Report

Should I Use Dagster?

dagster.io·Analyzed 22 hours ago·9/18/2026·Based on 8 sources

Data orchestrator platform to build, schedule, and monitor reliable data pipelines.

Depends

Buy it if you have a real data engineering team building Python pipelines that need lineage, observability, and scheduling.

Strong Python-first orchestration for real data teams; overkill for simple jobs; merging with Prefect.

Confidence: Medium

4.5/5

G2 rating

low public review volume

~$47M

Funding

private (Elementl, Inc.)

Yes

Free tier

open-source core, self-hosted

Value for money

Open-source core; free if self-hosted

Ease of use

Local developer experience called best in category

Feature depth

Lineage, observability, catalog, quality built in

Security posture

SSO/RBAC/audit logs, but one disclosed LFI CVE

Pros

Asset-centric orchestration model praised by practitioners^⁴
Open source, cloud-native, full development lifecycle^²
Integrated lineage and observability out of the box^²
Enterprise features: SAML SSO, RBAC, audit logs^⁴
Widely recommended in the dbt community

Cons

CVE-2025-51481: arbitrary file read via gRPC notebook endpoint^⁵
Dagster is joining Prefect — roadmap uncertainty^³
Built for engineers; not analyst-friendly^⁴
Thin public review volume makes satisfaction hard to verify^⁴

Gotchas

highDagster is joining Prefect; expect product, roadmap, and possibly pricing changes during integration^³
highDisclosed LFI CVE targeted the gRPC server; restrict access and patch promptly^⁶
mediumSelf-hosting the free core means you own upgrades, patching, and security for the gRPC layer^²
mediumPublished pricing not found in sources; likely sales-led — negotiate and get multi-year protection^⁴

Best for

Python-savvy data engineering teams
dbt-centric analytics stacks
Teams needing asset lineage and observability
AI/data pipeline platforms

Not for

Small teams that just need scheduled scripts — use cron
Non-Python shops without engineers to own it
Buyers wanting zero-infra managed ingestion — use Fivetran
Risk-averse buyers: vendor is merging into Prefect

Companies that use it

Flo Energy^¹

Pricing

Open Source

Self-hosted orchestration
You manage infrastructure

Security

Published security page with SSO/RBAC/audit logging; one disclosed 2025 local-file-inclusion CVE in the gRPC server.

CVE-2025-51481 — LFI in gRPC ExternalNotebookData endpointAttackers with access to the gRPC server could read arbitrary files via path traversal in the notebook_path field.^⁵

What users say

Practitioners praise the asset-centric model and local developer experience, with little complaint volume in public sources.

“Dagster's local developer experience is one of the best in the category”

— Bauplan engineering blog

“In a couple days I was able to make a data processing pipeline that read in an Excel file and use the data to create CAD files and update their properties.”

— LinkedIn, Matthew Sommer