tend to prefer code-first approaches (think like IaC) that can be versioned-controlled, over click-based/graphic based interfaces. There's also the fact that it's free and open source. It shares that with Airbyte, but imo the deployment story is more flexible with Meltano cause no architecture is necessarily prescribed.

production can literally be

uv tool install meltano
meltano install
meltano run tap-name target-name

With proper env vars set for your tap/target, I do this all the time!

Thanks for the reply guys! Are you guys aware of any pain points people face when using either users of no code tools like fivetran or cool tools like Meltano face? At least in the case of Transform (in ELT), it seems to me the mappings can be automated / improved with AI. Do you think there is any demand for a tool that runs the entire ELT pipeline without much human effort and instead uses an AI agent to simplify the process?

Hard for me to say because I'm clearly not the target audience, but I've yet to find a great example of

a tool that <DOES X> without much human effort and instead uses an AI agent to simplify the process

with requiring the user to also have at least some context of what the tool can and should do.

oh i see thanks for letting me know Edgar!