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Informatica PowerCenter vs Spring Cloud Data Flow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Informatica PowerCenter
Ranking in Data Integration
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (8th)
Spring Cloud Data Flow
Ranking in Data Integration
22nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Informatica PowerCenter is 10.9%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spring Cloud Data Flow is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

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.
NitinGoyal - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a plug-and-play model and provides good robustness and scalability
The solution's community support could be improved. I don't know why the Spring Cloud Data Flow community is not very strong. Community support is very limited whenever you face any problem or are stuck somewhere. I'm not sure whether it has improved in the last six months because this pipeline was set up almost two years ago. I struggled with that a lot. For example, there was limited support whenever I got an exception and sought help from Stack Overflow or different forums. Interacting with Kubernetes needs a few certificates. You need to define all the certificates within your application. With the help of those certificates, your Java application or Spring Cloud Data Flow can interact with Kubernetes. I faced a lot of hurdles while placing those certificates. Despite following the official documentation to define all the replicas, readiness, and liveliness probes within the Spring Cloud Data Flow application, it was not working. So, I had to troubleshoot while digging in and debugging the internals of Spring Cloud Data Flow at that time. It was just a configuration mismatch, and I was doing nothing weird. There was a small spelling difference between how Spring Cloud Data Flow was expecting it and how I passed it. I was just following the official documentation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The setup is straightforward."
"It's very easy to use it to develop mappings and workflows."
"We have found the PowerCenter and B2B data transformation most valuable."
"Informatica PowerCenter has been implementing mapping design, data flow, and workflow execution for years."
"The most valuable aspects of Informatica PowerCenter are the many features, ease of use, and user-friendliness."
"The most valuable features are the metadata repository and the data warehouse application console."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager."
"Informatica PowerCenter is very good for integrating a huge amount of data in a very short duration, such as a minute. It is also very easy to use. After you provide the source and the target, mappings are automatically done, which makes it easy to use for the development team."
"The ease of deployment on Kubernetes, the seamless integration for orchestration of various pipelines, and the visual dashboard that simplifies operations even for non-specialists such as quality analysts."
"The most valuable feature is real-time streaming."
"There are a lot of options in Spring Cloud. It's flexible in terms of how we can use it. It's a full infrastructure."
"The best thing I like about Spring Cloud Data Flow is its plug-and-play model."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The dashboards in Spring Cloud Dataflow are quite valuable."
"The most valuable features of Spring Cloud Data Flow are the simple programming model, integration, dependency Injection, and ability to do any injection. Additionally, auto-configuration is another important feature because we don't have to configure the database and or set up the boilerplate in the database in every project. The composability is good, we can create small workloads and compose them in any way we like."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it allows us to use different batch data sources, retrieve the data, and then do the data processing, after which we can convert and store it in the target."
 

Cons

"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."
"Informatica PowerCenter could improve the data threshold for large sets of data. Additionally, they should add real-time integration."
"PowerCenter has three clients. I wish they would consolidate everything into one GUI, not three. Also, we had a persistent issue with the Informatica Developer tool but it was solved when we migrated to the newest one."
"It would be better if I could do all the work within a single window. If I'm working on any mapping and if I have to switch to sessions, I have to open a new window altogether. If I have to get into workflows, I have to open a new window. It was also very expensive. In the next release, I would like it to be more user-friendly."
"What I didn't like about it is that the platform itself is not great at distributed processing. When you need high parallel processing, it has some inherent issues. We had to use Java transformation, and it did not go very well. I have heard that it is going to the cloud, but we haven't tried that."
"Integration with Artificial Intelligence would benefit this solution."
"The solution must improve the integration with new services."
"They should release new versions for the solution's on-premises setup."
"I would improve the dashboard features as they are not very user-friendly."
"The solution's community support could be improved."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow could improve the user interface. We can drag and drop in the application for the configuration and settings, and deploy it right from the UI, without having to run a CI/CD pipeline. However, that does not work with Kubernetes, it only works when we are working with jars as the Spring Cloud Data Flow applications."
"On the tool's online discussion forums, you may get stuck with an issue, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There were instances of deployment pipelines getting stuck, and the dashboard not always accurately showing the application status, requiring manual intervention such as rerunning applications or refreshing the dashboard."
"The configurations could be better. Some configurations are a little bit time-consuming in terms of trying to understand using the Spring Cloud documentation."
"Some of the features, like the monitoring tools, are not very mature and are still evolving."
"Spring Cloud Data Flow is not an easy-to-use tool, so improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Our client has purchased the license, and we are using it."
"The license model is CPU based."
"It is for big enterprises. We have leveraged Informatica for big enterprises but not for small and medium enterprises because it is a very costly product as compared to other products. We propose this solution only for enterprise customers. For small to medium enterprises, we would propose the Microsoft solution. Its licensing is currently bundle-wise. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise."
"The price of Informatica PowerCenter is expensive, but it does give value."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution provides value for money, and we are currently using its community edition."
"If you want support from Spring Cloud Data Flow there is a fee. The Spring Framework is open-source and this is a free solution."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
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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
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

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...
What needs improvement with Spring Cloud Data Flow?
I would improve the dashboard features as they are not very user-friendly. Another area for improvement is the documentation, as it is not very precise. There are limited resources available on Spr...
What is your primary use case for Spring Cloud Data Flow?
I am a developer using Spring Cloud Dataflow. We primarily use it to convert our applications from monolithic to microservices. The solution is used for scheduling tasks in a specific order and ens...
What advice do you have for others considering Spring Cloud Data Flow?
My advice would be to thoroughly review the documentation and understand if Spring Cloud Dataflow is the right solution for your application. For applications with only one or two microservices, it...
 

Also Known As

PowerCenter
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, LexisNexis, Rabobank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica PowerCenter vs. Spring Cloud Data Flow and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.