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FME vs WhereScape RED 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

FME
Ranking in Data Integration
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WhereScape RED
Ranking in Data Integration
46th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of FME is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WhereScape RED is 1.1%, up from 0.8% 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.
reviewer1618884 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick to set up, flexible, and stable
The scheduling part I don't like due to the fact that it allows you to schedule as a parent and child and other things, however, the error trackability has to be a little more user-friendly. It's also not user-friendly in the sense that it loads all the jobs and there are not enough filters so that it doesn't need to load everything. If the job fails, you don't get any type of alert or email. It would be ideal if there was some sort of automated alert message. Technical support isn't the best. It would be ideal if we understood how to do it in a card exception regarding exclusion, where the card is captured separately rather than filling the whole process on the data inbound side. Certain workloads like this are organized in such a way where you seem to be doubling the work as opposed to streamlining the process.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"FME is spatially aware and understands how to deal with the conversion of spatial objects and their attributes."
"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."
"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."
"RED has provided us the ability to integrate, stage, and transform data from diverse sources into an enterprise-grade data warehouse which meets the needs of my organization, but it also enables us to easily and quickly make ETL or DW changes."
"It has a built-in automatic scheduling environment."
"Support is absolutely excellent, efficient, and timely."
"WhereScape RED has improved our business's ability to generate needed reporting without requiring a large team of developers to manually code all of the necessary plumbing."
"WhereScape's deployment package is a fantastic feature. The application allows for selecting specific objects that you would like to deploy from one environment to another rather than deploying the entire database."
"This is a fantastically robust DW tool that will make you at least 10 times faster in producing a DW."
"RED generates comprehensive documentation and regenerates it as quickly as things changes, but it also provides impact documentation."
"I like the data vault implementations."
 

Cons

"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"We are looking at the possibility of using Glue instead of FME, using the native AWS product."
"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 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."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"Customization could be better."
"Jobs cannot be deleted via the deployment package. When deploying from dev to QA or production, a job has to be retired. The job has to be manually removed from the target environment."
"Project-based searching of data objects in the data warehouse browser needs to be improved."
"The ability to execute SSIS projects within WhereScape would be nice because we have a lot of packages that are too cumbersome to recreate."
"Technical support isn't the best."
"No support for change data capture or delta detection - that must be custom coded ."
"Improve the object renaming ability (it works, but it could be more automated)."
"They need a more robust support center. It has been a bit difficult to find solutions to problems that are out-of-the-box."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is reasonable."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"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."
"Speed to market of a warehouse solution at a relatively inexpensive price point."
"ROI is at least 10 times."
"Factor in the price of specialized consulting who know this product. They're hard to find and expensive."
"Our company purchased a corporate unlimited license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
30%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
British American Tobacco, Cornell University, Allianz Benelux, Finnair, Solarwinds and many more.
Find out what your peers are saying about FME vs. WhereScape RED and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
859,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.