Hey Ankit

While MERGE is a powerful SQL operation, the CDC implementation shown here offers more granular control and detailed tracking of changes, including specific change types, audit trails, and validation steps that go beyond simple MERGE capabilities.

As for CDC vs incremental loads - CDC captures and tracks specific changes (inserts/updates/deletes) at a record level in real-time or near real-time, while incremental loads typically just append new or modified records based on a timestamp without tracking the specific type of change.

CDC is particularly useful when you need to know exactly what changed and how it changed, making it ideal for audit trails, compliance, and maintaining synchronized systems

Hope, it will help you to understand CDC vs Incremental loading topics effectively.