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Adaptive Insights vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

Adaptive Insights
Ranking in Data Visualization
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (6th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Reporting (11th), ESG Reporting Software (3rd)
Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Visualization
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 1.5%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models
For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.
Deepak Shiv - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides multiple transformations in one toolset and helpful when extracting data from multiple sources
Error handling capability is quite good in Informatica PowerCenter because it provides a very detailed session log, which is really helpful to identify errors. In addition, there are KB articles published by Informatica that are really helpful. So, error handling and the KB articles provided by Informatica are very helpful. Even if you face any issues or errors, we can usually resolve them. If the error cannot be solved with Informatica PowerCenter, we can raise a case with Informatica, and their support team will help us address that issue. If it cannot be solved with that particular version, they will consider it and try to solve it with the next patch or hotfix. AI Initiatives: Our company also has organizational AI or machine learning initiatives. However, Informatica PowerCenter doesn't fit into AI-related things because it's an on-premise tool. It doesn't have a significant role in the field. It is just a small ETL on-premises tool. So basically, in the AI field, Informatica PowerCenter is not going to be that impactful. Informatica has launched IICS and IDMC (Informatica Data Management Cloud and Informatica Cloud), where their AI comes into the picture. But for Informatica PowerCenter, AI does not come into the picture at all.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."
"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."
"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."
"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."
"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."
"It's very stable."
"Automated reporting."
"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."
"It reduces a lot of legacy coding."
"The reliability of the product and the way of orchestration of different services is valuable to us."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager."
"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is very user-friendly and the graphical design is very easy to understand."
"The ability to scale through partitions helped us to improve the performance."
"I like the automated scheduling feature."
"Ease and speed of building integrations, especially integrations between different applications, such as our Hospital Information System."
"The most complex task, in this case, was to read and transform BLOB data, and Java transformation in Informatica Power Center was a great solution."
 

Cons

"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."
"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."
"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."
"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."
"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."
"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."
"We had to take on a large volume of data from the legacy Sybase system. This was taking a very long time, i.e., more than a day. We were trying to improve it with partitions to gpload, but we were told that we can't go more than four partitions."
"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."
"The solution does not scale."
"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."
"PowerCenter could integrate better with cloud applications. We had to do a lot of configuration work using API integrations to connect with cloud applications. Informatica Cloud Data Integration has a generic connector that you can use directly, so it's much easier."
"This solution needs the functionality to do batch processing of data. It also lacks connectivity to NoSQL, unstructured data sources."
"What I didn't like about it is that the platform itself is not great at distributed processing. When you need high parallel processing, it has some inherent issues. We had to use Java transformation, and it did not go very well. I have heard that it is going to the cloud, but we haven't tried that."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"It's affordable."
"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."
"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."
"We have found the pricing very cost-effective. The licensing is CPU and data source-based."
"Compared to other tools, I think PowerCenter is a bit expensive. When I compare it to Oracle, if you want to use Oracle databases, you can easily get an ODI tool, so it's easier to handle. Informatica is a standalone tool—it's an independent company—and there are no databases around them, so it's quite expensive to use. Generally, large companies use PowerCenter because of the price. If companies want to expand their usage areas, they try to consider if it's easy to implement and easy to understand the pricing. I think the pricing is a barrier for Informatica."
"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."
"Since the solution's cost is higher, I rate the pricing as a five out of ten."
"Cost could be improved."
"A basic setup can be from $100,000 and up annually."
"The price is mostly reasonable."
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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
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?
It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?
12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...
What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?
The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...
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

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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