IBM DataStage vs. SQL Server Integration Services

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM DataStage
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
IBM® DataStage® is a data integration tool that helps users to design, develop and run jobs that move and transform data. At its core, the DataStage tool supports extract, transform and load (ETL) and extract, load and transform (ELT) patterns. A basic version of the software is available for on-premises deployment, and the cloud-based DataStage for IBM Cloud Pak® for Data offers automated integration capabilities in a hybrid or multicloud environment.N/A
SSIS
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a data integration solution.N/A
Pricing
IBM DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM DataStageSSIS
Free Trial
YesNo
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 DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Considered Both Products
IBM DataStage
Chose IBM DataStage
DataStage offers better integration capabilities without the need to write code manually. It also has a native ETL engine whereas MSIS requires a SQL Server. It has better integration capabilities with data quality, data profiling and data governance tools. The main drawback of …
SSIS
Chose SQL Server Integration Services
SSIS is a very basic, developer-oriented ETL tool and while it lacks many of the nice UX features of its competitors it is a powerful tool that comes as a part of SQL Server and, in the hands of experienced developers with domain knowledge, can meet most organizations' ETL …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
IBM DataStage
9.1
9 Ratings
10% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services
7.5
53 Ratings
9% below category average
Connect to traditional data sources9.59 Ratings8.853 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL8.88 Ratings6.240 Ratings
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
IBM DataStage
9.5
9 Ratings
13% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services
8.1
53 Ratings
3% below category average
Simple transformations9.89 Ratings8.553 Ratings
Complex transformations9.39 Ratings7.752 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
IBM DataStage
9.0
9 Ratings
10% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services
7.4
51 Ratings
9% below category average
Data model creation9.46 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Metadata management8.78 Ratings7.133 Ratings
Business rules and workflow8.18 Ratings8.142 Ratings
Collaboration9.09 Ratings7.338 Ratings
Testing and debugging9.59 Ratings6.148 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
IBM DataStage
8.9
8 Ratings
8% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services
6.9
41 Ratings
17% below category average
Integration with data quality tools8.88 Ratings7.436 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools9.08 Ratings6.536 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Small Businesses
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.6 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.1 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.1 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.1 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(9 ratings)
8.0
(53 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.3
(8 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.8
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
8.2
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM DataStageSQL Server Integration Services
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Excellent Cloud data mapping tool and easy creating multiple project data analytics in real-time and the report distribution are excellent via this IBM product. Easy tool to provide data visualization and the integration is effective and helpful to migrating huge amounts of data across other platforms and different websites insights gathering.
Read full review
Microsoft
Ideal for daily standard ETL use cases whether the data is sourced from / transferred to the native connectors (like SQL Server) or FTP. Best if the company uses MS suite of tools. There are better options in the market for chaining tasks where you want a custom flow of executions depending on the outcome of each process or if you want advanced functionality like API connections, etc.
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • Data movement
  • Seamless integration of scripts and etl jobs
  • Descriptive logging
  • Ability to work with myriad of data assets
  • Direct integration for Governance catalog
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Ease of use - can be used with no prior experience in a relatively short amount of time.
  • Flexibility - provides multiple means of accomplishing tasks to be able to support virtually any scenario.
  • Performance - performs well with default configurations but allows the user to choose a multitude of options that can enhance performance.
  • Resilient - supports the configuration of error handling to prevent and identify breakages.
  • Complete suite of configurable tools.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • Connector Stages to Snowflake on the cloud. We had some issues initially but since then had been corrected.
  • Accessing tool from a browser (zero foot-print). Currently we need to either install locally or connect to a server to do ETL work.
  • Diversify ways of authenticating users.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • SSIS has been a bit neglected by Microsoft and new features are slow in coming.
  • When importing data from flat files and Excel workbooks, changes in the data structure will cause the extracts to fail. Workarounds do exist but are not easily implemented. If your source data structure does not change or rarely changes, this negative is relatively insignificant.
  • While add-on third-party SSIS tools exist, there are only a small number of vendors actively supporting SSIS and license fees for production server use can be significant especially in highly-scaled environments.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
IBM
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Some features should be revised or improved, some tools (using it with Visual Studio) of the toolbox should be less schematic and somewhat more flexible. Using for example, the CSV data import is still very old-fashioned and if the data format changes it requires a bit of manual labor to accept the new data structure
Read full review
Usability
IBM
Because it is robust, and it is being continuously improved. DS is one of the most used and recognized tools in the market. Large companies have implemented it in the first instance to develop their DW, but finding the advantages it has, they could use it for other types of projects such as migrations, application feeding, etc.
Read full review
Microsoft
SQL Server Integration Services is a relatively nice tool but is simply not the ETL for a global, large-scale organization. With developing requirements such as NoSQL data, cloud-based tools, and extraordinarily large databases, SSIS is no longer our tool of choice.
Read full review
Performance
IBM
It could load thousands of records in seconds. But in the Parallel version, you need to understand how to particionate the data. If you use the algorithms erroneously, or the functionalities that it gives for the parsing of data, the performance can fall drastically, even with few records. It is necessary to have people with experience to be able to determine which algorithm to use and understand why.
Read full review
Microsoft
Raw performance is great. At times, depending on the machine you are using for development, the IDE can have issues. Deploying projects is very easy and the tool set they give you to monitor jobs out of the box is decent. If you do very much with it you will have to write into your projects performance tracking though.
Read full review
Support Rating
IBM
I believe that IBM generally has one of the worst and most complex assistance systems (physical and online) that exists.
Read full review
Microsoft
The support, when necessary, is excellent. But beyond that, it is very rarely necessary because the user community is so large, vibrant and knowledgable, a simple Google query or forum question can answer almost everything you want to know. You can also get prewritten script tasks with a variety of functionality that saves a lot of time.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
The implementation may be different in each case, it is important to properly analyze all the existing infrastructure to understand the kind of work needed, the type of software used and the compatibility between these, the features that you want to exploit, to understand what is possible and which ones require integration with third-party tools
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
IBM
It's obvious since they both are from the same vendors and it makes it easier and can get better rates for licensing. Also, sales rapes are very helpful in case of escalations and critical issues.
Read full review
Microsoft
I had nothing to do with the choice or install. I assume it was made because it's easy to integrate with our SQL Server environment and free. I'm not sure of any other enterprise level solution that would solve this problem, but I would likely have approached it with traditional scripting. Comparably free, but my own familiarity with trad scripts would be my final deciding factor. Perhaps with some further training on SSIS I would have a different answer.
Read full review
Return on Investment
IBM
  • Reduce development time by 65% compared with hand coding.
  • Reduces ETL process maintenance times.
  • Better data governance for technical and non-technical people.
  • Improve time to market for initiatives that require data integration.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Data integrity across various products allows unify certain processes inside the organization and save funds by reducing human labour factor.
  • Automated data unification allows us plan our inputs better and reduce over-warehousing by overbuying
  • The employee number, responsible for data management was reduced from 4 to 1 person
Read full review
ScreenShots