Fivetran vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

Fivetran and Informatica are both solutions in the Data Integration category. Fivetran is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.8, while Informatica is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0. Fivetran holds a 2.2% mindshare in DI, compared to Informatica’s 9.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Fivetran users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Informatica users who would recommend it.

Fivetran

Read 25 Fivetran reviews

3,228 Views
2,319 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Informatica PowerCenter

Read 81 Informatica PowerCenter reviews

14,722 Views
12,628 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Fivetran

Informatica PowerCenter

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Informatica PowerCenter and Fivetran are both renowned data integration platforms. Despite Informatica's extensive feature set, Fivetran often holds the upper hand due to its ease of use and faster deployment times.

Features: Informatica PowerCenter offers advanced capabilities for complex transformations, excellent scalability, and supports a wide range of data sources. It provides extensive customization options allowing for intricate data management. Fivetran focuses on automation and minimal configuration, making integration into cloud applications swift and efficient, with a strong emphasis on effortless operation for standard ETL processes.

Room for Improvement: Informatica PowerCenter can improve in ease of use due to its steep learning curve. Enhancing automation could streamline the setup process. Additional support for new data integrations would be beneficial. Fivetran could benefit from enhanced support structures and more comprehensive documentation for complex setups. Improving the customization options would cater to more specific user needs. Increasing the number of integrations could strengthen its overall offering.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Informatica PowerCenter requires significant setup and configuration efforts, benefiting from strong customer support and resources for enterprises. It does require a higher level of initial investment in time and training. Fivetran offers a straightforward setup process, focusing on simplicity and efficiency, which appeals to organizations seeking rapid deployment. However, it may lack the depth in customer service compared to its competitors, offering room for enhancements in support.

Pricing and ROI: Informatica PowerCenter involves higher initial setup costs, justified by its extensive customization and enterprise-grade features, and tends to deliver high ROI for companies with complex data operations. Fivetran offers a more competitive pricing model appealing to startups and mid-size businesses, providing rapid ROI through efficient data integration capabilities. The choice between them relies heavily on the specific needs and scale of data operations within the organization.

To learn more, read our detailed Fivetran vs. Informatica PowerCenter Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fivetran vs. Informatica PowerCenter

February 2025

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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

Fivetran

Ranking in Data Integration

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Replication (3rd), Cloud Data Integration (8th)

Informatica PowerCenter

Ranking in Data Integration

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Fivetran is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 9.7%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Erik Jones

Head of BI and Analytics at HyperScience

Solution reduces time-to-value; high ROI

Fivetran has room for improvement in data pipeline observability. The Fivetran logs are fairly basic, compared to, for example, the insight Fivetran gives into helping users understanding the performance of data pipelines. So I think their observability into the pipeline itself could be improved. In addition, Fivetran is in the very early stages of allowing other companies to access its metadata API, but that's something that could use improvement, and I know that they're working on right now. We use a separate tool for "reverse ETL", which is the opposite of what Fivetran does; it pushes data from your data warehouse back out to business applications. If Fivetran pulls data from those same applications, they should also enable users to push it back. I would love to do both ETL and reverse ETL in the same tool. It would be nice if Fivetran offered both their regular offering plus the reverse ETL option as well.

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Lars Borchers

Senior BI Backend Developer at ALD Automotive Portugal

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Making the decision to implement Fivetran was supported by the fact that they have better connectors than other competitors."

"The solution is stable. We've never faced any stability issues."

"Fivetran is remarkably easy to use; I haven't encountered any other data integration tool that is as user-friendly."

"The most important feature of the solution is its ability to build data pipelines in less time."

"The product is very easy to use and very easy to configure."

"The ease of usability is the most valuable feature. It's very easy and quick to set up. It also has a central hub as opposed to GoldenGate which is one direct interface. For GoldenGate I would have needed three interfaces whereas with HVR I have a central interface that manages everything."

"Fivetran offers native connectivity with Sybase"

"Its arrays are powerful enough to handle migrations even when the replication is happening in the background, without causing any trouble with the ongoing traffic."

More Fivetran pros

"The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager."

"To me, what's most valuable in Informatica PowerCenter is the flexibility in building the integration pipeline. Usually, you need to have a platform to be able to integrate with different technologies, including legacy data such as the mainframe. The platform should also be rich enough to transform the data per your business requirement, with no restrictions. Rich integration and rich transformation capabilities are the two key capabilities in Informatica PowerCenter. The solution also offers ease of use. Another valuable feature of Informatica PowerCenter is the drag-and-drop integration because it's GUI-based, similar to IBM and Oracle."

"Among all the solutions I have used, I found Informatica PowerCenter to be much more stable in terms of application."

"Has a good visual tool for data mapping."

"It is very comprehensive in terms of connector and transformation capabilities from both a source and target perspective."

"The setup is very simple."

"It's very easy to use it to develop mappings and workflows."

"Error handling capability is quite good in Informatica PowerCenter because it provides a very detailed session log, which is really helpful to identify errors."

More Informatica PowerCenter pros

Cons

"More connectors are needed for exotic, popular, and rising star portals."

"I would like to see an improvement in the support offered by Fivetran."

"HVR Software's technical support could be improved. Whenever we log a case, the response that we get from the support is a bit delayed."

"The environment must be more development-friendly."

"We use a separate tool for "reverse ETL", which is the opposite of what Fivetran does; it pushes data from your data warehouse back out to business applications. If Fivetran pulls data from those same applications, they should also enable users to push it back. I would love to do both ETL and reverse ETL in the same tool."

"Fivetran should add more connectors because its competitors, like Airbyte, have more connectors."

"The documentation is decent, but it's hard to find information online about Fivetran. For example, if you try to search for an error code, you won't find much information about it in forums."

"We experience cost issues because Fivetran is charged on a usage basis. When you reach a certain level, the tool should focus on reducing the costs. The solution is expensive when you are moving gigabytes and petabytes of data. It should also focus more on REST APIs and webhooks."

More Fivetran cons

"The solution does not scale."

"As a connector to big data, it is not well developed. We've had problems connecting Informatica with Hadoop. The functionality to connect Informatica with Hadoop, for me it's not good."

"The initial setup is not straightforward. You need expertise to do it."

"Unstructured data handling is an important area with a shortcoming that needs improvement in the solution."

"While on-premises is a better product, we really need to move to the cloud and need the cloud to be as robust as this product."

"The only problem with this product is the level of complexity with the number of levels of transformation that you have to go through."

"Compared to solutions offering similar functionalities, Informatica PowerCenter is not very flexible regarding customized integrations."

"Informatica, in my opinion, is very rigid and not very flexible, whereas platforms like Alteryx or Matillion are very flexible and agile."

More Informatica PowerCenter cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is reasonably expensive"

"I would say they're a little bit on the expensive side, and their contract process is not particularly good, but there is a lot of potential flexibility."

"The pricing model is okay and mid to large companies will not have an issue with it."

"When you have a lot of workflows and complex use cases, pricing goes down as you use it more."

"The licensing costs are extremely high for the usage of somebody who has one GB or two GB of usage per day for real-time traffic. There are many other players in the market which are similarly priced or competitively priced. On average per month, it used to come around 12,000-15,000 USD, which is very high."

"The solution is affordable."

"Fivetran is very expensive, and its database-driven pricing model is outdated."

"In the first year, we were given a very good discount. It was approximately 20,000 Euros per year. In the third year, we purchased credit for two years and the price was 33,000 Euros per year."

More Fivetran pricing and cost advice

"The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"The pricing is a little expensive, but in the same range as IBM and other competitors."

"Our customers pay a licensing fee yearly."

"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."

"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."

"The pricing for Informatica PowerCenter is expensive. Some clients have simple needs and only want to integrate and store data. Some clients have small needs, while some clients have bigger needs and focus more on performance and time. The licensing cost for Informatica PowerCenter isn't good. In my project, if I remember correctly, the company pays €20,000 per year for the Informatica PowerCenter license. I'm not aware of additional costs that you need to pay for some features of the solution. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating its price a three."

"Compared to other tools, I think PowerCenter is a bit expensive. When I compare it to Oracle, if you want to use Oracle databases, you can easily get an ODI tool, so it's easier to handle. Informatica is a standalone tool—it's an independent company—and there are no databases around them, so it's quite expensive to use. Generally, large companies use PowerCenter because of the price. If companies want to expand their usage areas, they try to consider if it's easy to implement and easy to understand the pricing. I think the pricing is a barrier for Informatica."

More Informatica PowerCenter pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user90069

BI Expert at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What's the deal with the HVR software acquisition?

As a user of HVR Software I followed this deal closely. Fivetran is apparently trying to establish more in its sector and by buying an already established data replication software, they become som...

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Does HVR Software provide reliable insights?

I honestly can't think of another data replication software that can give you better statistics and insight than HVR Software. There's the feature for topology and statistics and both of them can ...

See all answers

How much traffic can HVR Software handle?

As someone who works at a company where a high volume of information is replicated and has tried several data replication softwares, I can tell you that you're looking at the right one. HVR Softwar...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

AWS Database Migration Service vs Fivetran

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle GoldenGate vs Fivetran

Compared 14% of the time

Qlik Replicate vs Fivetran

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Fivetran

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Replication Server vs Fivetran

Compared 2% of the time

More Fivetran Competitors

SSIS vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 15% of the time

Databricks vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 14% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 8% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 7% of the time

More Informatica PowerCenter Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fivetran

March 2025

Download Fivetran product report

Buyer's Guide

Informatica PowerCenter

March 2025

Download Informatica PowerCenter product report

Also Known As

No data available

PowerCenter

Overview

Fivetran, the global leader in data movement, is trusted by companies like OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer, Verizon and Spotify to centralize data from SaaS applications, databases, files, and other sources into cloud destinations, including data lakes. With high-performance pipelines, seamless interoperability, and enterprise-grade security, Fivetran empowers organizations to modernize their data infrastructure, power analytics and AI, ensure compliance, and achieve transformative business outcomes. Learn more at Fivetran.com

Fivetran

Informatica PowerCenter is a data integration and data visualization tool. The solution works as an enterprise data integration platform that helps organizations access, transform, and integrate data from various systems. The product is designed to support companies in the full cycle of a project, from its initial rollout to critical deployments. Informatica PowerCenter allows developers and analysts to collaborate while accelerating the work process to deploy projects within days instead of months.

The Advanced edition of the product provides an additional real-time engine which allows companies to have always-on enterprise data integration. This ensures seamless collaboration and increment of data lineage visibility and impacts analysis.

The Premium edition of the solution offers an early warning system that detects unexpected behaviors or incorrect utilization of resources in the workflows and alerts companies in the case that these occur. This version of the product also offers automatic data validation, which ensures data accuracy and reduces testing time and expenditure of resources for by up to 90%.

Informatica PowerCenter Features

The product provides users with various features which allow them to execute data integration initiatives such as analytics, data warehousing, data governance, consolidation, and application migration. The features of the solution include:

Collaboration: Informatica PowerCenter offers role-based tools and processes which enable business self-service while benefiting from high-quality IT resources.
Automation: Through various automations and easy-to-use software, users can utilize graphical and codeless tools and initiate effective data integration without additional knowledge.
Scalability: The tool provides high scalability to users, which ensures seamless performance and minimum downtime. PowerCenter also has adaptive load balancing, pushdown optimization, and dynamic partitioning.
Monitoring: Through the extensive monitoring feature, the operations and governance of the solution are easily overseen by users. The tool also provides alerts that can prevent damage to the system.
Real-time data: Through real-time data, users can monitor applications and analytics, ensuring their efficient operation.
Prototyping: Informatica lets its users collaborate with information technology to prototype, profile, and validate results in a timely manner.
Connectivity: Users can access and integrate data from different types of sources through high-performance connectors.
Automated data validation testing: The product offers script-free automated and repeatable audit and validation of data.
Data transformation: This feature allows users to use comprehensive parsing of JSON, PDF, XML, Microsoft Office, and the Internet of Things (IoT) for non-relation data.
Cloud applications connectivity: The product allows for seamless connection to cloud application sources and targets.

Informatica PowerCenter Benefits

The benefits of using Informatica PowerCenter include:

The tool can work over a wide range of systems and platforms and also allows for lean integration.
It enhances the quality and speed of performance and optimizes the cost of the process for your organization.
PowerCenter supports multiple databases, including TPump, Parallel Transporter Fastload, and Teradata MLoad.
The tool is very easy to monitor and maintain, which simplifies the data integration process for companies.
The centralized error logging system allows users to locate errors in a timely manner and correct them.
The tool can convert data from an application to another format, as it serves as one of the most powerful data transformation solutions.
PowerCenter can also serve as middleware between two applications.
The solution offers both parallel processing and load balancing.
PowerCenter is a tool with a high level of security, which also minimizes essential administration activities.
The solution ensures the quality of information, as it does not allow invalid or unwanted data to be uploaded to the source.

Reviews from Real Users

Yahya T., a developer and architect at L'Oreal, says the product is stable, provides good support, and integrating it with other systems is very fast.

Mohamed E., a senior manager for Data management and data governance at a tech company, says PowerCenter is stable, mature, and offers flexibility in building the pipeline and has a drag-and-drop mode because it's GUI-based; technical support is brilliant.

Informatica

Sample Customers

Autodesk, Condé Nast, JetBlue, Morgan Stanley, OpenAI, LVMH, Pfizer, Verizon, SpotifyNational Australia Bank, Saks, Cemex, Okta, Dropbox, Pitney Bowes, World Fuel Services,Lufthansa, AutoZone, ASICS, ASOS, Coupa, Databricks, Hermes, New Relic, Intercom,Canva, Honeywell, Square, DocuSign, Nandos, Oldcastle Infrastructure

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank

Buyer's Guide

Fivetran vs. Informatica PowerCenter

February 2025

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