We performed a comparison between Informatica PowerCenter and SAP Data Services based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: SAP Data Services wins out in this comparison. The main difference between the two solutions is that Informatica PowerCenter cannot do batch processing and users also consider it to be expensive.
"It's a complete package, which is why we use this solution."
"Easy, scalable, robust platform to integrate heterogeneous source platform's data into the unified data warehouse."
"The solution is stable."
"Good product if you are trying implement data quality, data integration, and data management projects."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager."
"The interface is very clean and clear."
"The partitioning and optimization to help enhance our development is a very valuable aspect of Informatica PowerCenter."
"In the end, you have structured, proper data for use in an integrated BI solution."
"The most valuable feature is the ETL functionality."
"Data Services' table comparison mechanism is very powerful. It's pretty hard to find a similar feature in other solutions."
"The reporting on the data, even from third-party software, is very good."
"I have worked with Data Services for a long time, and currently, I find the dashboarding and reporting part to be the most valuable function."
"The most valuable features of SAP Data Services lie in its ability to effectively observe and interpret the information within data related to people or facts, stands out."
"The solution is easy to use since it's a graphical tool. It also requires only low-level coding."
"The BA reporting tools, such as Data Services, and ETL tool in SAP Data Services are the most valuable. When we had in-memory requirements, we used HANA. HANA is most preferably for most the customers for in-memory. SAP is the first company that created the in-memory concept."
"The maintenance of data services is the solution's most valuable feature."
"What needs improvement in Informatica PowerCenter is the cloud experience because, nowadays, other companies, such as AWS, Azure, and Google, have more experience in the cloud. The pricing for Informatica PowerCenter on the cloud is also very expensive for customers, so some customers prefer open-source tools or lower-priced tools, such as Azure. From my point of view, Informatica must work on the pricing policy and review the policy on the cloud for Informatica PowerCenter or propose more tools with lower pricing. Clients want the automatic integration of Informatica PowerCenter with other tools. Currently, the integration process is manual, and you have to add other tools to facilitate the integration, especially with the DevOps methodology. You need scripts and tools for the integration, and you'll need to use other integration tools if you want automatic deployment for Informatica PowerCenter, so this is another area for improvement in the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for the integration with APIs to be simpler, because currently, the API integration feature of Informatica PowerCenter is very difficult. It's not intuitive. You have to facilitate API integration and the real-time streaming of messages in Kafka, for example, so that should be improved."
"I found it is kind of weird that not all of the mapping changes are treated as true changes."
"This solution needs the functionality to do batch processing of data. It also lacks connectivity to NoSQL, unstructured data sources."
"PowerCenter could be improved by having more big data components. Normally, we prefer Informatica as a relational database, but nowadays, companies are trying to understand and use big data components. I think it would be useful if we had more chances to create a hub ecosystem because customers try to use some data integration tasks by SQL, Spark and Spark codes, and Scala, but at the end of the day, the company will understand that we need to trace all the steps. An ETL tool is a must for that company, if we're talking about the regulated industries like finance, telcos, etc. If Informatica's biggest ecosystems feature were okay, I would prefer to use it."
"The UI is outdated and old-fashioned, at least in our current version. Also, we have experienced some stability issues with the Workflow Monitor application."
"We had stability issues, mostly with JVM size."
"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required, considering the fact that the present licensing charges of the tool are expensive."
"While on-premises is a better product, we really need to move to the cloud and need the cloud to be as robust as this product."
"Scheduling of jobs in the sequence is not available. It's a very tedious process to do that particular task. If there was a tool to schedule in the sequence that would be extremely helpful."
"We would like the different tools offered within this solution to be available as standalone entities, rather than having to purchase the entire package when we only require a few features."
"The description of error messages isn't extensive, although they point to the problem. With other solutions, like Talend, I was able to use the debugger to get directly to the problem, but with SAP Data Services the debugger is not working. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the version specifically, but I'm using it in an enterprise environment and I can't do an upgrade."
"It's an ETL that is very good with relational databases but not as good with files and semi-structured files."
"The solution could improve the overall features. There is a lot that can be done in the solution, therefor there are areas where it can improve. Additionally, there is a need to make it easier for one to create connections to other non-SAP systems. The flexibility to connect to other non-SAP systems is needed."
"The solution should offer more machine learning and automation."
"The solution shows a lack of cloud support data services."
"I want some more business intelligence applications. People need to know more and more about data, including the transformation rules, etc. Informatica is a better product for data cataloging. SAP should update the data catalog."
Informatica PowerCenter is ranked 3rd in Data Integration with 78 reviews while SAP Data Services is ranked 10th in Data Integration with 45 reviews. Informatica PowerCenter is rated 8.0, while SAP Data Services is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Informatica PowerCenter writes "Stable, provides good support, and integrating it with other systems is very fast, but its pricing is expensive". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP Data Services writes "Responsive support, scalable, and beneficial integration". Informatica PowerCenter is most compared with Informatica Cloud Data Integration, Azure Data Factory, SSIS, Databricks and Alteryx Designer, whereas SAP Data Services is most compared with Azure Data Factory, Syniti Data Quality, SAP Process Orchestration, Palantir Foundry and SSIS. See our Informatica PowerCenter vs. SAP Data Services report.
See our list of best Data Integration vendors.
We monitor all Data Integration reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.