Title: Data Pipeline
Author: joshua
Published: August 1, 2022
Last modified: November 26, 2025

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#  Data Pipeline

Parse.ly’s Data Pipeline (DPL) provides you with a fast and easy way to build in-
house analytics atop flexible, clean, accessible, and real-time user interaction
data.

**Before you begin**

Ensure that you’ve purchased the Parse.ly Data Pipeline by reviewing your contract.
Contact your Relationship Manager with questions.

![Parse.ly's Data Pipeline architecture showing data flow from collection to storage](
https://docs.parse.ly/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/07/visual-data-pipeline.png)

## Watch the Data Pipeline overview video

## What is user interaction data?

Every time your users, customers, or prospects interact with your business online,
they generate **user interaction data**.

This includes when they visit your website; read your content; use your mobile app;
view your ad; sign up for a newsletter; buy a product/service; or do anything else
associated with your business from a connected device. But this kind of data has
traditionally been difficult to collect and access.

The kind of interactions users have with your business usually center around two
things: users (visitors) and content (URLs). And the interactions can vary from 
the surface-level (such as content views) to the very detailed (such as precise 
number of seconds spent reading/watching a piece of content).

Parse.ly measures all of this, providing a deep and detailed understanding of both
visitors and the content on your site or in your apps/products. Parse.ly also provides
robust infrastructure instrumenting your own user interactions, otherwise known 
as **custom events**.

## Why do I need a Data Pipeline?

Although you could spend resources to develop expensive infrastructure from scratch,
Parse.ly is ready to provide you with a cloud analytics pipeline. And Parse.ly has
already scaled it to support hundreds of the web’s largest sites and it processes
billions of monthly interactions.

Using Parse.ly Data Pipeline, you can turn any website or mobile app into a data
stream of rich user interaction data — and you can do so in minutes, not months.

## What makes Parse.ly different?

 * **You own the data**. Parse.ly’s Data Pipeline swiftly delivers 100% of your 
   raw, unsampled data without rollups. Parse.ly captures and securely stores every
   single event from your users, sites, and apps. Parse.ly provides an elastic data
   store for complete historical retention. Parse.ly provides raw event data for
   unrestricted analysis. Every interaction is yours to manipulate, analyze, join
   with other sources, or transfer.
 * **Access via standard AWS APIs**. You have the option of Amazon S3 for historical
   data and Amazon Kinesis Streams for real-time data. Client libraries exist for
   all popular programming languages and analysis frameworks. Access to your data
   is possible even from local development machines or other cloud hosting providers.
 * **Proven reliability**. Parse.ly’s technology supports over 100,000 users via
   [the real-time content analytics dashboard](https://www.parse.ly/content-analytics-dashboard/).
 * **Scale in minutes, not months**. By providing the JavaScript tracker through
   a global CDN and DNS, Parse.ly’s infrastructure assures prompt data delivery 
   and low latency.
 * **Integration is a breeze**. Parse.ly’s data formats are compatible with Python,
   R, Spark, Redshift, BigQuery, and more. Parse.ly also provides standard schemas
   for data use in tools like Looker, Periscope, and Tableau.
 * **Cost-effective**. Parse.ly’s large-scale analytics service allows significant
   discounts on the Data Pipeline service. Customers have reported significant cost
   savings and risk reductions associated with development.
 * **Fast**. Parse.ly measures end-to-end delivery times in seconds. Parse.ly captures
   every single event and stores it securely and durably. From there, you also get
   an elastic data store for full historical retention, stored in 15-minute chunks
   of compressed JSON data.

### The fast path to custom analytics

In short, Parse.ly’s Data Pipeline gets you to your data insights faster. Don’t 
deal with the drudgery of building a real-time data collection and delivery pipeline.
Don’t bang your head against some legacy vendor’s antiquated schemas and unclean
data sources.

Instead, get on the fast path to custom analytics.

## Next steps

Further reading:

 * [Use cases](https://docs.parse.ly/data-pipeline-usecases/)
 * [Getting access](https://docs.parse.ly/data-pipeline-access/)
 * [Schema & formats](https://docs.parse.ly/data-pipeline-schema/)
 * [Database schemas & DDLs](https://docs.parse.ly/data-pipeline-third-party-databases/)
 * [Code examples](https://docs.parse.ly/data-pipeline-code/)

Help from our team:

 * **Already a Parse.ly customer?** Simply [open a ticket](https://www.parse.ly/support),
   and Parse.ly Support will be in touch with how to get you the raw data you’ve
   been looking for.
 * **Not a Parse.ly customer?** No worries! [Fill out this form](https://www.parse.ly/contact)
   and someone will be in touch shortly.

Last updated: November 26, 2025