Soda vs Deequ
Verdict: Soda scores 8.7/10 against 8.4/10 for Deequ on our data score for data quality tools.
Both have a free plan.
Deequ leads on 1 check and Soda on 0; 5 are even, out of 6 checks (yes/no, price and seats) where we have data for both.
Choose Soda for data engineering teams that want data contracts and pipeline tests with a free tier and published team price. Choose Deequ for spark and Scala/Python engineers validating large datasets in batch pipelines.
Scoreboard: 6 checks
| Check | Soda | Deequ |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Even | Even |
| Free trial | Even | Even |
| Smaller seat minimum | Even | Even |
| Data profiling | Even | Even |
| Custom rule checks | Even | Even |
| Open source | Leads | |
| Total | 0 | 1 |
At a glance
| Soda | Deequ | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 8.7/10 (#2) | 8.4/10 (#3) |
| Best for | Data engineering teams that want data contracts and pipeline tests with a free tier and published team price | Spark and Scala/Python engineers validating large datasets in batch pipelines |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Paid from (annual) | See vendor | See vendor |
| Paid from (monthly) | $750/mo | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Minimum seats | 1 | 1 |
| Platforms | Cloud (SaaS), Self-hosted runner (Kubernetes), Python library, Private deployment (Team plan), Python library (Soda Core) | Self-hosted (Apache Spark library) |
Features
| Tool | Score | Data profiling | Custom rule checks | ML anomaly detection | Data cleansing / correction | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soda | 8.7/10 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | No |
| Deequ | 8.4/10 | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes |
- Only Soda confirms: ML anomaly detection.
- Only Deequ confirms: Open source.
Pros and cons
Soda
Pros- Published pricing: Free at $0 and Team at $750 per month
- Free plan includes unlimited users and alerting and ticketing integrations, no credit card needed
- Alerts to Slack and Microsoft Teams; custom SQL metric monitors supported
- Deployment options: Python libraries in pipelines, Soda-hosted runner, or self-hosted runner
- Soda Core v4 is under the Elastic License 2.0, not an OSI open-source license
- SSO, RBAC, audit logs and the no-code interface require the Team plan
- Usage beyond the free Soda Processing Units (SPUs) is billed pay-as-you-go
Deequ
Pros- Free and open source (Apache-2.0)
- Scales with Apache Spark for very large datasets
- Automatic constraint suggestion and column profiling
- Supports AWS Data Quality Definition Language (DQDL) rules
- Library only: no UI, scheduling or alerting built in
- Requires Spark; releases are tied to specific Spark versions
- Recent versions (2.1.0+) require Java 11
Frequently asked questions
How do Soda and Deequ compare on features and price?
Deequ leads on 1 check and Soda on 0; 5 are even, out of 6 checks (yes/no, price and seats) where we have data for both.
Is Soda better than Deequ?
Soda scores 8.7/10 against 8.4/10 for Deequ on our data score for data quality tools. Soda is best for data engineering teams that want data contracts and pipeline tests with a free tier and published team price; Deequ is best for spark and Scala/Python engineers validating large datasets in batch pipelines.
Which is cheaper, Soda or Deequ?
Check each vendor's pricing page; one of them does not publish an entry price.
Do Soda and Deequ have free plans?
Soda: yes. Deequ: yes.
See the full Data Quality Tools ranking for other options.
Sources
- Soda: official pricing page · Soda pricing page · Soda docs index (profiling, metric monitoring, freshness, Slack/Teams) · Soda docs: deployment options · Soda Core GitHub repository and LICENSE · Soda home page · Soda Core v3 release notes · Soda docs: DuckDB data source (v4) · soda-core LICENSE (GitHub)
- Deequ: official pricing page · Deequ GitHub repository · Deequ on Maven Central