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FME vs Informatica PowerCenter 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

FME
Ranking in Data Integration
27th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Integration
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of FME is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 11.0%, up from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is very user-friendly and the graphical design is very easy to understand."
"Informatica PowerCenter is a very good ETL tool."
"The greatest feature is that it is very easy to have someone come in and jump right in. It is one of the nicest tools in terms of getting a person acquainted quickly."
"What I like the most is that we have to deal with less while writing the queries."
"The ability to scale through partitions helped us to improve the performance."
"It is UI friendly and has all the advantages of an ETL tool."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"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."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
"The performance of Informatica PowerCenter could improve."
"There is a need to buy a separate license if one wishes to connect with some kind of SAP system, such as SalesForce."
"They should release new versions for the solution's on-premises setup."
"If you want to transfer a ZIP file, it is a pain. You need to use Command-Line. Sometimes we just want to transfer a file. It should be easy to move them from A to B."
"This product is going to decommission in the next couple of years."
"It should be more cloud-centric than on-prem-centric."
"We had to take on a large volume of data from the legacy Sybase system. This was taking a very long time, i.e., more than a day. We were trying to improve it with partitions to gpload, but we were told that we can't go more than four partitions."
"We need another tool for monitoring. It would be easier if all the features were consolidated into one tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"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."
"Price-wise, it's more expensive than SSIS, but it's a better tool, so it has more features. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Pricing for Informatica PowerCenter isn't cheap, but if I compare it with IBM, it's as expensive as IBM, however, Informatica PowerCenter is more innovative, especially when compared to a giant company such as IBM that has thousands of products. Informatica PowerCenter is limited only to data management, but it has new features that come out every quarter. Points for ease of use and flexibility go to Informatica PowerCenter, but price-wise, IBM and Informatica are equal because they're both expensive."
"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."
"According to what I've heard and read on various blogs, it's quite expensive when compared to similar competitive products."
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"I rate the product's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"It's much more expensive, almost three times more expensive than most other solutions."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The price is very high, and it doesn't understand the market now."
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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
Government
29%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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

No data available
PowerCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about FME vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.