# Fivetran & Airbyte - Data Ingestion (Data Engineering)

> Connectors, sync modes (full, incremental), CDC, schema evolution, transformations, monitoring

- 20 interview questions
- Mid-Level
- [Interview Questions: Data Engineering](https://sharpskill.dev/en/technologies/data-engineering/interview-questions.md)

## 1. What is the main difference between Fivetran and Airbyte in terms of deployment model?

**Answer**

Fivetran is a fully managed SaaS solution where the infrastructure is managed by Fivetran, while Airbyte offers an open-source self-hosted model in addition to a cloud offering. Airbyte allows deploying the solution on your own infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes), providing more control over data and costs, whereas Fivetran simplifies operations by managing all maintenance.

## 2. What is a connector in the context of Fivetran or Airbyte?

**Answer**

A connector is a preconfigured component that extracts data from a specific source (database, API, SaaS) to a destination (data warehouse, data lake). Each connector handles authentication, pagination, error handling, and schema mapping for a given source, avoiding the need to write custom integration code.

## 3. What is the difference between Full Refresh and Incremental sync?

**Answer**

Full Refresh extracts all data from the source on each sync and replaces existing data in the destination. Incremental only transfers new data or changes since the last sync, using a cursor (timestamp, auto-increment ID). Incremental is more efficient in terms of time, costs, and load on the source.

## 17 more questions available

- What is CDC (Change Data Capture) and why is it used in ingestion tools?
- What main advantage does CDC provide compared to timestamp-based incremental sync?

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