As probably the oldest continual user of Dataform, and the only one to really write anything (thanks for the link!) I can chime in:
> proprietary, owned by a specific cloud vendor, and with restricted use on its own data warehouse
DF is OSS core https://github.com/dataform-co/dataform (puts to rest any hopes of compatibility, for now), but GCP restrictions led me to migrate two clients off Dataform to dbt, and I agree that this is where dbt has the value, in an open ecosystem.
And I agree with you entirely on the point that "It's not the systems and tooling", and it was a very sad day for me when Dataform was acquired by GCP because it ended the healthy dynamic of multiple options, as putting the writing on the wall for a GCP walled garden.
I will say that Dataform cloud UX (development stalled since the acquisition) is still a much more pleasant experience than dbt cloud, and maybe (maybe) dbt's value is within the "MDS middleware" layer anyway, as the metrics and metric server is only possible due to their widespread adoption.
As probably the oldest continual user of Dataform, and the only one to really write anything (thanks for the link!) I can chime in:
> proprietary, owned by a specific cloud vendor, and with restricted use on its own data warehouse
DF is OSS core https://github.com/dataform-co/dataform (puts to rest any hopes of compatibility, for now), but GCP restrictions led me to migrate two clients off Dataform to dbt, and I agree that this is where dbt has the value, in an open ecosystem.
And I agree with you entirely on the point that "It's not the systems and tooling", and it was a very sad day for me when Dataform was acquired by GCP because it ended the healthy dynamic of multiple options, as putting the writing on the wall for a GCP walled garden.
I will say that Dataform cloud UX (development stalled since the acquisition) is still a much more pleasant experience than dbt cloud, and maybe (maybe) dbt's value is within the "MDS middleware" layer anyway, as the metrics and metric server is only possible due to their widespread adoption.