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FME vs Teradata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

FME
Ranking in Data Integration
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Teradata
Ranking in Data Integration
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (6th), Backup and Recovery (20th), Relational Databases Tools (8th), Data Warehouse (3rd), BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (10th), Marketing Management (6th), Cloud Data Warehouse (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of FME is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high
When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
SurjitChoudhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers seamless integration capabilities and performance optimization features, including extensive indexing and advanced tuning capabilities
We created and constructed the warehouse. We used multiple loading processes like MultiLoad, FastLoad, and Teradata Pump. But those are loading processes, and Teradata is a powerful tool because if we consider older technologies, its architecture with nodes, virtual processes, and nodes is a unique concept. Later, other technologies like Informatica also adopted the concept of nodes from Informatica PowerCenter version 7.x. Previously, it was a client-server architecture, but later, it changed to the nodes concept. Like, we can have the database available 24/7, 365 days. If one node fails, other nodes can take care of it. Informatica adopted all those concepts when it changed its architecture. Even Oracle databases have since adapted their architecture to them. However, this particular Teradata company initially started with its own different type of architecture, which major companies later adopted. It has grown now, but initially, whatever query we sent it would be mapped into a particular component. After that, it goes to the virtual processor and down to the disk, where the actual physical data is loaded. So, in between, there's a map, which acts like a data dictionary. It also holds information about each piece of data, where it's loaded, and on which particular virtual processor or node the data resides. Because Teradata comes with a four-node architecture, or however many nodes we choose, the cost is determined by that initially. So, what type of data does each and every node hold? It's a shared-no architecture. So, whatever task is given to a virtual processor it will be processed. If there's a failure, then it will be taken care of by another virtual processor. Moreover, this solution has impacted the query time and data performance. In Teradata, there's a lot of joining, partitioning, and indexing of records. There are primary and secondary indexes, hash indexing, and other indexing processes. To improve query performance, we first analyze the query and tune it. If a join needs a secondary index, which plays a major role in filtering records, we might reconstruct that particular table with the secondary index. This tuning involves partitioning and indexing. We use these tools and technologies to fine-tune performance. When it comes to integration, tools like Informatica seamlessly connect with Teradata. We ensure the Teradata database is configured correctly in Informatica, including the proper hostname and properties for the load process. We didn't find any major complexity or issues with integration. But, these technologies are quite old now. With newer big data technologies, we've worked with a four-layer architecture, pulling data from Hadoop Lake to Teradata. We configure Teradata with the appropriate hostname and credentials, and use BTEQ queries to load data. Previously, we converted the data warehouse to a CLD model as per Teradata's standardized procedures, moving from an ETL to an EMT process. This allowed us to perform gap analysis on missing entities based on the model and retrieve them from the source system again. We found Teradata integration straightforward and compatible with other tools.

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 FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"Teradata effectively uses parallelism to the granular level, performing better than other databases."
"The most valuable features are the Shared-nothing architecture and data protection functionality."
"​We really enjoy the FastLoad, TPump, and MultiLoad features.​"
"Auto-partitioning and indexing, and resource allocation on the fly are key features."
"It's very, very fast"
"It has increased the speed of reporting."
"Improved performance of ETL procedures, reporting."
"Things have started moving faster in my company, such as data retrieval happens more quickly.​"
 

Cons

"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"The increasing volumes of data demand more and more performance."
"I would like more security and speed."
"Since I was working on the very basic, legacy systems, the memory thing was always a challenge. If Teradata is moving to the cloud, the space constraint or the memory issue that my company generally faces will eventually resolve, in time. What I'd like to see in the next release of Teradata is that it becomes full-fledged on the cloud, apart from better connectivity to various systems. For example, if I have to read or include a Python script, if I write some basic codes, I should be able to read even unstructured data. I know that it's not supported even in Snowflake, but at least semi-structured data support, if that can be a little more enhanced, that would be good."
"It would help to make scaling easier with a reduced cost. ​"
"​I think the UI is not there yet. It could be improved by being more user-friendly.​"
"The primary challenge with Teradata lies in its cost structure, encompassing subscription fees, software licenses, and hardware expenses."
"If I want to implement an upgrade, I'd like to see how it will be different. Ideally, Data Lab should help me test production items and also do future things. Future releases should be downloadable and testable in Data Lab."
"Limited interest and success in some areas make us hesitate about upgrading."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is reasonable."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"​When looking into implementing this product, pricing is the main issue followed by technical expertise​."
"The solution requires a license."
"It's a very expensive product."
"The cost is substantial, totaling around $1.2 million, solely dedicated to upgrading the hardware."
"Price is quite high, so if it is really possible to use other solutions (e.g. you do not have strict requirements for performance and huge data volumes), it might be better to look at alternatives from the RDBMS world."
"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Teradata IntelliFlex, which is very expensive."
"Teradata pricing is fine, and it's competitive with all the legacy models. On a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best, I'm giving Teradata a three, because it can be a little expensive, when compared to other solutions."
"The price of Teradata is on the higher side, and I think that it where they lose out on some of their business."
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Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
30%
Energy/Utilities Company
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FME?
We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?
The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...
What needs improvement with FME?
The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point. There must be a technical or comm...
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite simi...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the comp...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example,...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Netflix
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