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IBM App Connect vs Informatica PowerCenter comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM App Connect
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (8th)
Informatica PowerCenter
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Visualization (8th)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2024
Offers flexible adapters, good scalability but logging can be difficult at times
There is room for improvement in the logging messages. Sometimes, if you put someone new into App Connect, they can abandon it the same day. The logging is really painful. However, IBM has made efforts to integrate with Elasticsearch for logging, so that's an improvement. Overall, the logging can be difficult at times. One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient. Back in 2013, I worked with Sonic ESB, and even then, it had CI/CD with Maven. With App Connect, you need to build everything yourself when using tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, or CircleCI. IBM really needs to provide official support for this.
Lars Borchers - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 4, 2023
A stable and reliable product that provides a variety of features for data integration
We use the product for everything that's possible in data integration. We have a data warehouse, and we load each stage. We use the product for data exchange and API services. We also use it to load data into cloud platforms and generate Customer Letters The reliability of the product and the way…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's likely an adapter for that."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"It has different type of interfaces that can integrate with companies."
"There is a friendly interface for configuration, and integration is made easy."
"Very scalable, flexible, and user-friendly."
"It has an efficient design flow."
"Technical support is good."
"The solution is very fast-paced when it comes to making things right. We can quickly download what we need if we need any app migrations for our software business. We can download it plenty of times when we need to use it. It gives us very high speed for delivering any development."
"Error handling capability is quite good in Informatica PowerCenter because it provides a very detailed session log, which is really helpful to identify errors."
"It's very easy to use it to develop mappings and workflows."
"We use Informatica PowerCenter to transfer the transitional database to and from the data warehouse. This is very efficient as it enables us to quickly find our data reports and the data, so we can build AI models."
"It has good standard features for ETL development."
"The ability to scale through partitions helped us to improve the performance."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica PowerCenter is data transformation and user-friendliness."
"The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good."
"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is very user-friendly and the graphical design is very easy to understand."
 

Cons

"I've been using IBM App Connect for about twenty-five years, and while I like it, there are some areas for improvement. The trace policy is ridiculous, and the biggest issue is the cost—it's expensive. People would use it much more if the price point weren't so high."
"They reply in one or two hours at most, but they could be better."
"When we do a version upgrade of the system, the platform is kind of complicated."
"Finding developers for the product is difficult since it is a niche solution. I know the OpenShift environment is running well for the microservice environment. We had some issues with the other environment we tried to implement. It can be easily implemented internally, but we have some problems in practice."
"More connectors could be available for the product as some of the third-party software doesn't have default connectors."
"It is not easy to deploy. It requires someone with a high level of knowledge in the solution to deploy it, not just anyone can do it."
"The user interface of IBM App Connect can be a little bit more user-friendly, I would say because the first-time developer is onboarded while using IBM App Connect, he or she may get a little intimidated or daunted looking at all the options available or the pipelines, et cetera."
"IBM App Connect should improve security features."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is not scalable."
"This product is going to decommission in the next couple of years."
"This solution needs the functionality to do batch processing of data. It also lacks connectivity to NoSQL, unstructured data sources."
"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 solution's commercial cost is very high. Other open-source tools can do the tool's functions for free. The world is moving to the cloud, but the solution hasn't updated its drivers. I presume that its downfall will start soon. The tool is trying to cross-sell or upsell without helping customers derive benefits from the existing products. They have multiple tools and licenses. It is better to bring the smaller tools in one umbrella."
"I would like to see an improvement in the digital adoption."
"Now they are migrating to a new version, and they have something that is called Informatica Developer. Previously, they just had PowerCenter. Now, when they move everything to Informatica Developer it's not as good or stable like it was when it was PowerCenter, though it has some nice features. This Developer tool could be better."
"Lacks ability to calculate cost of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
"The price could be better."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"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 have a site license, but we do pay by the division."
"The price is mostly reasonable."
"The solution is in the middle price range compared to other solutions."
"We have found the pricing very cost-effective. The licensing is CPU and data source-based."
"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."
"Licensing is a one time cost. But maintenance costs depend on what you want, how long you need it. Maintenance is a kind of insurance. With health insurance, you don't know whether you will get sick or need to go to hospital or not but you have to have insurance. It's the same thing with support. If you have that expertise in resolving issues, if you have enough experience in your IT department, I would say you don't need the support. But in practice, they recommend you go with the support. If you want support you have to pay for it."
"I consider this to be an expensive product."
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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
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
Our company has a big project for delivery and e-commerce sites. We use IBM App Connect to deliver information to our end users after they buy our products. We get information from many places, suc...
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

IBM Cast Iron
PowerCenter
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. Informatica PowerCenter and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.