Cortex
Cortex 1.22 is on its fourth candidate, with sharded Parquet and years of deprecated flags removed.
Comparison · Analytics
Countly vs Dagster
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Countly and Dagster — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Countly vs Dagster: at a glance
What is Countly?
Countly's two LTS lines now get the same security fixes within a week of each other.
Countly ships security patches on two LTS lines, 25.03 and 24.05. In late October 25.03.56 moved the Docker images to Node.js 24.22.1 for a Brotli CVE and brought Python 3.12.15 to the A/B testing stack; 25.03.58 tightened tokens: app-restricted tokens must state their permissions, password changes revoke a member's tokens, and single-use tokens hold under concurrent requests. 24.05.55 then brought those same fixes to the older line, including the isolated-vm sandbox for custom hook code that 25.03 adopted in August.
What is Dagster?
Dagster is untangling itself from dbt-core so dbt Fusion can run without a fight.
Dagster's six most recent 1.13 releases are dominated by two threads. dagster-dbt no longer installs dbt-core, and a new extra installs dbt v2, the Fusion engine, with clear errors if the two are combined. The UI gained a phone layout covering Home, Jobs, Automation, Timeline, the Asset Catalog and run details. Dagster+ also added capacity-based alert policies, and agents can now retry code locations that fail to start.
Countly vs Dagster: editorial side-by-side
Countly
5.0ANALYTICS
Countly's two LTS lines now get the same security fixes within a week of each other.
◆ Current state
Countly ships security patches on two LTS lines, 25.03 and 24.05. In late October 25.03.56 moved the Docker images to Node.js 24.22.1 for a Brotli CVE and brought Python 3.12.15 to the A/B testing stack; 25.03.58 tightened tokens: app-restricted tokens must state their permissions, password changes revoke a member's tokens, and single-use tokens hold under concurrent requests. 24.05.55 then brought those same fixes to the older line, including the isolated-vm sandbox for custom hook code that 25.03 adopted in August.
◆ Where it's heading
The work is about access control and supply chain, not new analytics features. Tokens, sessions and login counting are being tightened release by release, and the 24.05 line is being pulled up to the 25.03 runtime (Node.js 22 for custom code, Python 3.12 with CmdStanPy for A/B testing) instead of being left on older stacks. Feature work shows up only in small items such as explicitly named databases and a licence payment-overdue banner.
◆ Prediction
Expect more paired patches as token and session hardening continues on both lines. The entries don't say how long 24.05 will keep receiving backports.
Dagster
5.0ANALYTICS
Dagster is untangling itself from dbt-core so dbt Fusion can run without a fight.
◆ Current state
Dagster's six most recent 1.13 releases are dominated by two threads. dagster-dbt no longer installs dbt-core, and a new extra installs dbt v2, the Fusion engine, with clear errors if the two are combined. The UI gained a phone layout covering Home, Jobs, Automation, Timeline, the Asset Catalog and run details. Dagster+ also added capacity-based alert policies, and agents can now retry code locations that fail to start.
◆ Where it's heading
The dbt work is a dependency reset with real consequences, because Fusion and dbt-core claim the same import namespace and overwrite each other silently. Dagster made the safe path the default and accepted a breaking change to do it. The rest of the window is operational hardening: resuming run workers on ECS, cross-account service discovery and clearer failure reasons when a run worker dies.
◆ Prediction
Weekly-style 1.13 releases should keep extending Fusion coverage in dagster-dbt, since metadata fetching there still degrades to warnings. Declarative Automation for jobs does not appear in these entries, so its exit from preview remains unconfirmed.
Alternatives to Countly and Dagster
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Countly or Dagster.
OpenMetadata
OpenMetadata reaches 2.1 rc1 after a month of repairing 2.0's connectors.
Stitch
Stitch keeps patching connectors one replication bug at a time.
Datawrapper
Datawrapper's October is touch tooltips, keyboard focus and small chart repairs.
Fluent Bit
Fluent Bit spends October bounding what its inputs will accept.
Axiom
Axiom makes agent work checkable, and points alerts straight at coding agents
See all Countly alternatives → · See all Dagster alternatives →
Recent activity from Countly and Dagster
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoDagster1.13.28: dbt v2 extra and retries for failed code locations
- 2d agoCountlyCountly Version 24.05.55
- 5d agoCountlyCountly Version 25.03.58
- 6d agoDagster1.13.27: mobile run details, bounded BigQuery Insights scans
- 7d agoCountlyCountly Version 25.03.57-LTS
- 9d agoCountlyCountly Version 25.03.56-LTS
- 20d agoCountlyCountly Version 25.03.55
- 23d agoDagster1.13.26: dagster-dbt stops installing dbt-core
- 1mo agoDagster1.13.25: phone layout for the Dagster UI, ECS run resumes
- 1mo agoCountlyCountly Version 24.05.54
- 1mo agoDagster1.13.24: cross-account ECS discovery, snapshot column lineage
- 1mo agoDagster1.13.23: alert policies on deployment capacity
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Countly and Dagster?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Countly and Dagster are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Countly better than Dagster?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Countly and Dagster are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Countly?
Top Countly alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Countly alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/countly for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Dagster?
Top Dagster alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Dagster alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dagster for the full list with editorial commentary on each.