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Informatica PowerCenter vs SAP Lumira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Visualization
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd)
SAP Lumira
Ranking in Data Visualization
25th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 1.5%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Lumira is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Deepak Shiv - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides multiple transformations in one toolset and helpful when extracting data from multiple sources
Error handling capability is quite good in Informatica PowerCenter because it provides a very detailed session log, which is really helpful to identify errors. In addition, there are KB articles published by Informatica that are really helpful. So, error handling and the KB articles provided by Informatica are very helpful. Even if you face any issues or errors, we can usually resolve them. If the error cannot be solved with Informatica PowerCenter, we can raise a case with Informatica, and their support team will help us address that issue. If it cannot be solved with that particular version, they will consider it and try to solve it with the next patch or hotfix. AI Initiatives: Our company also has organizational AI or machine learning initiatives. However, Informatica PowerCenter doesn't fit into AI-related things because it's an on-premise tool. It doesn't have a significant role in the field. It is just a small ETL on-premises tool. So basically, in the AI field, Informatica PowerCenter is not going to be that impactful. Informatica has launched IICS and IDMC (Informatica Data Management Cloud and Informatica Cloud), where their AI comes into the picture. But for Informatica PowerCenter, AI does not come into the picture at all.
Rafal Zaborowski - PeerSpot reviewer
It's stable, it keeps on improving and the technical support is excellent
I think a lot of users aren't having fun using SAP because it requires putting in a lot of information by keyboard directly because it requires some coding, so this is one area for improvement. From a user point of view, SAP is a complex system where you can learn and teach, so another area for improvement in the solution is that it needs to be more user-friendly. In the next release of SAP, I want it to have a friendlier menu for its users.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The setup is very simple."
"Among all the solutions I have used, I found Informatica PowerCenter to be much more stable in terms of application."
"The functions in Informatica PowerCenter that I have found most valuable are the way it manages the volume of data, the push down optimization, and the performance aspects of it, mostly related to parallelism techniques."
"It has helped us monetize."
"The setup is straightforward."
"We have found the PowerCenter and B2B data transformation most valuable."
"It is UI friendly and has all the advantages of an ETL tool."
"The most complex task, in this case, was to read and transform BLOB data, and Java transformation in Informatica Power Center was a great solution."
"The most valuable features of SAP Lumira are the dashboards, geographical elements, and graph filtering, and the usage is similar to a website which makes it easy to use."
"It is fairly easy and fast when it comes to using it."
"Beautiful visualizations."
"SAP Lumira is the best system in the world, at least in my opinion. I like that it's a stable system and that many people in my company have development experience in SAP Lumira. The solution keeps on improving and has excellent support."
"The most value that Lumira provides is in its ability to consume the Business Objects universe."
"The best feature is the ease of developing dashboards."
"Geographic hierarchy and the ability to connect with SAP sources, such as CRM, ERP, and BW."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement in Informatica PowerCenter include scalability and high availability or the clustering configuration because that's still very basic. The elasticity or scaling of the platform needs a lot of improvement. For example, when it comes to DR handling or building an active-active or active-passive cluster, Informatica PowerCenter is still not that powerful. Automation also needs improvement in the solution. Improving automation leads to some improvement in the stability of Informatica PowerCenter and other aspects related to it. What I'd like to see in the next release of Informatica PowerCenter is real-time capability because the solution is mainly for patches, and to have real-time integration, you need to count on some additional components from Informatica. I would expect more integration and a complete platform in terms of real-time capability or patching with minimal interventions or minimal components to be aligned together."
"It should be more cloud-centric than on-prem-centric."
"I found it is kind of weird that not all of the mapping changes are treated as true changes."
"The solution could have better documentation on basic steps or blocks that specify what to do."
"I would like to see an improvement in the digital adoption."
"It would be good to recreate the entire interface to make it easier for users to build workflows."
"Unstructured data handling is an important area with a shortcoming that needs improvement in the solution."
"If we could have the option of performance improvement within Informatica, and if it could have more features, that would be ideal."
"SAP Lumira can improve if they game more capability to the end user to prepare dashboards because it's more of an IT task to create them. In Tableau, we can drag, drop, and create. However, in SAP Lumira, we need a designer and a separate KT to be able to do it well."
"Lumira's capabilities feel like that of a store app with the intuitiveness of a desktop app, which is not a good combination."
"It needs the ability to drill down more. Analyzing data with Lumira at times becomes a bit difficult."
"Lumira uses a lot of memory resources, so the execution of dashboards is slow."
"I'm not a fan of using SAP Lumira because it requires putting in a lot of information by keyboard directly because it requires some coding, so this is one area for improvement. From a user point of view, SAP Lumira is a complex system to learn and teach, so another area for improvement in the solution is that it needs to be more user-friendly."
"It needs an easier printing feature."
"It would be great to have more ETL capabilities so that the user can do more cleansing/mining on his/her side."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better. It's very expensive. On a scale from one to five, I would give Informatica PowerCenter's price a one."
"Licensing is a one time cost. But maintenance costs depend on what you want, how long you need it. Maintenance is a kind of insurance. With health insurance, you don't know whether you will get sick or need to go to hospital or not but you have to have insurance. It's the same thing with support. If you have that expertise in resolving issues, if you have enough experience in your IT department, I would say you don't need the support. But in practice, they recommend you go with the support. If you want support you have to pay for it."
"Licensing costs are excessive and pose an obstacle to someone who lacks familiarity with the solution and wishes to have a proper understanding of it."
"Our client has purchased the license, and we are using it."
"The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The price of this solution is high."
"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."
"The pricing is a little expensive, but in the same range as IBM and other competitors."
"PowerBI is way more capable at a much better price point: $10 per user without all the associated setup costs."
"In terms of cost, SAP Lumira is less affordable."
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Comparison Review

it_user90069 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

PowerCenter
SAP BusinessObjects Lumira
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
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 PowerCenter vs. SAP Lumira and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.