What Great Expectations does

Great Expectations is a Salt Lake City-based private software company founded in 2017 (with the open source project launching in 2018) that provides a data quality platform built around an open source Python framework called GX Core. The technical core is a set of declarative, plain-language data tests called Expectations that define what 'good data' means for a business, packaged with Data Docs for human-readable rendering, Actions for automated alerting and pipeline gating, ValidationDefinitions for reproducible workflows, and Checkpoints for orchestrating multiple validations in production. GX Core supports SQL databases (Snowflake, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Redshift, SQL Server, Databricks, Trino, Fabric), cloud storage (S3, Azure Blob, GCS), and execution engines (Pandas, Spark), with native orchestration through Apache Airflow and integrations with Dagster.

The company monetizes through a tiered SaaS product called GX Cloud layered on top of GX Core, with a free Developer tier (up to 5 Data Assets and 3 users), a paid Team tier (up to 10 users, custom Data Asset limits), and an Enterprise tier (unlimited Data Assets and users, 99.5% SLA, guaranteed support response times as fast as 1 hour, HIPAA BAA availability). GX Core itself remains free under Apache 2.0. SOC 2 Type II certification and HIPAA compliance support enterprise sales motions alongside the product-led growth motion driven by the free tier and a 11,000+ member community across Slack and Discourse.

The company was historically known as Superconductive, has approximately 54-60 employees as of 2025, and reported $5.9M ARR for 2025 under CEO Hernan Alvarez, who cofounded the company with Abe Gong and James Campbell. Capital raised totals approximately $61M across a 2019 seed round and Series A and B rounds (Index Ventures led the $21M Series A in May 2021, and Tiger Global led the $40M Series B in February 2022). In May 2026, Fivetran announced plans to become steward of the GX Core open source project, and the company announced the shutdown of GX Cloud effective June 1, 2026, marking a strategic transition from commercial SaaS toward an open source, community-driven model.

Name

Great Expectations

Legal name

Great Expectations

Website

https://greatexpectations.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Salt Lake City

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. GX Cloud Subscription: SaaS subscription revenue from GX Cloud across three tiers: Developer (free), Team (paid), and Enterprise (paid with custom limits). Revenue reported at $5.9M ARR in 2025.
2. GX Core Open Source: GX Core is free and open source under Apache 2.0 license. Serves as the foundation for community growth and conversion to paid GX Cloud tiers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Great Expectations develops and distributes GX Core, an Apache 2.0 licensed open source Python framework for declarative data quality testing, and GX Cloud, a fully managed SaaS platform built on GX Core that adds collaborative workflows, scheduling, notifications, role-based access controls, and historical results. The platform validates structured/tabular data using Expectations and supports SQL data sources (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, Postgres, SQL Server, Trino), cloud storage (S3, Azure Blob, GCS), and execution engines (Pandas, Spark).

Product overview

Great Expectations offers a two-component data quality platform: GX Core (the open source Python framework) and GX Cloud (the SaaS management layer built on top). GX Core provides the technical engine for data validation through 47 built-in Expectations, supporting connections to SQL databases (Snowflake, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Redshift, SQL Server, Databricks, Trino, etc.), cloud storage (S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage), and execution engines (Pandas, Spark). GX Cloud adds a fully managed SaaS layer with collaborative workflows, scheduling, notifications, and RBAC for non-technical stakeholders. The platform was created to solve pipeline debt through automated data quality testing. Fivetran announced plans in May 2026 to become steward of the GX Core open source project.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• GX Core: Open source data quality framework - the engine of the GX data quality platform, providing the technical capabilities for data validation and testing.
• GX Cloud

Products and services

• GX Core GX Core is the open source Apache 2.0 licensed Python data quality framework that serves as the technical engine of the GX platform. It provides declarative Expectations for validating SQL databases, data warehouses, filesystems, Pandas DataFrames, and Spark DataFrames, with native integrations to Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, Postgres, SQL Server, Trino, S3, Azure Blob, GCS, and orchestrators like Airflow. Designed for data engineering teams who want a free, programmable way to define and enforce data quality rules.
• GX Cloud GX Cloud is a fully managed SaaS platform built on GX Core that adds hosted infrastructure, a collaborative web interface, automated monitoring, scheduling, configurable notifications (Slack, email, Teams), historical validation results, and role-based access controls for both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Offered across Developer (free), Team, and Enterprise tiers, with Enterprise including a 99.5% SLA, 1-hour support response during business hours, and HIPAA BAA availability. Announced shutdown effective June 1, 2026 with Fivetran assuming stewardship of GX Core.

Quantifiable outcome

• Automated observability tools resolve incidents 4x faster than manual approaches
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration21 records

AI capability2 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• FivetrancoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 13 May 2026Fivetran announced plans to become steward of the Great Expectations open source community and GX Core project, supporting ongoing development, maintenance, ecosystem integrations, and community engagement. This transition aligns with Fivetran's Open Data Infrastructure vision and announced merger with dbt Labs in October 2025.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Monte Carlo Data: Monte Carlo is a leading data observability platform that provides automated data quality monitoring, anomaly detection, and incident management — directly competing with Great Expectations' GX Cloud in the enterprise data quality space.
• Bigeye: Bigeye is a data observability platform that automates data quality checks and anomaly detection across data warehouses — directly comparable to GX Cloud's enterprise offering.
• Datafold: Datafold provides data quality testing and column-level data lineage, overlapping with GX's testing framework while extending into diff and observability workflows that compete for similar budgets.
• Anomalo: Anomalo provides no-code data quality monitoring using machine learning to detect data issues without writing tests — competing with GX for enterprise data quality budgets, especially among less technical buyers.
• Soda: Soda offers an open-source data quality and observability framework (Soda Core) plus a SaaS management layer, closely paralleling Great Expectations' dual GX Core/GX Cloud model.
• Metaplane: Metaplane is a data observability platform focused on automated data monitoring and alerting — an emerging direct competitor targeting the same data engineering persona as Great Expectations.

Broad incumbents

• Collibra: Collibra is a data intelligence and governance platform with data quality capabilities — a broad incumbent serving enterprise data governance buyers that overlap with Great Expectations' business-stakeholder segment.
• dbt Labs: dbt Labs is the leading open-source data transformation tool (now merging with Fivetran) — its dbt tests feature provides lightweight data quality checks that compete with GX's Expectations and is becoming a distribution channel via the Fivetran stewardship relationship.
• Datadog: Datadog's Cloud Database Monitoring and observability suite extends into data pipeline and warehouse monitoring — a broad incumbent that competes for enterprise data quality and observability budgets.

Others

• Apache Airflow: Apache Airflow is the dominant open-source workflow orchestration platform that Great Expectations integrates with natively — an ecosystem enabler rather than direct competitor, but central to the data pipeline workflows GX validates.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/great-expectations/great_expectations
• Xx.com/expectgreatdata
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/greatexpectations-data

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Great Expectations