Why Column-Level Lineage Matters for dbt: Comparing the Options
Column-level lineage was a hot topic during 2024, with many data platforms and tools adding this feature to their software and boasting the benefits of column-level lineage for data workflows.
In this article, I’ll take a look at how column-level lineage works in dbt, in both open-source and dbt Cloud, and through SQLMesh; and see how the usage and workflow differs between these platforms.
Seeing lineage in your transformation platform, especially during data modeling updates, is particularly important because it’s at this stage that you most need to understand the impact of your actions.