Change data capture (CDC) is a crucial infrastructure pattern that enables event-driven microservices, real-time analytics, and incremental ELT pipelines. Debezium, an open-source CDC tool, has become the standard for many organizations, but its adoption comes with the cost and complexity of a distributed streaming platform. CockroachDB's native CDC system takes a different approach by building changefeeds directly into the database engine, removing the need for Kafka Connect and its associated infrastructure. The new enriched changefeeds in v.25.2 of CockroachDB can match Debezium's message format, providing operational simplicity without breaking downstream consumers. This allows teams to migrate off Kafka Connect without giving up format formality, making it an attractive alternative for those looking to simplify their CDC pipelines and reduce infrastructure overhead.