Pick Astronomer if
data platform teams who will stay on Developer at $0.35 / hour (scale-to-zero) while they open a first DAGs list, then buy Team at $0.42 / hour when they want dedicated clusters and 24×5 support.
Read the Astronomer pageAstronomer vs dbt
Our take
Pick Astronomer if data platform teams who will stay on Developer at $0.35 / hour (scale-to-zero) while they open a first DAGs list, then buy Team at $0.42 / hour when they want dedicated clusters and 24×5 support. Pick dbt if analytics engineers who will stay on Developer Free (1 seat, 3,000 models / month, 1 project) while they open a first Explorer graph, then buy Starter at $100 / user / month when they want
Best for
Astronomer Airflow you do not operate yourself
dbt Models, jobs, and lineage you start at $0
Free plan
Astronomer No free plan
dbt $0 · for the open-source CLI. You run the warehouse and the scheduler
Lowest paid
Astronomer Not published by the vendor
dbt Not published by the vendor
Runs where
Astronomer Hosted
dbt Local or hosted
Watch out
Astronomer $0.35 / hour is a running (or hibernating) deployment, not unlimited
dbt Developer Free is 1 seat, 1 project, 3,000 models / month
Last checked
Astronomer 2026-10-23 · astronomer.io/pricing
dbt 2026-10-23 · getdbt.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick dbt if
analytics engineers who will stay on Developer Free (1 seat, 3,000 models / month, 1 project) while they open a first Explorer graph, then buy Starter at $100 / user / month when they want Catalog lineage and the Semantic Layer.
Read the dbt page