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SAP Information Steward vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP Information Steward
Ranking in Metadata Management
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (19th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Metadata Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of SAP Information Steward is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 3.3%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP PowerDesigner3.3%
SAP Information Steward3.2%
Other93.5%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

FranciscoSantos - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Pixel Studio PTY
Provides accurate data that is validated against a personalized reference tool
For most SAP customers, Information Steward is enough because it is able to build quality data rules to detect issues in the source systems like SAP HANA, Business Warehouse, or other systems. A business user can first organize their data into several data domains. For example, procurement, human resources, and logistics setup. The domains can build data quality dimensions where you can describe the kind of rule that you are going to use. The user then can immediately see if something is wrong with their data using traffic lights. Another great feature of SAP Information Steward is the accuracy that the content is followed by validating against the reference tool. With the solution, you are creating data quality dimensions. Within these dimensions, you are creating business data quality rules that are looking for specific fields. From these rules, you can create a scorecard. The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits. SAP tables have field names that are very cryptic, making them hard to understand the meaning of the fields. Metapedia helps describe these fields in business terms.
HemantKUMAR6 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at Sopra Steria
Customer support has delayed successful upgrade to supported version
It was a long time back when my company purchased it, but I am now participating in upgrading it to the latest version. I found customer support to be tedious during the upgrade process to the latest version. I tried to upgrade to a trial version before purchasing a new license. During that process, I had some technical issues. When trying to go from 12.5 to 16.5, I could migrate but faced technical challenges. When I approached customer support, they informed me that even 16.5 is not supported. They stated I would need to go to 16.7 before they could look at my issue. They didn't spend any time on the issue because according to them, 16.5 is not supported. Until I get 16.7 and complete the migration, I'm not getting any help from them. I was not too happy with the customer support. This was my only interaction with customer support, and I haven't received any resolution to my issue. It can be rated as low as zero because that's the only time I approached them. I cannot even say zero out of ten because I approached only once. Perhaps they are correct that they don't support 16.5, so they don't want to spend any time on that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Setup is straightforward."
"The data profiling was excellent, as was the ease of generating the dashboards."
"The solution is very fast."
"The Data Cleansing and the scorecard dashboard are very valuable. Additionally, the financial aspect of SAP Information Steward is very good. When a rule is incorrect then it will show how much is it costing the business. These features are very valuable."
"Data integration is much easier with Information Steward - irrespective of the data sources, integration is very smooth and easy."
"I am very happy with the product."
"The product has improved company efficiency because we're able to categorize the need for user access at the folder level across storage enterprise wide."
"The ability to analyze the data even before we start the transformation of it, and generating the user-friendly interface, giving analytical reports, and helping create the transformation rules before we proceed with the data migration part was the most helpful part of the solution for our company."
"I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up."
"It is more flexible than other tools and user-friendly, making it easy to adapt."
"The main valuable features are the logical and physical data modeling capabilities, and our main purpose is to keep the data model in a repository and then be able to generate DDL files for Oracle."
"I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features."
"It has helped me to develop the as-is state, design its to-be state, and track the capital investment according to gap analysis."
"The publicly accessible meta-model is the foundation for utility scripts, report, and general model-to-model or model-to-text generation."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases."
 

Cons

"We'd like to see some manipulation techniques included in SAP Information Steward."
"A problem with the solution is that it does not allow us to review the results of Information Stewards for other analogies."
"Performance could be improved."
"In some cases they have given extraneous or erroneous information, which is completely useless."
"SAP Information Steward could be improved by offering a cloud version of the product."
"The support team is not very responsive."
"The solution could improve by incorporating other applications, such as Power BI to show more visualization. More interaction with other solutions would be a good benefit."
"Needs to be more powerful on rules."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"Not very intuitive or user-friendly."
"SAP PowerDesigner can improve the ease of use. It is not the best tool on the market because it is tough to navigate and use. A beginner would not be able to use it well, it requires some experience. If the solution was more user-friendly it would be able to be used by more audiences. I do not think many people are aware of this solution and they should use it."
"However, the pricing for small consultancies needs to be improved. The competing vendors often have special offers that make the tool more affordable, which is vital for data management consultancies that have to buy the tools that their clients use."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Although the presentation for viewing the models is good, I think it could be better."
"You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable."
"They didn't spend any time on the issue because according to them, 16.5 is not supported."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."
"Smaller-sized organizations may not be able to invest in SAP Information Steward because of the cost."
"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
"I do not know if there were additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling. Improving the synchronization between models and databases can enhance integration ...
What is your primary use case for SAP PowerDesigner?
I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling, which greatly enhances the clarity of my data management processes. I manage data across multiple databases, including cloud databases, Teradata, and Orac...
 

Also Known As

Information Steward, SAP Data Insight
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Water, Graphic Packaging International, OSRAM Licht AG, Maxim Integrated
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 SAP Information Steward vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.