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 provides everything I need. Nothing is missing. PowerCenter is a good tool for on-premise databases."
"Deployment was simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable features are the metadata repository and the data warehouse application console."
"The most valuable feature is the new Data Lake feature, which provides the basic capabilities needed."
"We can scale the product."
"Informatica PowerCenter has good user feedback. The developers can easily make mappings in the solution."
"The reliability of the product and the way of orchestration of different services is valuable to us."
"It's very easy to use it to develop mappings and workflows."
"The fact that it's built on SQL, it makes it easy to write code. The database and the connection are quite smooth."
"The maintenance of data services is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Technical support from SAP is awesome. If we have an issue, they give a good solution."
"The HANA database, which is very fast, is a valuable feature."
"Its integration capabilities and the data migration capabilities are the most valuable. It is very good for SAP and non-SAP tools. It has very good integration with SAP, but it also has the capabilities to connect to other systems. We find it very helpful and stable."
"The user interface is ok."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Data Services is the integration with data sources."
"Data Services' best features are its robustness and plug-and-play integration with other SAP applications."
"The initial setup is not straightforward. You need expertise to do it."
"The performance of Informatica PowerCenter could improve."
"Its licensing can be improved. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise. A bundle will definitely be costly. In addition, we might use one or two features. That's why the pricing model should be based on the features. The model should be flexible enough based on the features. Their support should also be more responsive to premium customers."
"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."
"We had stability issues, mostly with JVM size."
"Informatica PowerCenter could improve on the documentation for the implementation. The documents provided are not very good for a new user."
"Informatica PowerCenter could improve by having a single interface because half of the system is still in the legacy interface and many other elements are moved to the developer client. It would be good if there was a single interface for the end user and developers."
"The reputation of Informatica is that it is expensive."
"It's an ETL that is very good with relational databases but not as good with files and semi-structured files."
"Data Services SAP is lacking in sources and target databases compared to Informatica. SAP Data Services should have more connectivity."
"Integration with other products could be improved."
"An area for improvement in SAP Data Services could involve making the product more accessible to non-technical end-users."
"We encounter challenges while exporting implemented rules, such as those applied to objects like the material master, into a format like Excel for documentation and further analysis."
"The solution should offer more machine learning and automation."
"The interface is not quite user-friendly and is in need of improvement."
"At the integration level, there could be certain set of improvement to connect to various other systems."
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 Talend Open Studio, 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.
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