Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Ranking in Data Integration
47th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (29th)
Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Integration
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 9.4%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Enables creation of sophisticated applications with powerful parallelism and quick, effective support
The most valuable features of Ab Initio Co>Operating System are its performance and the ability to implement parallelism. There are three kinds of parallelism in Ab Initio Co>Operating System, which allow us to create very sophisticated solutions for almost any kind of application. This parallelism is one of the strongest features. Additionally, its scalability offers a unique way to escalate applications that differs from other technologies. In terms of data processing, the emphasis is on understanding the data. Data profiling is fundamental, and Ab Initio Co>Operating System integrates tools to perform this within the GDE, as well as specialized products for this purpose. Data profiling graphs can be implemented when necessary to understand the data sources.
Lars Borchers - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reliable product that provides a variety of features for data integration
The solution is not for newcomers. It has an old touch. The solution must improve the integration with new services. It was part of the program at Informatica when they moved to their cloud platform. It is integrated. However, from an on-premise perspective, we need to buy licenses for PowerExchange. If we want a native driver to access a special service, we need to extend our license to those services. It is expensive. I don't like that it's not all included in the solution.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Ab Initio Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"I found the map links, work links, and workflows valuable. They are important features."
"What I like the most is that we have to deal with less while writing the queries."
"The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good."
"The ability to scale through partitions helped us to improve the performance."
"Informatica PowerCenter is very good for integrating a huge amount of data in a very short duration, such as a minute. It is also very easy to use. After you provide the source and the target, mappings are automatically done, which makes it easy to use for the development team."
"Technical support is great. It's one of the reasons we really like them. When you compare support from IBM and support from Informatica, Informatica is much better."
"It has very good monitoring and process monitoring."
"Can manage a huge quantity of data and provide reliability."
 

Cons

"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"I would like to see improvements made to the custom transformations. It should be more open for users that want to write their own code and use cases."
"The only problem with this product is the level of complexity with the number of levels of transformation that you have to go through."
"Its interface can be modernized. It is an old product. I have been working with it for 14 years, and it still looks the same. It hasn't been modernized much. It also needs to handle more modern formats, such as JSON files. It works with the old text files and databases, but it does not always work with the newer, modern stuff. You need to make your own programs to support that kind of stuff. Support is also a kind of difficult with Informatica. They don't do direct support and rely on using their distributors around the globe for support, which means that you kind of have to go through this layer of different companies before you get help."
"If you want to transfer a ZIP file, it is a pain. You need to use Command-Line. Sometimes we just want to transfer a file. It should be easy to move them from A to B."
"The solution's commercial cost is very high. Other open-source tools can do the tool's functions for free. The world is moving to the cloud, but the solution hasn't updated its drivers. I presume that its downfall will start soon. The tool is trying to cross-sell or upsell without helping customers derive benefits from the existing products. They have multiple tools and licenses. It is better to bring the smaller tools in one umbrella."
"It would be better if I could do all the work within a single window. If I'm working on any mapping and if I have to switch to sessions, I have to open a new window altogether. If I have to get into workflows, I have to open a new window. It was also very expensive. In the next release, I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"In terms of performance improvement and tuning, there should be a bit more guidance and documentation."
"The solution must improve the integration with new services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"Its licensing is expensive in terms of scaling."
"Informatica PowerCenter is reasonably priced. It is less expensive than Pentaho. There is a standard version fee in Taiwan. It is a one-time yearly subscription price that is approximately $3,010 US dollars for three users."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The price is very high, and it doesn't understand the market now."
"Since the solution's cost is higher, I rate the pricing as a five out of ten."
"It is for big enterprises. We have leveraged Informatica for big enterprises but not for small and medium enterprises because it is a very costly product as compared to other products. We propose this solution only for enterprise customers. For small to medium enterprises, we would propose the Microsoft solution. Its licensing is currently bundle-wise. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise."
"Pricing for Informatica PowerCenter isn't cheap, but if I compare it with IBM, it's as expensive as IBM, however, Informatica PowerCenter is more innovative, especially when compared to a giant company such as IBM that has thousands of products. Informatica PowerCenter is limited only to data management, but it has new features that come out every quarter. Points for ease of use and flexibility go to Informatica PowerCenter, but price-wise, IBM and Informatica are equal because they're both expensive."
"I consider this to be an expensive product."
"Licensing costs are excessive and pose an obstacle to someone who lacks familiarity with the solution and wishes to have a proper understanding of it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user90069 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2014
Informatica PowerCenter vs. Microsoft SSIS - each technology has its advantages but also have similarities
Technology has made it easier for businesses to organize and manipulate data to get a clearer picture of what’s going on with their business. Notably, ETL tools have made managing huge amounts of data significantly easier and faster, boosting many organizations’ business intelligence operations…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
38%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
Ab Initio Co>Operating System has its own paradigm, requiring a new approach to problem-solving that differs from traditional paradigms like object-oriented programming. While many people sugges...
What is your primary use case for Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
My main experience with Ab Initio Co>Operating System has been in banking. I have architected and developed many applications, some in the backend as ETL solutions but also to generate different...
What advice do you have for others considering Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Ab Initio Co>Operating System a nine. It is a very good technology for solving large data problems or approaching big data solutions. However, it is not su...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica PowerCenter?
Azure Data Factory is flexible, modular, and works well. In terms of cost, it is not too pricey. It offers the stability and reliability I am looking for, good scalability, and is easy to set up an...
Which is better - SSIS or Informatica PowerCenter?
SSIS PowerPack is a group of drag and drop connectors for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, commonly called SSIS. The collection helps organizations boost productivity with code-free compo...
Which Informatica product would you choose - PowerCenter or Cloud Data Integration?
Complex transformations can easily be achieved using PowerCenter, which has all the features and tools to establish a real data governance strategy. Additionally, PowerCenter is able to manage huge...
 

Also Known As

Co>Operating System
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

A multinational transportation company
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.