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Confluent vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Confluent
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (6th)
Informatica PowerCenter
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd), Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Confluent and Informatica PowerCenter aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Confluent is designed for Streaming Analytics and holds a mindshare of 6.6%, down 8.2% compared to last year.
Informatica PowerCenter, on the other hand, focuses on Data Integration, holds 3.5% mindshare, down 9.1% since last year.
Streaming Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Confluent6.6%
Apache Flink8.9%
Databricks8.1%
Other76.4%
Streaming Analytics
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Informatica PowerCenter3.5%
SSIS3.7%
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)3.6%
Other89.2%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

PavanManepalli - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP - Sr Middleware Messaging Integration Engineer at Wells Fargo
Has supported streaming use cases across data centers and simplifies fraud analytics with SQL-based processing
I recommend that Confluent should improve its solution to keep up with competitors in the market, such as Solace and other upcoming tools such as NATS. Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about Confluent charging high fees while not offering features that match those of other tools. They need to improve in that direction by not only reducing costs but also providing better solutions for the problems customers face to avoid frustrations, whether through future enhancement requests or ensuring product stability. The cost should be worked on, and they should provide better solutions for customers. Solutions should focus on hierarchical topics; if a customer has different types of data and sources, they should be able to send them to the same place for analytics. Currently, Confluent requires everything to send to the same topic, which becomes very large and makes running analytics difficult. The hierarchy of topics should be improved. This part is available in MQ and other products such as Solace, but it is missing in Confluent, leading many in capital markets and trading to switch to Solace. In terms of stability, it is not the stability itself that needs improvement but rather the delivery semantics. Other products offer exactly-once delivery out of the box, whereas Confluent states it will offer this but lacks the knobs or levers for tuning configurations effectively. Confluent has hundreds of configurations that application teams must understand, which creates a gap. Users are often unaware of what values to set for better performance or to achieve exactly-once semantics, making it difficult to navigate through them. Delivery semantics also need to be worked on.
Garima Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Principal Engineer at Nagarro
Has supported complex data pipeline creation but performance tuning and monitoring responsiveness need improvement
Sometimes, I see various performance issues with Informatica PowerCenter, including caching concerns, whether it's a joiner transformation or other transformations, so I believe the team can enhance the performance perspectives of these transformations. Additionally, sometimes the Informatica Monitor hangs or takes time to open the current run or logs, which the team can also look into. Informatica is transitioning to cloud solutions and discontinuing on-premise support after 2026, so when we discuss Informatica Cloud and its support, it becomes quite expensive for the organization compared to peers such as SnapLogic or Netezza, which offer lower pricing. Informatica Cloud Intelligence's pricing is notably high.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Confluent is the wide range of features provided; they're leading the market in this category."
"The documentation process is fast with the tool."
"It is also good for knowledge base management."
"Confluent is an amazing tool that is highly configurable, integrates very well with Jira, and lets you create nice documentation for various products while also supporting reporting and online content hosting."
"The solution can handle a high volume of data because it works and scales well."
"Overall, it's a great company and they have excellent software."
"The design of the product is extremely well built and it is highly configurable."
"Implementing Confluent's schema registry has significantly enhanced our organization's data quality assurance."
"The solution has the best user interface and it's the most user-friendly of all data integration tools."
"It reduces a lot of legacy coding."
"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is very user-friendly and the graphical design is very easy to understand."
"It's a very powerful tool you can use to load data, get data, do the drawing between the tables, and put into the packet in a very fast way."
"What I like most about Informatica PowerCenter is that it enables integration and connection with multiple new systems, both structured and semi-structured."
"PowerCenter's ETL functionalities have made the entire data flow and data pipeline creation very easy in my organization."
"I like the completeness of the way I can build ETL workflows; it's not one feature that stands out, rather it's the way everything is working together."
"This is the best tool that we have."
 

Cons

"The pricing was high for our needs. We should not have to pay for features we do not use."
"It could be improved by including a feature that automatically creates a new topic and puts failed messages."
"Currently, in the early stages, I see a gap on the security side. If you are using the SaaS version, we would like to get a fuller, more secure solution that can be adopted right out of the box. Confluence could do a better job sharing best practices or a reusable pattern that others have used, especially for companies that can not afford to hire professional services from Confluent."
"It would help if the knowledge based documents in the support portal could be available for public use as well."
"The product should integrate tools for incorporating diagrams like Lucidchart. It also needs to improve its formatting features. We also faced issues while granting permissions."
"Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about Confluent charging high fees while not offering features that match those of other tools."
"There is a limitation when it comes to seamlessly importing Microsoft documents into Confluent pages, which can be inconvenient for users who frequently work with Microsoft Office tools and need to transition their content to Confluent."
"It could have more themes. They should also have more reporting-oriented plugins as well. It would be great to have free custom reports that can be dispatched directly from Jira."
"This solution needs the functionality to do batch processing of data. It also lacks connectivity to NoSQL, unstructured data sources."
"There is some room for improvement in terms of pricing."
"Informatica, in my opinion, is very rigid and not very flexible, whereas platforms like Alteryx or Matillion are very flexible and agile."
"In terms of innovation, creativity is not there in this solution. It is still an on-prem ETL tool."
"The solution could have better documentation on basic steps or blocks that specify what to do."
"There can be scalability issues. Huge amounts of data ingestion will impact performance."
"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."
"Licensing is frustrating as you have to pay for some additional features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate Confluent's pricing at five. I have not encountered any additional costs."
"Confluent has a yearly license, which is a bit high because it's on a per-user basis."
"The pricing model of Confluent could improve because if you have a classic use case where you're going to use all the features there is no plan to reduce the features. You should be able to pick and choose basic services at a reduced price. The pricing was high for our needs. We should not have to pay for features we do not use."
"Confluent is an expensive solution."
"Confluent is highly priced."
"It comes with a high cost."
"Regarding pricing, I think Confluent is a premium product, but it's hard for me to say definitively if it's overly expensive. We're still trying to understand if the features and reduced maintenance complexity justify the cost, especially as we scale our platform use."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"Our customers pay a licensing fee yearly."
"The price is mostly reasonable."
"Since the solution's cost is higher, I rate the pricing as a five out of ten."
"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."
"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The price is very high, and it doesn't understand the market now."
"Our client has purchased the license, and we are using it."
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Comparison Review

it_user90069 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
15%
Retailer
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise75
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Confluent?
They charge a lot for scaling, which makes it expensive.
What needs improvement with Confluent?
I recommend that Confluent should improve its solution to keep up with competitors in the market, such as Solace and other upcoming tools such as NATS. Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about ...
What is your primary use case for Confluent?
The main use cases for Confluent are log aggregation and streaming. I'm familiar with Confluent stream processing with KSQL. KSQL helps in terms of data analytics strategies because if we are the d...
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

No data available
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ING, Priceline.com, Nordea, Target, RBC, Tivo, Capital One, Chartboost
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Confluent vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.