Programming language

In a team, not everyone knows the same programming languages, so the more languages that are supported, the better, because then the programming language that the most people in the tam know already will be chosen. This will speed up the development process, since now a smaller group needs to learn the language.

• dbt

The only language supported in dbt is SQL. Some jinja needs to be known to create templates.

• Delta Live Tables

The notebooks in which the tables are defined can be in SQL and python. A notebook cannot be in SQL and python at the same time, but different notebooks can be in different languages in the same project.

• Comparison

Both support SQL, but only Delta Live Tables also supports python.

Data warehouses

Not every company has every kind of data warehouse at its disposal. To set up a data warehouse specific for a certain problem or tool while they already have a data warehouse is quite excessive. It is worthwhile to look for a tool that can be used for the data warehouse you already have, unless the tool for another data warehouse has a lot of benefits.

• dbt

Various data warehouses can be used and are supported by dbt, while there are more that are community supported. For example for Databricks, dbt gets its tables from the Databricks hive metastore, but these can also link to various sources.

• Delta Live Tables

It is directly integrated into Databricks, so also sources that can be loaded into the Databricks hive metastore can be used.

• Comparison

Both can make use of different data sources such as a data lake, but only dbt can be used in combination with and ran against other data warehouses.