Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Databricks vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
6.6
Databricks offers cost savings and scalability, empowering small teams to process large data efficiently, with variable cost-effectiveness in ingestion.
Sentiment score
8.1
Informatica PowerCenter offers flexibility and stability, optimizing data handling and decision-making, ensuring high-quality investment returns.
When it comes to big data processing, I prefer Databricks over other solutions.
For a lot of different tasks, including machine learning, it is a nice solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Databricks support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some experience slower responses due to Microsoft involvement.
Sentiment score
6.9
Informatica PowerCenter's technical support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, though customer service is perceived less favorably.
As of now, we are raising issues and they are providing solutions without any problems.
Whenever we reach out, they respond promptly.
I like the technical support provided by Informatica.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Databricks is scalable, efficient, offers real-time optimization, supports multiple clouds, but may require manual configurations.
Sentiment score
6.8
Informatica PowerCenter efficiently scales data management with flexible cloud options, despite cost concerns and on-premise limitations.
Databricks is an easily scalable platform.
The patches have sometimes caused issues leading to our jobs being paused for about six hours.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Databricks is stable and reliable, with minor update issues, resolved bugs, and high user ratings for stability and performance.
Sentiment score
7.8
Informatica PowerCenter is praised for reliability and performance, with minimal issues and high stability ratings from users.
They release patches that sometimes break our code.
Although it is too early to definitively state the platform's stability, we have not encountered any issues so far.
Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks.
Informatica PowerCenter is stable and can scale well.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved visualization, platform integration, pricing, machine learning libraries, UI, documentation, and beginner-friendly, scalable management tools.
Informatica PowerCenter struggles with high costs, complex UI, outdated features, scalability issues, and lacks modern technology integration.
We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly.
It would be beneficial to have utilities where code snippets are readily available.
We use MLflow for managing MLOps, however, further improvement would be beneficial, especially for large language models and related tools.
Utilizing more stored procedures from Oracle databases in an easy way would significantly boost performance.
 

Setup Cost

Databricks offers flexible pricing based on usage and volume, seen as expensive but cost-effective compared to competitors.
Informatica PowerCenter is a powerful but costly data solution, ideal for large enterprises but challenging for smaller ones.
It is not a cheap solution.
I find that the pricing and licensing for Informatica PowerCenter align with its quality.
 

Valuable Features

Databricks is valued for its scalable data transformation, Lakehouse architecture, rapid processing, integration, and versatile coding options.
Informatica PowerCenter offers robust data integration, real-time processing, and user-friendly interfaces, enhancing decision-making and enterprise data management.
Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed.
The platform allows us to leverage cloud advantages effectively, enhancing our AI and ML projects.
The notebooks and the ability to share them with collaborators are valuable, as multiple developers can use a single cluster.
The system supports real-time integration, which is essential for many of my tasks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (7th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Informatica PowerCenter
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Visualization (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 8.8%, up 3.7% compared to last year.
Informatica PowerCenter, on the other hand, focuses on Data Integration, holds 9.4% mindshare, down 11.8% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
Lars Borchers - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reliable product that provides a variety of features for data integration
The solution is not for newcomers. It has an old touch. The solution must improve the integration with new services. It was part of the program at Informatica when they moved to their cloud platform. It is integrated. However, from an on-premise perspective, we need to buy licenses for PowerExchange. If we want a native driver to access a special service, we need to extend our license to those services. It is expensive. I don't like that it's not all included in the solution.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
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...
 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: February 2023.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.