IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Informatica PowerCenter

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
IBM InfoSphere Information Server is a data integration platform used to understand, cleanse, monitor and transform data. The offerings provide massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities.N/A
Informatica PowerCenter
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Informatica PowerCenter is a metadata driven data integration technology designed to form the foundation for data integration initiatives, including analytics and data warehousing, application migration, or consolidation and data governance.N/A
Pricing
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Considered Both Products
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Chose IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Information Server and Informatica PowerCenter are the two leading integration platforms worldwide. Information Server has a better integration with other IBM products such as MDM or Cognos but the decision to use one or another platform is more a price decision and quantity of …
Informatica PowerCenter
Chose Informatica PowerCenter
PowerCenter is simply so robust and refined that most other apps cannot do as much as it can. Even Informatica’s own Cloud version is so anemic as to not even compare against it. While from that perspective it feels bloated with too much to navigate through, many of those …
Chose Informatica PowerCenter
SSIS is a good entry into ETL, for smaller organizations or Microsoft-centric companies. It's strengths lie in its ease-of-use, quick turnaround, and simplicity. Its weaknesses lie in scalability and re-usability (you can achieve re-usability, however segmentation is at the …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
10.0
5 Ratings
20% above category average
Informatica PowerCenter
8.5
18 Ratings
4% above category average
Connect to traditional data sources10.05 Ratings9.018 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL10.05 Ratings8.014 Ratings
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
10.0
5 Ratings
18% above category average
Informatica PowerCenter
7.5
18 Ratings
11% below category average
Simple transformations10.05 Ratings8.018 Ratings
Complex transformations10.05 Ratings7.018 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
9.7
5 Ratings
18% above category average
Informatica PowerCenter
8.2
18 Ratings
1% above category average
Data model creation10.03 Ratings9.015 Ratings
Metadata management10.05 Ratings8.016 Ratings
Business rules and workflow10.05 Ratings9.018 Ratings
Collaboration10.05 Ratings6.116 Ratings
Testing and debugging9.05 Ratings9.017 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
9.5
5 Ratings
15% above category average
Informatica PowerCenter
9.0
15 Ratings
9% above category average
Integration with data quality tools10.05 Ratings9.015 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools9.04 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Small Businesses
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.6 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
dbt
dbt
Score 9.4 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Astera Centerprise
Astera Centerprise
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(6 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM InfoSphere Information ServerInformatica PowerCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
It's super terrific with workflow automation. Terrific with data backup and convenient with encryption of data. Reliable with asset management Great to discover virtual servers
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Informatica
1.- Scenaries with poor sources of data is not recomended (Very bad ROI). The solution is for medium-big enterprises with a lot of sources of data and users. 2.- Bank and finance enviroment to integrate differente data form trading, Regulatory reports, decisions makers, fraud and financial crimes because in this kind of scenary the quality of data is the base of the business. 3.- Departments of development and test of applications in enterprises because you can design enviroments, out of the production systems, to development and test the new API's or updateds made.
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Pros
IBM
  • Any source to any target support.
  • ETL flexibility without coding.
  • Extreme data volume processing.
  • Native integration with other Data integration functionalities such as data profiling, data cleansing, metadata management.
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Informatica
  • Informatica Powercenter is an innovative software that works with ETL-type data integration. Connectivity to almost all the database systems.
  • Great documentation and customer support.
  • It has a various solution to address data quality issues. data masking, data virtualization. It has various supporting tools or MDM, IDQ, Analyst, BigData which can be used to analyze data and correct it.
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Cons
IBM
  • I would be nice to have a new web development environment for DataStage.
  • Connectivity Packs such as Pack for SAP Application are a little pricey.
  • It is confusing for new developers the possibility of developing jobs using different execution engines such as Parallel or Server.
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Informatica
  • There are too many ways to perform the same or similar functions which in turn makes it challenging to trace what a workflow is doing and at which point (ex. sessions can be designed as static or re-usable and the override can occur at the session or workflow, or both which can be counter productive and confusing when troubleshooting).
  • The power in structured design is a double edged sword. Simple tasks for a POC can become cumbersome. Ex. if you want to move some data to test a process, you first have to create your sources by importing them which means an ODBC connection or similar will need to be configured, you in turn have to develop your targets and all of the essential building blocks before being able to begin actual development. While I am on sources and targets, I think of a table definition as just that and find it counter intuitive to have to design a table as both a source and target and manage them as different objects. It would be more intuitive to have a table definition and its source/target properties defined by where you drag and drop it in the mapping.
  • There are no checkpoints or data viewer type functions without designing an entire mapping and workflow. If you would like to simply run a job up to a point and check the throughput, an entire mapping needs to be completed and you would workaround this by creating a flat file target.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
  • Scale of implementation
  • IBM techsupport
Read full review
Informatica
Our team enjoys using Informatica and feels that it is one of the best ETL tools on the market.
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Informatica
Positives; - Multi User Development Environment - Speed of transformation - Seamless integration between other Informatica products. Negatives; - There should be less windows to maintain developers' focus while using. You probably need 2 big monitors when you start development with Informatica Power Center. - Oracle Analytical functions should be natively used. - E-LT support as well as ETL support.
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Performance
IBM
No answers on this topic
Informatica
PowerCenter is robust and fast, and it does a great job meeting all the needs, not just the most commercially vocal needs. In the hands of an expert power user, you can accomplish almost anything with your data. It is not for new users or intermittent users-- for that the Cloud version is a better fit. Be prepared for costly connectors (priced differently for each source or destination you are working with), and just be planful of your projects so you are not paying for connectors you no longer need or want
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Support Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Informatica
Informatica power center is a leader of the pack of ETL tools and has some great abilities that make it stand out from other ETL tools. It has been a great partner to its clients over a long time so it's definitely dependable. With all the great things about Informatica, it has a bit of tech burden that should be addressed to make it more nimble, reduce the learning curve for new developers, provide better connectivity with visualization tools.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
DataStage is more robust and stable than ODI The ability to perform complex transformations or implement business rules is much more developed in DS
Read full review
Informatica
While Talend offers a much more comfortable interface to work with, Informatica's forte is performance. And on that front, Informatica Enterprise Data Integration certainly leaves Talend in the dust. For a more back-end-centric use case, Informatica is certainly the ETL tool of choice. On the other hand, if business users would be using the tool, then Talend would be the preferred tool.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • If you don't use all of the product family, it will be expensive. But if you want to plan use all the products and you will position it in the center of your infrastructure ROI will be effective.
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Informatica
  • The data pipeline automation capability of Informatica means that few resources are needed to pre-process the data that ultimately resides in a Data Warehouse. Once a workflow is implemented, manual intervention is not needed.
  • PowerCenter did require more resources and time for installation and configuration than was expected/planned for.
  • The lack of or minimal support of unstructured data means that newer sources of dynamic/changing data cannot be easily processed/transformed through PowerCenter workflows.
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