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IBM Transformation Extender vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

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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

IBM Transformation Extender
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (17th)
Informatica PowerCenter
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (4th), Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Transformation Extender and Informatica PowerCenter aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Transformation Extender is designed for Business-to-Business Middleware and holds a mindshare of 2.2%, up 1.6% compared to last year.
Informatica PowerCenter, on the other hand, focuses on Data Integration, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 5.8% since last year.
Business-to-Business Middleware Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Transformation Extender2.2%
SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite10.2%
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform9.2%
Other78.4%
Business-to-Business Middleware
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Informatica PowerCenter3.6%
SSIS4.0%
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)3.8%
Other88.6%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

it_user634821 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Developer at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It maps to our data format and then we insert it to the mainframe.
We want to see more API support from Transformation Extender. Right now, there is a lack of API support. It has an API that we always use; we use Java to call the Extender, the maps, with the external API. That API is limited. It's not mature. That's where I'm looking for improvements.
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Streamlined daily sales workflows have reduced team size and enabled earlier, accurate reporting
One of the best features I appreciate about Informatica PowerCenter is that anyone with minimal knowledge of ETL can easily use it. It has four different interfaces: Monitor, Repository, Designer, and Workflow Manager. With our use case, we can easily go to that particular interface and use it. Another valuable feature is the use of Mapplets; if we have one mapping created that we want to use again and again for other workflows, we can create a Mapplet and save it so that we can reuse the mapping, reducing our workload. Informatica PowerCenter has positively impacted my organization because, as I mentioned previously, the development team has been reduced to half since we moved to it due to its easy interface and the reusability of Mapplets. It has also saved us a lot of time; for example, it has saved nearly one hour per day on monitoring and workflow tasks. Saving one hour a day is key because it has led us to report the data to business users one hour earlier than the usual time. If there are any anomalies or defects in the data, we can easily rectify them within that hour, which reduces the chance of errors in the data. Regarding cost, the number of people working on the project has been reduced to half, thus significantly decreasing costs for our organization since we moved to Informatica PowerCenter.

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 features are the multiple capabilities that it provides."
"Every single feature of this product is unique, highly flexible, and scalable for the user's needs."
"This is a nice tool which converts one format of data to another format."
"Any-to-any transformations are possible with this product."
"I like the automated scheduling feature."
"The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good."
"The performance and design of Informatica have been very valuable, and I find the performance faster than, say, Oracle Data Integrator or DataStage."
"It is easy to use, and it is quick for developing things. It is fairly powerful, and it can integrate with a lot of different platforms without much hassle."
"Complex transformations can be easily achieved by using PowerCenter. The processing layer does transformations and other things. About 80% of my transformations can be achieved by using the middle layer. For the remaining 15% to 20% transformations, I can go in and create stored procedures in the respective databases. Mapplets is the feature through which we can reuse transformations across pipelines. Transformations and caching are the key features that we have been using frequently. Informatica PowerCenter is one of the best solutions or products in the data integration space. We have extensively used PowerCenter for integration purposes. We usually look at the best bridge solution in our architecture so that it can sustain for maybe a couple of years. Usually, we go with the solution that fits best and has proven and time-tested technology."
"Good product if you are trying implement data quality, data integration, and data management projects."
"Informatica is scalable, it's perfect."
"The reliability of the product and the way of orchestration of different services is valuable to us."
 

Cons

"We want to see more API support from Transformation Extender. Right now, there is a lack of API support."
"Readability of mapping rules should be improved."
"Things are working fine, except for the upgrade part. We are having some struggles with upgrading the product."
"One thing missing is marketing and awareness among the industry to use this product."
"To improve Informatica PowerCenter, I suggest enhancing the performance, especially when processing large amounts of information in Oracle databases."
"We need another tool for monitoring. It would be easier if all the features were consolidated into one tool."
"Improvement is needed in terms of some new transformation because API integration and all those things are very critical nowadays."
"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."
"Licensing is frustrating as you have to pay for some additional features."
"The pricing of Informatica PowerCenter is somewhat high compared to other tools that provide almost the same features, and there are some advanced tools in the market right now."
"With all these no code/low code platforms, Informatica still forces us to use the ANSI format of SQL for joins, especially left outer join."
"There can be scalability issues. Huge amounts of data ingestion will impact performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"We have found the pricing very cost-effective. The licensing is CPU and data source-based."
"A basic setup can be from $100,000 and up annually."
"We have a site license, but we do pay by the division."
"I would rate the pricing for this solution a six out of ten. The exact pricing depends on various products that you have."
"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."
"The pricing for Informatica PowerCenter is expensive. Some clients have simple needs and only want to integrate and store data. Some clients have small needs, while some clients have bigger needs and focus more on performance and time. The licensing cost for Informatica PowerCenter isn't good. In my project, if I remember correctly, the company pays €20,000 per year for the Informatica PowerCenter license. I'm not aware of additional costs that you need to pay for some features of the solution. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating its price a three."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The price is very high, and it doesn't understand the market now."
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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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise76
 

Questions from the Community

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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

WebSphere Transformation Extender
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DHL International
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica, Seeburger, Salesforce and others in Business-to-Business Middleware. Updated: October 2026.
919,809 professionals have used our research since 2012.