Informatica PowerCenter vs StreamSets comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Integration
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (7th)
StreamSets
Ranking in Data Integration
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 11.9%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StreamSets is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
Unique Categories:
Data Visualization
0.8%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

VS
Dec 22, 2023
Useful flow designer functionally and highly reliable
Informatica PowerCenter is a data extraction and data loading tool. We extract data from some sources and we load data to different source systems Improved the data integrity, data flow and data managment with consummption too made easy and ustainanble and scalable. The most valuable feature of…
Namanya Brian - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 14, 2023
Data streams and pipelines help our team identify areas for improvement in our solution
One of the things I like is the data pipelines. They have a very good design. Implementing pipelines is very straightforward. It doesn't require any technical skill. We have also integrated it with Kafka messaging and it is not complex to do. It is really so easy to connect or integrate with data interfaces. And moving data into analytics platforms using StreamSets is easy. It doesn't require any coding, meaning your can transfer or move data into data payloads without coding skills. It's a good move, for someone in the beginning, who doesn't have any knowledge because it's quite easy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good."
"Informatica PowerCenter has good user feedback. The developers can easily make mappings in the solution."
"The reliability of the product and the way of orchestration of different services is valuable to us."
"Can manage a huge quantity of data and provide reliability."
"I like the completeness of the way I can build ETL workflows."
"I like the automated scheduling feature."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica PowerCenter is data transformation and user-friendliness."
"It has good standard features for ETL development."
"The most valuable feature is the pipelines because they enable us to pull in and push out data from different sources and to manipulate and clean things up within them."
"In StreamSets, everything is in one place."
"The best feature that I really like is the integration."
"The best thing about StreamSets is its plugins, which are very useful and work well with almost every data source. It's also easy to use, especially if you're comfortable with SQL. You can customize it to do what you need. Many other tools have started to use features similar to those introduced by StreamSets, like automated workflows that are easy to set up."
"StreamSets data drift feature gives us an alert upfront so we know that the data can be ingested. Whatever the schema or data type changes, it lands automatically into the data lake without any intervention from us, but then that information is crucial to fix for downstream pipelines, which process the data into models, like Tableau and Power BI models. This is actually very useful for us. We are already seeing benefits. Our pipelines used to break when there were data drift changes, then we needed to spend about a week fixing it. Right now, we are saving one to two weeks. Though, it depends on the complexity of the pipeline, we are definitely seeing a lot of time being saved."
"StreamSets Transformer is a good feature because it helps you when you are developing applications and when you don't want to write a lot of code. That is the best feature overall."
"The most valuable would be the GUI platform that I saw. I first saw it at a special session that StreamSets provided towards the end of the summer. I saw the way you set it up and how you have different processes going on with your data. The design experience seemed to be pretty straightforward to me in terms of how you drag and drop these nodes and connect them with arrows."
"Also, the intuitive canvas for designing all the streams in the pipeline, along with the simplicity of the entire product are very big pluses for me. The software is very simple and straightforward. That is something that is needed right now."
 

Cons

"I found it is kind of weird that not all of the mapping changes are treated as true changes."
"Informatica, in my opinion, is very rigid and not very flexible, whereas platforms like Alteryx or Matillion are very flexible and agile."
"Compared to solutions offering similar functionalities, Informatica PowerCenter is not very flexible regarding customized integrations."
"It should be more cloud-centric than on-prem-centric."
"An issue which should be addressed is that the solution only allows us to do structured, as opposed to unstructured, data processing."
"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."
"The solution does not scale."
"Its licensing can be improved. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise. A bundle will definitely be costly. In addition, we might use one or two features. That's why the pricing model should be based on the features. The model should be flexible enough based on the features. Their support should also be more responsive to premium customers."
"I would like to see further improvement in the UI. In addition, upgrades are not automatic and they should be automated. Currently, we have to manually upgrade versions."
"StreamSet works great for batch processing but we are looking for something that is more real-time. We need latency in numbers below milliseconds."
"We've seen a couple of cases where it appears to have a memory leak or a similar problem."
"Currently, we can only use the query to read data from SAP HANA. What we would like to see, as soon as possible, is the ability to read from multiple tables from SAP HANA. That would be a really good thing that we could use immediately. For example, if you have 100 tables in SQL Server or Oracle, then you could just point it to the schema or the 100 tables and ingestion information. However, you can't do that in SAP HANA since StreamSets currently is lacking in this. They do not have a multi-table feature for SAP HANA. Therefore, a multi-table origin for SAP HANA would be helpful."
"The execution engine could be improved. When I was at their session, they were using some obscure platform to run. There is a controller, which controls what happens on that, but you should be able to easily do this at any of the cloud services, such as Google Cloud. You shouldn't have any issues in terms of how to run it with their online development platform or design platform, basically their execution engine. There are issues with that."
"In terms of the product, I don't think there is any room for improvement because it is very good. One small area of improvement that is very much needed is on the knowledge base side. Sometimes, it is not very clear how to set up a certain process or a certain node for a person who's using the platform for the first time."
"StreamSets should provide a mechanism to be able to perform data quality assessment when the data is being moved from one source to the target."
"If you use JDBC Lookup, for example, it generally takes a long time to process data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a site license, but we do pay by the division."
"Our client has purchased the license, and we are using it."
"I consider this to be an expensive product."
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"Its maintenance is expensive."
"I am not sure about the most recent price, but I think it should be $100,000 or more."
"We have found the pricing very cost-effective. The licensing is CPU and data source-based."
"According to what I've heard and read on various blogs, it's quite expensive when compared to similar competitive products."
"It's not expensive because you pay per month, and the tasks you can perform with it are huge. It's reliable and cost-effective."
"It's not so favorable for small companies."
"There are different versions of the product. One is the corporate license version, and the other one is the open-source or free version. I have been using the corporate license version, but they have recently launched a new open-source version so that anybody can create an account and use it. The licensing cost varies from customer to customer. I don't have a lot of input on that. It is taken care of by PMO, and they seem fine with its pricing model. It is being used enterprise-wide. They seem to have got a good deal for StreamSets."
"The licensing is expensive, and there are other costs involved too. I know from using the software that you have to buy new features whenever there are new updates, which I don't really like. But initially, it was very good."
"StreamSets Data Collector is open source. One can utilize the StreamSets Data Collector, but the Control Hub is the main repository where all the jobs are present. Everything happens in Control Hub."
"The overall cost for small and mid-size organizations needs to be better."
"I believe the pricing is not equitable."
"The overall cost is very flexible so it is not a burden for our organization... However, the cost should be improved. For small and mid-size organizations it might be a challenge."
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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
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about StreamSets?
The best thing about StreamSets is its plugins, which are very useful and work well with almost every data source. It's also easy to use, especially if you're comfortable with SQL. You can customiz...
What needs improvement with StreamSets?
We often faced problems, especially with SAP ERP. We struggled because many columns weren't integers or primary keys, which StreamSets couldn't handle. We had to restructure our data tables, which ...
What is your primary use case for StreamSets?
StreamSets is used for data transformation rather than ETL processes. It focuses on transforming data directly from sources without handling the extraction part of the process. The transformed data...
 

Also Known As

PowerCenter
No data available
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Availity, BT Group, Humana, Deluxe, GSK, RingCentral, IBM, Shell, SamTrans, State of Ohio, TalentFulfilled, TechBridge
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica PowerCenter vs. StreamSets and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.