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Azure Data Factory vs FME comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Azure Data Factory
Ranking in Data Integration
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (3rd)
FME
Ranking in Data Integration
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Azure Data Factory is 10.1%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FME is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Joy Maitra - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data pipeline creation with good analytics and and thorough monitoring
Azure Data Factory is a low code, no code platform, which is helpful. It provides many prebuilt functionalities that assist in building data pipelines. Also, it facilitates easy transformation with all required functionalities for analytics. Furthermore, it connects to different sources out-of-the-box, making integration much easier. The monitoring is very thorough, though a more readable version would be appreciable.
Alan Bloor - PeerSpot reviewer
Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high
When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.

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 feature is the copy activity."
"In terms of my personal experience, it works fine."
"The overall performance is quite good."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Data Factory is the core features that help you through the whole Azure pipeline or value chain."
"The valuable feature of Azure Data Factory is its integration capability, as it goes well with other components of Microsoft Azure."
"From what we have seen so far, the solution seems very stable."
"What I like best about Azure Data Factory is that it allows you to create pipelines, specifically ETL pipelines. I also like that Azure Data Factory has connectors and solves most of my company's problems."
"Data Factory's best feature is the ease of setting up pipelines for data and cloud integrations."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."
 

Cons

"Azure Data Factory uses many resources and has issues with parallel workflows."
"There's space for improvement in the development process of the data pipelines."
"Customer service is not satisfactory. Third-party personnel handle support and rely on a knowledge repository."
"The solution should offer better integration with Azure machine learning. We should be able to embed the cognitive services from Microsoft, for example as a web API. It should allow us to embed Azure machine learning in a more user-friendly way."
"There are performance issues, particularly with the underlying compute, which should be configurable."
"User-friendliness and user effectiveness are unquestionably important, and it may be a good option here to improve the user experience. However, I believe that more and more sophisticated monitoring would be beneficial."
"There is no built-in pipeline exit activity when encountering an error."
"There are limitations when processing more than one GD file."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is based on usage and is not cheap."
"I would not say that this product is overly expensive."
"I would rate Data Factory's pricing nine out of ten."
"Pricing appears to be reasonable in my opinion."
"For our use case, it is not expensive. We take into the picture everything: resources, learning curve, and maintenance."
"Understanding the pricing model for Data Factory is quite complex."
"I am aware of the pricing of Azure Data Factory, but I prefer not to disclose specific details."
"There's no licensing for Azure Data Factory, they have a consumption payment model. How often you are running the service and how long that service takes to run. The price can be approximately $500 to $1,000 per month but depends on the scaling."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"The product's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
30%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How do you select the right cloud ETL tool?
AWS Glue and Azure Data factory for ELT best performance cloud services.
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...
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...
What do you like most about FME?
We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?
The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...
What needs improvement with FME?
The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point. There must be a technical or comm...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Adobe 2. BMW 3. Coca-Cola 4. General Electric 5. Johnson & Johnson 6. LinkedIn 7. Mastercard 8. Nestle 9. Pfizer 10. Samsung 11. Siemens 12. Toyota 13. Unilever 14. Verizon 15. Walmart 16. Accenture 17. American Express 18. AT&T 19. Bank of America 20. Cisco 21. Deloitte 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. General Motors 25. IBM 26. JPMorgan Chase 27. Microsoft (Azure Data Factory is developed by Microsoft) 28. Oracle 29. Procter & Gamble 30. Salesforce 31. Shell 32. Visa
Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Data Factory vs. FME and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.