Embedded vs traditional integration platforms
Before breaking down the embedded data integration market, it’s important to understand the difference between an embedded iPaaS and traditional iPaaS (integration platform as a service).
Traditional integration platforms
Traditional integration platforms are built for analysts who are running business intelligence on internal company data.
Tools in this space include Fivetran, Stitch, Airbyte, and more.
These platforms allow you to sync data from your internal business tools to your data warehouse.
For example, an analyst might sync their:
- CRM data from Salesforce,
- Accounting data from QuickBooks, and
- Billing data from Stripe
to their BigQuery warehouse. From there, they could run queries to gauge the growth of the company.
Embedded integration platforms
Embedded integration platforms are built for product teams that need to offer their customers integrations with business tools.
Let’s walk through an example:
Imagine you were building an email marketing tool, and you want to let your users connect their CRMs to:
- import their lead lists, and
- update the leads when the emails are opened
An embedded iPaaS would handle this connectivity on your behalf, so you don’t have to develop this whole flow in-house.
The need for SaaS apps to connect with other business tools has only increased in the past few years, leading to a boom in embedded iPaaS solutions.
Let’s take a look at some of the players in the space below and what makes them different from each other.
hotglue
hotglue is a developer-first embedded integration platform, designed to reduce the engineering work involved in building and maintaining native SaaS integrations.
Developer experience
hotglue was built to maintain engineering teams control over the functionality of their integrations while abstracting away the authorization, infrastructure, and even connection UI of the integrations.
hotglue features a library of prebuilt connectors that handle syncing data with third party integrations, and a transformation layer to shape and filter the data as needed.
Engineers enable and configure integrations in an admin panel, which also allows engineers to view logs of user data syncs and more. Paired with an API and CLI for managing the integrations and their configurations programmatically, this allows engineers to offer more integrations at higher scale.
End-user experience
Developers can leverage hotglue’s embeddable frontend components to enable end-users to link and manage their integrations (view sync history, set custom mappings, and trigger jobs). Alternatively, you can use the hotglue REST API directly to link and manage integrations.
Sync Method
hotglue offers batch and real-time trigger based syncing.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, hotglue offers over 180 integrations spanning categories such as CRMs, accounting and ERP systems, billing systems, e-commerce systems, and more.
Pricing Model
hotglue has a tiered subscription model based on the number of connected users who have connected an integration.
You can learn more about hotglue’s pricing model here.
Paragon
Paragon is a low-code embedded integration platform, allowing less technical teams to setup integration workflows for end-users.
Developer experience
Similar to hotglue, Paragon has an admin panel where developers can manage all the integrations and workflows they want to provide to their users. However, Paragon’s approach is more low-code based, offering a drag and drop UI to create workflows for their trigger based integrations.
Paragon also provides an API to link integrations, query end-user configs, and more.
End-user experience
Paragon provides embeddable pop-up components to allow end-users to link integrations. On Paragon’s lowest-tiered plan, this embeddable component will have Paragon branding.
Sync Method
Paragon offers workflow and trigger based syncing.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Paragon offers 45 integrations in categories such as CRMs, analytics, and office suite.
Pricing Model
Paragon has a usage based pricing model which factors in the amount of connected users, number of workflow executions, white-label options, and more.
Workato Embedded
Workato is a leading traditional iPaaS that also offers an embedded integration product. Workato is a no code platform, designed to make the creation and implementation of automations 10X faster.
Developer experience
For developers, Workato offers a drag and drop UI to build automations for end-users. Instead of building an integration from scratch, you pick from Workato’s recipes, similar to how one would use a pre-defined Zap, and edit from there.
End-user experience
Workato provides an embeddable iFrame for end-users to link integrations, though it must be noted that it is branded with Workato logos. End-users must click on a button that says “Activate Workato Workflows” to start connecting their integrations.
Sync Method
Workato offers trigger and batch based syncing.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Workato offers 696 integrations in categories such as Sales & Marketing, Project Management, Customer Service, HR, Finance & Accounting, and more.
Pricing Model
The Workato Embedded pricing model is not public. Based on the information we have, Workato has an annual platform fee around $50,000, and then allows users to choose between 2 usage-based pricing plans.
The first plan is task based, at $0.75 per task, or $7,500 per million tasks. The second option is a per connector option, which allows you to pay $2,500 per connector.
Tray Embedded
Tray.io, similar to Workato, is a low-code traditional iPaaS Platform that also offers an embedded integration product.
Developer experience
Tray is very similar to Workato in offering an admin panel where users can configure triggers and workflows based on internal business logic.
End-user experience
For your end-user, Tray’s embedded experience can be jarring. It takes the end-user outside of your product to a Tray-branded link with a non-customizable UI that makes it obvious to the user that they are not using a native integration.
Sync Method
Tray offers trigger based syncing.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Tray offers over 421 integrations in categories such as Customer Success & Support, E-Commerce, Finance & Accounting, HR, Marketing, and more.
Pricing Model
The Tray Embedded pricing model is not currently public. Based on limited information, it is understood that there is an annual platform fee around $20,000, with an additional $7,000 fee per integration, alongside a final $50-$70 fee per connection.
Prismatic
Prismatic is a low-code embedded integration platform. They offer an embeddable integration marketplace and allow creating workflows using their integration designer.
Developer experience
Prismatic does emphasize they are a low-code tool, but do provide engineers with functionality to build robust integrations, including a CLI and an SDK for building custom connectors.
End-user experience
Prismatic offers an embedded integration marketplace where end-users can connect their integrations.
Sync Method
Prismatic offers both batch and trigger based syncing.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Prismatic offers 96 integrations in various categories such as Data Platforms, HR, and more.
Pricing Model
Prismatic’s pricing model is not currently public, but they offer a 30-day free trial.
Merge
Merge has a set of unified API for specific verticals of B2B SaaS products. Additionally, they offer an embeddable widget for end-users to authenticate their third-party integrations.
Developer experience
Merge is the first unified API on this list, which is a little different than the previous tools we’ve mentioned. For developers, working with Merge means working directly with their APIs in a code-first way. Merge’s documentation is public.
End-user experience
Merge offers an embeddable Plaid-like widget to allow end-users to link their integrations.
Sync Method
Merge offers a REST API to retrieve synced data.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Merge offers 133 integrations in various categories such as HRIS, ATS, Accounting, and more.
Pricing Model
Merge has a usage-based pricing model which varies on which of their API products you use. The pricing is tiered, and the pricing of the first tier is publicly available on their site.
Codat
Codat is similar to Merge in that it also has a set of unified APIs for specific verticals of B2B SaaS products. Additionally, they offer an embeddable widget for end-users to authenticate their third-party integrations.
Developer experience
For developers, working with Codat means working directly with their APIs in a code-first way. Codat’s documentation is public.
End-user experience
For end-users, Codat offers what they call Link, a pre-built white-labeled authorization component. Alternatively, developers can also build their own authorization flow without using the embeddable component.
Sync Method
Codat offers a REST API to retrieve synced data.
Integration Library
At the time of writing, Codat offers 37 integrations across 3 main categories: Accounting, Commerce (billing, PoS, and e-commerce), and Banking.
Pricing Model
Codat’s pricing model is not currently public, but they do offer a free tier.
Conclusion
There are many different embedded integration platforms aimed at helping product teams offer SaaS integrations to their end-users. Each tool features a different approach and feature set, making them better tailored to different integration use cases.
For example, hotglue, Workato, and Prismatic offer scheduled batch syncing, making them ideal for handling integrations where large amounts of data will be moving at scale.
On the other hand, tools like Codat and Merge provide you with a unified API to query end-user data and receive a standardized response. This makes them ideal for cases where you only need integrations in a specific vertical and data volume is relatively low.
Depending on your specific use cases, some of these tools may be a great fit and some may not! This article should serve as a starting point to help you discover what tools are out there.
If hotglue happens to be one of the tools you are interested in checking out, you can schedule a demo to learn more.
