Load data into BigQuery from 600+ sources
How it works
How do you load data into BigQuery with Airbyte?
Three steps, and four fields. Most BigQuery destinations are configured and syncing inside fifteen minutes.
Create a service account.
Grant it BigQuery User and BigQuery Data Editor. Add Storage Object Admin only if you are staging through Cloud Storage. Download the JSON key.Configure the destination.
Add BigQuery as a destination in Airbyte and supply four values. Then select your streams, set each to Incremental Sync - Append + Deduped where the source exposes a primary key, and run the first sync.How it works
What happens to your grants when Airbyte syncs?
Not a philosophy. A set of specific, verifiable guarantees about the infrastructure your data runs on.
Partitioned by date.
Queries filtered on extraction date prune partitions instead of scanning the table.
Clustered on your keys.
Queries filtered on a primary key hit clustered blocks.
No raw tables.
Direct Load types data on the way in and writes one final table per stream, so nothing is duplicated in storage.
PARTITION BY DATE(_airbyte_extracted_at) CLUSTER BY _airbyte_extracted_at, order_id;Partition boundaries are UTC. Require-partition-filter is not enabled, so existing queries keep working.
Airbyte versus BigQuery’s native loading options
Google ships five ways to get data into BigQuery. Several of them are better than Airbyte for the job they were built for, and the honest version of this table is more useful than the flattering one.
| Method | Best for | Limits | Use Airbyte instead when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch load jobs | Files already in Cloud Storage. Avro, CSV, JSON, ORC, Parquet | You own extraction, scheduling, schema drift, and retries | Your data is not already sitting in a bucket in the right shape |
| Storage Write API and Pub/Sub subscriptions | High-throughput real-time event streams | You write and operate the producer. Billed per GB ingested | You need operational database or SaaS API data, not an event stream |
| BigQuery Data Transfer Service | Google-owned sources: Google Ads, Google Analytics, YouTube, Cloud Storage | Fixed source list. Daily or monthly schedules | Your source is not on Google’s list, or you need sub-hourly syncs |
| Datastream | Near-real-time CDC from a small set of databases | Database sources only. No SaaS APIs | You need CDC and SaaS sources landing in the same dataset |
| External tables and federation | Querying without loading, including across AWS and Azure | Query-time cost and latency on every read | The data needs to be materialized in BigQuery |
Where Airbyte wins
Heterogeneous sources. If your BigQuery project needs Postgres CDC, Salesforce, Stripe, and Google Ads landing in the same dataset on the same schedule with the same schema-drift handling, native tooling means four different mechanisms and four different failure modes. Airbyte is one.
Where it does not
If your data is already Parquet in Cloud Storage, LOAD DATA is free and you do not need a connector platform.
Compared to other managed connector platforms
| Airbyte | Fivetran | Datastream | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source connectors | 600+ | Large catalog | Google-owned sources only |
| Open source | Yes, and self-hostable | No | No |
| Runs in your own VPC or on-prem | Yes, via Airbyte Flex | Limited | Not applicable, Google-managed |
| Data retained on vendor servers | No | Processed on vendor infrastructure | Stays in Google Cloud |
| Build your own connector | Connector Builder and CDK | Limited | No |
Sean Carver
Director of Data at PetDesk
"The real ROI is in our ability to iterate quickly, especially at our increasing scale. At the end of the day, you want a tool like that to just work. We can forget about it and know that it's configured and it's connecting and it's working. That hands-free capability is a big appeal for the platform.”
20+
data sources integrated and growing
+1
FTE engineer in productivity efficiency
85%+
reduction in data source integration time
Mondor La Grange
Head of BI and Data Engineering
"Unlike Fivetran's credit-based system that created budget uncertainty, Airbyte's pricing model allows Kuda to forecast expenses accurately and avoid surprise bills."
20+
data sources integrated and growing
+1
FTE engineer in productivity efficiency
85%+
reduction in data source integration time
Amy Zhao
Senior Manager of Data Engineering
"What's different from Stitch Data or Informatica is the way that we can configure Airbyte connections and Airbyte entities through code. That's a huge plus to us as data engineers, because we are used to checking code and being able to manage changes from Github."
3 to 1
reduction in data integrations solutions for reduced TCO
1
week Shopify and Stripe integration with Airbyte
Franziska Ibscher
Product Manager at Drivepoint
"Airbyte allows us to stay flexible while scaling from hundred-million to billion-dollar enterprise clients."
75%
of customers increased profitability
6.7%
EBITDA increase for customers
Which sources can you load into BigQuery?
All 600+ of them. These are the ones BigQuery users start with.
Databases
SaaS applications
Files and object storage
Events and streaming
KafkaEvents and streaming
Amazon KinesisEvents and streamingBrowse all 600+ sources
Not seeing yours?
Build it with the Connector BuilderHow does your data land in BigQuery?
Airbyte writes one final table per stream, typed on arrival. Every table carries four metadata columns: _airbyte_raw_id, _airbyte_generation_id, _airbyte_extracted_at, and _airbyte_meta.
| Airbyte type | BigQuery type |
|---|---|
| STRING | STRING |
| INTEGER | INT64 |
| NUMBER | NUMERIC |
| BOOLEAN | BOOL |
| DATE | DATE |
| TIMESTAMP_WITH_TIMEZONE | TIMESTAMP |
| TIMESTAMP_WITHOUT_TIMEZONE | DATETIME |
| OBJECT | JSON |
| ARRAY | JSON |
Schema evolution
Column added.
Propagates to the BigQuery table automatically on the next sync.
Type changed.
Configurable. Propagate it, ignore it, or pause the connection for manual review.
Column removed.
Retained in BigQuery with NULL written for subsequent rows, so an upstream change does not destroy history. Clearing or refreshing the connection does remove the field and its history.
The numbers
Teams running BigQuery on Airbyte
0M
pipelines synced daily
6960+
companies
199%
ROI, certified by Forrester
Sean Carver
Director of Data at PetDesk
"The real ROI is in our ability to iterate quickly, especially at our increasing scale. At the end of the day, you want a tool like that to just work. We can forget about it and know that it's configured and it's connecting and it's working. That hands-free capability is a big appeal for the platform.”
20+
data sources integrated and growing
+1
FTE engineer in productivity efficiency
85%+
reduction in data source integration time
Mondor La Grange
Head of BI and Data Engineering
"Unlike Fivetran's credit-based system that created budget uncertainty, Airbyte's pricing model allows Kuda to forecast expenses accurately and avoid surprise bills."
20+
data sources integrated and growing
+1
FTE engineer in productivity efficiency
85%+
reduction in data source integration time
Amy Zhao
Senior Manager of Data Engineering
"What's different from Stitch Data or Informatica is the way that we can configure Airbyte connections and Airbyte entities through code. That's a huge plus to us as data engineers, because we are used to checking code and being able to manage changes from Github."
3 to 1
reduction in data integrations solutions for reduced TCO
1
week Shopify and Stripe integration with Airbyte
Franziska Ibscher
Product Manager at Drivepoint
"Airbyte allows us to stay flexible while scaling from hundred-million to billion-dollar enterprise clients."
75%
of customers increased profitability
6.7%
EBITDA increase for customers
Deployment
Where Airbyte runs
Your warehouse credentials and your data do not have to leave your environment. Airbyte does not retain customer data on its servers.
Airbyte Cloud
Fully managed hosting on the Standard and Pro plans. Fastest path to a running pipeline.
Airbyte Flex
Hybrid deployment, with Airbyte’s data plane running in your cloud, VPC, or on-prem environment. You get 600+ connectors and a fully managed experience, while your data never touches our servers.
Self-Managed
Open source, your infrastructure, your rules.
compliance
Enterprise ready
Compliant with standards
SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR and HIPAA support, with tools to help you meet internal and external regulatory requirements.
Uptime & SLA Guarantees
24/7 support and 99.9% availability backed by contractual SLAs and priority response times for mission-critical workloads.
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What does it cost?
On the BigQuery side, batch load jobs from Cloud Storage are free. You pay for storage and for the queries you run, which is why the partitioning and clustering above shows up on your bill.
Core
Always free. Self-managed
For teams comfortable running open source entirely on their own.
- Open source
- All 600+ connectors
- Your own infrastructure
Airbyte Cloud
Standard
Starting at $10 per month.
For practitioners who want fully managed software and prefer to be billed on data volume.
- Fully managed cloud hosting
- Volume-based pricing
- Deploy quickly
Airbyte Cloud
Pro
Capacity-based pricing.
For organizations that need scalability, governance, and security while simplifying pipeline management.
- Fully managed cloud hosting
- Capacity-based pricing, billed on Data Workers rather than data volume
- Multiple workspaces
- SSO and RBAC
- 15-minute syncs and custom mappings
- Premium support
Enterprise Flex
Capacity-based pricing.
For enterprises in regulated industries that need full control of their data with the convenience of managed SaaS.
- Sovereign data movement inside your own boundary
- Available on-premises and multi-region
- Hybrid deployment with an Airbyte-managed control plane
- All the features of Airbyte Pro, including premium support
Frequently asked questions
Didn’t find your answer?
Please don’t hesitate to reach out.
What is the best way to load data into BigQuery?
How is Airbyte different from BigQuery Data Transfer Service?
Does Airbyte support change data capture into BigQuery?
How does Airbyte handle BigQuery schema changes?
Does Airbyte create raw tables in my BigQuery project?
Do I need a Google Cloud Storage bucket?
Can I run this inside my own Google Cloud project?
Other destinations
Snowflake
Airbyte clones tables instead of swapping them, so the grants you configured survive every sync. Removed source columns are kept, and oversized values are logged rather than fatal.
ClickHouse
Airbyte writes to ClickHouse over its native binary protocol with batch inserts. The setup needs a hostname, a port, and a user. No object storage, no staging permissions, no intermediate hop.
Databricks
Airbyte stages Avro files inside Unity Catalog Volumes, not an external bucket, so your data stays under your catalog’s governance from the first byte to the final table.
Build with Airbyte
Ship agents and pipelines in minutes, not days.