Informatica PowerCenter vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics comparison

Informatica PowerCenter vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

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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

Informatica PowerCenter

Ranking in Data Integration

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (9th)

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Ranking in Data Integration

24th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 11.0%, up from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

Ryan Ferdon

Senior Data Engineer at Burgiss

Low-code makes development faster than with Python, but there were caching issues

If you're working with a larger data set, I'm not so sure it would be the best solution. The larger things got the slower it was. It was kind of buggy sometimes. And when we ran the flow, it didn't go from a perceived start to end, node by node. Everything kicked off at once. That meant there were times when it would get ahead of itself and a job would fail. That was not because the job was wrong, but because Pentaho decided to go at everything at once, and something would process before it was supposed to. There were nodes you could add to make sure that, before this node kicks off, all these others have processed, but it was a bit tedious. There were also caching issues, and we had to write code to clear the cache every time we opened the program, because the cache would fill up and it wouldn't run. I don't know how hard that would be for them to fix, or if it was fixed in version 10. Also, the UI is a bit outdated, but I'm more of a fan of function over how something looks. One other thing that would have helped with Pentaho was documentation and support on the internet: how to do things, how to set up. I think there are some sites on how to install it, and Pentaho does have a help repository, but it wasn't always the most useful.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Can manage a huge quantity of data and provide reliability."

"The partitioning and optimization to help enhance our development is a very valuable aspect of Informatica PowerCenter."

"Easy, scalable, robust platform to integrate heterogeneous source platform's data into the unified data warehouse."

"The most valuable feature of Informatica PowerCenter is the flow designer functionally. It is the best out of any ETL tool. Additionally, the solution is reliable and trustable in dealing with large data sources anytime. When we're using billions of data transactions, it's smooth."

"The most valuable feature of Informatica PowerCenter is data transformation and user-friendliness."

"Good product if you are trying implement data quality, data integration, and data management projects."

"Ease and speed of building integrations, especially integrations between different applications, such as our Hospital Information System."

"The performance and design of Informatica have been very valuable. I find the performance faster than, say, Oracle Data Integrator or DataStage."

More Informatica PowerCenter pros

"I find the drag and drop feature in Pentaho Data Integration very useful for integration."

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to create many API integrations. I'm always working with advertising agents and using Facebook and Instagram to do campaigns. We use Pentaho to get the results from these campaigns and to create dashboards to analyze the results."

"It is easy to use, install, and start working with."

"Lumada has allowed us to interact with our employees more effectively and compensate them properly. One of the cool things is that we use it to generate commissions for our salespeople and bonuses for our warehouse people. It allows us to get information out to them in a timely fashion. We can also see where they're at and how they're doing."

"It's my understanding that the product can scale."

"The fact that it's a low-code solution is valuable. It's good for more junior people who may not be as experienced with programming."

"It's very simple compared to other products out there."

"We use Lumada’s ability to develop and deploy data pipeline templates once and reuse them. This is very important. When the entire pipeline is automated, we do not have any issues in respect to deployment of code or with code working in one environment but not working in another environment. We have saved a lot of time and effort from that perspective because it is easy to build ETL pipelines."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pros

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."

"We had stability issues, mostly with JVM size."

"Support could be better."

"When I deal with very large amounts of data, there have been performance issues."

"I would like to see an improvement in the digital adoption."

"It would be nice to have all tools in one place. CDC needs more effort, as it's only easy to develop if you are familiar with Linux."

"Integrating new tools can be tricky and challenging."

"Informatica PowerCenter is outdated and would benefit from modernization. They should have a very good migration strategy from Informatica PowerCenter to AACF. Informatica PowerCenter there is no point in using it, you have to use a cloud version."

More Informatica PowerCenter cons

"I work with the Community Edition, therefore I do not have support. There was an issue that I could not resolve with community support."

"The testing and quality could really improve. Every time that there is a major release, we are very nervous about what is going to get broken. We have had a lot of experience with that, as even the latest one was broken. Some basic things get broken. That doesn't look good for Hitachi at all. If there is one place I would advise them to spend some money and do some effort, it is with the quality. It is not that hard to start putting in some unit tests so basic things don't get broken when they do a new release. That just looks horrible, especially for an organization like Hitachi."

"I could not connect to our Hadoop environment in an easy and flexible way, and it was important to scale our data warehouse."

"Parallel execution could be better in Pentaho. It's very simple but I don't think it works well."

"Although it is a low-code solution with a graphical interface, often the error messages that you get are of the type that a developer would be happy with. You get a big stack of red text and Java errors displayed on the screen, and less technical people can get intimidated by that. It can be a bit intimidating to get a wall of red error messages displayed. Other graphical tools that are focused at the power user level provide a much more user-friendly experience in dealing with your exceptions and guiding the user into where they've made the mistake."

"Since Hitachi took over, I don't feel that the documentation is as good within the solution. It used to have very good help built right in."

"In terms of the flexibility to deploy in any environment, such as on-premise or in the cloud, we can do the cloud deployment only through virtual machines. We might also be able to work on different environments through Docker or Kubernetes, but we don't have an Azure app or an AWS app for easy deployment to the cloud. We can only do it through virtual machines, which is a problem, but we can manage it. We also work with Databricks because it works with Spark. We can work with clustered servers, and we can easily do the deployment in the cloud. With a right-click, we can deploy Databricks through the app on AWS or Azure cloud."

"Its basic functionality doesn't need a whole lot of change. There could be some improvement in the consistency of the behavior of different transformation steps. The software did start as open-source and a lot of the fundamental, everyday transformation steps that you use when building ETL jobs were developed by different people. It is not a seamless paradigm. A table input step has a different way of thinking than a data merge step."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using an annual license for Informatica PowerCenter."

"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."

"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."

"Informatica PowerCenter is reasonably priced. It is less expensive than Pentaho. There is a standard version fee in Taiwan. It is a one-time yearly subscription price that is approximately $3,010 US dollars for three users."

"The license model is CPU based."

"The price of this solution is high."

"Its maintenance is expensive."

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

More Informatica PowerCenter pricing and cost advice

"When we first started with it, it was much cheaper. It has gone up drastically, especially since Hitachi bought out Pentaho."

"The pricing has been pretty good. I'm used to using everything open-source or freeware-based. I understand that organizations need to make sure that the solutions are secure, and that's basically where I hit a roadblock in my current organization. They needed to ensure that we had a license and we had a secure way of accessing it so that no outside parties could get access to our data, but in terms of pricing, considering how much other teams are spending on cloud solutions or even their existing solutions, its price point is pretty good. At this time, there are no additional costs. We just have the licensing fees."

"For most development tasks, the Enterprise edition should be sufficient. It depends on the type of support that you require for your production environment."

"I believe the pricing of the solution is more affordable than the competitors"

"It does seem a bit expensive compared to the serverless product offering. Tools, such as Server Integration Services, are "almost" free with a database engine. It is comparable to products like Alteryx, which is also very expensive."

"I primarily work on the Community Version, which is available to use free of charge."

"You need to go through the paid version to have Hitachi Lumada specialized support. However, if you are using the free version, then you will have only the community support. You will depend on the releases from Hitachi to solve some problem or questions that you have, such as bug fixes. You will need to wait for the newest versions or releases to solve these types of problems."

"The cost of these types of solutions are expensive. So, we really appreciate what we get for our money. Though, we don't think of the solution as a top-of-the-line solution or anything like that."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics 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

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

Which ETL tool would you recommend to populate data from OLTP to OLAP?

Hi Rajneesh, yes here is the feature comparison between the community and enterprise edition : https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/pdf/brochure/leverage-open-source-benefits-with-assurance-of-hita...

What do you think can be improved with Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations?

In my opinion, the reporting side of this tool needs serious improvements. In my previous company, we worked with Hitachi Lumada Data Integration and while it does a good job for what it’s worth, ...

What do you use Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations for most frequently?

My company has used this product to transform data from databases, CSV files, and flat files. It really does a good job. We were most satisfied with the results in terms of how many people could us...

SSIS vs Informatica PowerCenter

Comparisons

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 14% of the time

Databricks vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 14% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs Informatica PowerCenter

Compared 7% of the time

More Informatica PowerCenter Competitors

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 17% of the time

SSIS vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 14% of the time

Talend Open Studio vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 9% of the time

SnapLogic vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 4% of the time

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Informatica PowerCenter

Download Informatica PowerCenter product report

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Download Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics product report

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics report

Also Known As

PowerCenter

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration

Learn More

Informatica

Hitachi Vantara

Overview

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.

Pentaho Data Integration stands as a versatile platform designed to cater to the data integration and analytics needs of organizations, regardless of their size. This powerful solution is the go-to choice for businesses seeking to seamlessly integrate data from diverse sources, including databases, files, and applications. Pentaho Data Integration facilitates the essential tasks of cleaning and transforming data, ensuring it's primed for meaningful analysis. With a wide array of tools for data mining, machine learning, and statistical analysis, Pentaho Data Integration empowers organizations to glean valuable insights from their data. What sets Pentaho Data Integration apart is its maturity and a vibrant community of users and developers, making it a reliable and cost-effective option. Pentaho Data Integration offers a range of features, including a comprehensive ETL toolkit, data cleaning and transformation capabilities, robust data analysis tools, and seamless deployment options for data integration and analytics solutions, making it a go-to solution for organizations seeking to harness the power of their data.

Sample Customers

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute

Informatica PowerCenter vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics