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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Informatica IDMC enhances data quality, efficiency, and analytics, offering secure integration and reduced cloud migration costs for businesses.
Sentiment score
3.8
SAP PowerDesigner improved efficiency, enabled cost-effective returns, with reported ROI benefits and time savings in information architecture modeling.
We see return on investment from this solution in terms of time; time reduction or cost benefits is what we are getting very good results from.
I cannot put a number on it, but if you think about developing software manually or using a tool to generate software and considering the license cost of SAP PowerDesigner, the ROI is pretty positive relatively quick because it's not that expensive.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Informatica's customer service is praised for quick, knowledgeable support, though response times can vary with customization and membership levels.
Sentiment score
6.0
Opinions on SAP PowerDesigner support vary, with some praising documentation but others seeking faster response times and better accessibility.
Due to the tool's maturity limitations, solutions are not always simple and often require workarounds.
The response time is pretty good because we have someone in-house, who is an expert from Informatica, in our team who can help us with any sort of queries usually.
If they are unsure how to resolve an issue, they keep customers informed, providing updates about progress and ensuring communication with the product team to deliver accurate responses.
It relies heavily on VBScript, which is something that will be end of life in a few years in Windows.
Regarding technical support, after a recent licensing issue caused a temporary halt, we realized the importance of tracking licensing and version updates to avoid future disruptions in service.
There is not any support anymore as far as I know.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Informatica IDMC delivers scalable, flexible data management across cloud and on-premise environments, accommodating diverse enterprise needs efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.3
SAP PowerDesigner is highly scalable, supporting multiple users and large repositories, with effective expansion through licensing.
As a SaaS platform, IDMC is quite scalable and provides complete flexibility.
I find Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) to be a sustainable and scalable solution.
Currently, there are no scalability limitations in SAP PowerDesigner, allowing us to create numerous data models for various projects.
The scalability of SAP PowerDesigner is very good.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Informatica Cloud is highly rated for stability, despite occasional issues; support effectively resolves any reported bugs.
Sentiment score
6.9
SAP PowerDesigner is stable on local devices, but complex tasks or remote access can affect performance without expert configurations.
Stability is crucial because IDMC holds business-critical data, and it needs to be available all the time for business users.
If you use a lot of customizations, especially using VBScript, it becomes less stable.
This may lead to frequent downtimes requiring server maintenance; thus, it is not suitable for highly complex solutions, but moderate complexities can be handled.
 

Room For Improvement

Informatica IDMC requires improvements in integration, user interface, performance, support consistency, connectivity, automation, data tagging, and pricing.
SAP PowerDesigner requires improvements in user-friendliness, integration, collaboration, performance, affordability, automation, and technical support.
The tool needs to mature in terms of category-specific attributes or dynamic attributes.
I also want to see integration with other Informatica products, such as IICS, to leverage the metadata from EDC.
The licenses are too expensive compared to before, which is why customers are now preferring other data metadata management tools like OneTrust, Collibra, and Azure Purview.
SAP PowerDesigner does not have a cloud option. It's only on-premise.
I would like to see a feature added to SAP PowerDesigner where, upon extracting data from a source, it automatically identifies relationships between tables.
The web portal is unstable and does not work. It freezes up all the time.
 

Setup Cost

Informatica IDMC, a costly solution for large enterprises, offers extensive features and flexibility, justifying its premium pricing.
SAP PowerDesigner is costly for smaller organizations, with significant setup and maintenance fees, but offers strong functionality.
It ranges from a quarter million to a couple of million a year.
The licenses are too expensive compared to before, which is why customers are now preferring other data metadata management tools like OneTrust, Collibra, and Azure Purview.
I think the costs are reasonable for the kinds of features that Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) has.
One issue is the cost, as it is a high-priced tool coming from SAP.
 

Valuable Features

Informatica IDMC excels in data management with strong integration, AI-driven analytics, and a flexible user interface.
SAP PowerDesigner excels in data modeling, integration, and collaboration, supporting efficient data management for complex enterprise databases.
The platform's ability to pull in data from other platforms without the need for an additional integration tool enhances its appeal.
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) can connect to pretty much any application, including Oracle Analytics and Power BI, and it works quite seamlessly.
In on-premise, we call it EDC for metadata management, while in cloud-based technologies, it is known as the Metadata Command Center, which serves the same purpose as EDC concerning CDGC.
The best features of SAP PowerDesigner, from my perspective, are its ability to keep the connectivity between the source database and the new system, data redundancy and availability, and impact analysis.
SAP PowerDesigner doesn't only allow you to model the structure of your database, but you can also model data mappings or data flows or lineage.
What I appreciate best about SAP PowerDesigner is that it is a very detailed and comprehensive tool.
 

Categories and Ranking

Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Metadata Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
186
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (4th), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (11th), Business-to-Business Middleware (6th), API Management (7th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (2nd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (1st), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Metadata Management
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 21.0%, down from 27.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 4.3%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)21.0%
SAP PowerDesigner4.3%
Other74.7%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

SaurabhGaonshindhe - PeerSpot reviewer
Modular structure and AI features stream new reporting processes
One of my clients has a requirement; they want to integrate metadata into the process, which means, for example, if I just want to implement a new field into my database, that field needs to be reflected throughout, let's say, 200 mappings. This highlights the need for a data-driven approach. My experience with technical support from Informatica is quite interesting; I would rate it as nine out of ten for Informatica PowerCenter kind of products or the Informatica integration products, because my team can do some hands-on using their free licenses or one-month kind of products. However, for products Master Data Management or related to MDM or Data Governance, there is no way by which we can directly practice, and my team struggles at that point.
Kopparapu Venkatesh Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Data modeling tool improves data management and decision-making efficiency
The lineage analysis helps my organization understand data dependencies at an enterprise level. As a SAP PowerDesigner developer, I monitor data across the organization, creating data models that reflect not just one data warehouse but comprehensive organizational information. If you have a small company, lineage helps track employee data across different areas such as finance and HR. Data governance prevents duplicate records, so when tracking employee details, SAP PowerDesigner highlights where data exists in various areas, helping ensure we only use the appropriate sources. This functionality allows us to assess the impact of data deletions effectively. I utilize the reverse engineering capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner. Reverse engineering is helpful, especially since I have colleagues new to SAP PowerDesigner. They often do not know which columns are available where. In SAP PowerDesigner, we can reverse engineer existing data from its source and identify errors in production. For instance, by using Ali's example, if an error arises, I can trace it back to the table and environment it originated from using the reverse engineering feature. The best features of SAP PowerDesigner, from my perspective, are its ability to keep the connectivity between the source database and the new system, data redundancy and availability, and impact analysis. The first feature acts as a bridge between systems. The second allows us to see what data is already available and what new data can be brought in. The third, impact analysis, helps determine how many tables will be affected if a specific table is deleted. This critical point allows us to capture how much data will be lost if any table is removed. Currently, these features shape my daily work. SAP PowerDesigner primarily benefits business management units by offering three types of data modeling structures: conceptual, logical, and physical models. The conceptual model communicates high-level insights to top executives, while logical and physical models address complex queries faced by developers in analytics. SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems. The tool enables mapping from end to end, making my work faster and more efficient than using other ER data modeling solutions. The interface allows easy creation of data models and searching for existing data, ensuring I can complete my tasks significantly quicker. The importance of SAP PowerDesigner's collaboration capabilities lies in fostering a unified data management approach. It acts as a unified tool, preventing the duplication of existing data in analytical processes, thus saving both effort and storage costs, which is essential for effective data management. We utilize collaboration capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner with various source systems such as PG admin, Postgres, Oracle, and Snowflake. Recently, we have added Snowflake for cloud data modeling and POC work, streamlining the collaboration process across different systems.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise134
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
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...
What are the biggest benefits of using Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
When it comes to cloud data integration, this solution can provide you with multiple benefits, including: Overhead reduction by integrating data on any cloud in various ways Effective integration ...
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
For collaboration, it's a two-sided coin. SAP PowerDesigner does pretty good at allowing you to compare models. If you have two or more people who work on the same data models, it has a capability ...
 

Also Known As

ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, BPM, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking, Cloud Test Data Management, PIM, , Enterprise Data Catalog, Data Integration Hub, Cloud Data Integration, Data Quality, Cloud API and App Integration
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Travel Company, Carbonite
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.