Informatica PowerCenter (legacy) vs. SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) vs. Talend Open Studio (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Informatica PowerCenter was data integration technology designed to form the foundation for data integration initiatives, application migration, or analytics. It is a legacy product.N/A
SSIS
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a data integration solution.N/A
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Talend Open Studio was an open source integration software, used to build basic data pipelines or execute simple ETL and data integration tasks. Qlik and Talend discontinued the service in early 2024, and it is no longer available.
$0
per month
Pricing
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SSISTalend Open Studio (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Considered Multiple Products
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
Chose Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
PowerCenter can be run from different types of OSs and can integrate with multiple types of databases and applications compared to SSIS. PowerCenter performs better with any type of database due to its ability to use native drivers to read as well as load data. Due to its seam …
Chose Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
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 …
SSIS
Chose SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
SSIS is similar to Alteryx and Informatica PowerCenter in a way because these are all drag-and-drop ETL tools with similar functionality. Alteryx is a step ahead because it has some advanced ETL functionalities including statistical calculations etc. and a better ability to set …
Chose SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
I personally prefer SSIS. There are items that each do better than the others, but the ease of use of SSIS, along with its extensibility to 3rd party, ability to write any code required in the tool, and uses the same IDE for the MS BI suite (more of an issue if you're not a …
Chose SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
SQL Server is already in our wheelhouse so it only made sense to utilize the tools we already had available to us--SSIS, SSAS, & SSRS. Other non-technical users seem to be more comfortable using alternatives to SSIS. However, these alternatives are not as good as SSIS at …
Chose SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
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 …
Chose SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
SSIS has these advantages: simple integration with MS technologies including Access, Excel, SQL RDBMS, Job Scheduler, and is included with SQL Server.

Talend has these advantages: much quicker development time, 800+ built in components which provides off the shelf integration …
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Chose Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
In terms of systems integration and ETL I have used SQL Server SSIS, SQL Server (Jobs, BCP, Procs, XP_CmdShell, etc.) and custom code using Microsoft .NET. While certain other technologies do have their place, in this realm Talend is consistently the better tool. It is a much …
Chose Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
I prefer to use Talend Open Studio over SQL Server Integration Services because of the ease of use and wider connection library opportunities. By leveraging Talend Open Studio we are able to connect to a much wider set of source data as well as rapidly designing and deploying …
Chose Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
SSIS is a great tool in itself and more easier. But, debugging is better done in Talend.
Features
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
8.5
18 Ratings
3% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
7.0
56 Ratings
16% below category average
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
7.5
10 Ratings
9% below category average
Connect to traditional data sources9.018 Ratings9.056 Ratings7.010 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL8.014 Ratings5.043 Ratings7.99 Ratings
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
7.5
18 Ratings
8% below category average
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
6.8
56 Ratings
17% below category average
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
7.0
10 Ratings
14% below category average
Simple transformations8.018 Ratings9.056 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Complex transformations7.018 Ratings4.755 Ratings7.910 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
8.2
18 Ratings
5% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
7.5
54 Ratings
4% below category average
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
7.5
10 Ratings
4% below category average
Data model creation9.015 Ratings9.028 Ratings6.99 Ratings
Metadata management8.016 Ratings6.035 Ratings7.99 Ratings
Business rules and workflow9.018 Ratings7.045 Ratings6.98 Ratings
Collaboration6.116 Ratings9.040 Ratings7.07 Ratings
Testing and debugging9.017 Ratings6.351 Ratings8.910 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)
9.0
15 Ratings
12% above category average
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
5.3
43 Ratings
40% below category average
Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
6.5
7 Ratings
20% below category average
Integration with data quality tools9.015 Ratings6.038 Ratings6.06 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools9.013 Ratings4.538 Ratings7.07 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 10.0 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 10.0 out of 10
Skyvia
Skyvia
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(21 ratings)
8.0
(54 ratings)
7.9
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(9 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.4
(2 ratings)
8.8
(6 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
4.9
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)Talend Open Studio (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
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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Microsoft
As I mentioned earlier SQL Server Integration Services is suitable if you want to manage data from different applications. It really helps in fetching the data and generating reports. Its automation make it very easy and time efficient. It works well with large database as well. But it doesn't work well with real time data, it will take some time to gather the real time data. I would not recommend using it in a real time/fast-paced environment.
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Discontinued Products
For quick daily integrations Talend is a very good tool and it makes development time so short and easy. Citizen developers who are not great programmers can pick up and start using Talend Open Studio within weeks. It's well suited for all kinds of data migration between various systems. It is less appropriate for smaller synchronous services where you need to trace the complete transaction and how data moved between them. It's also less appropriate for small data movements where other tools can be easier to use and manage.
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • 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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Microsoft
  • Standard ETL use cases for daily loads
  • Loading incoming data from Vendors which is placed on FTP and adding them to the SQL Warehouse
  • Creating outgoing data files and writing them to Vendor FTPs
  • Easy Active Directory integration for seamless connections to SQL Server
  • CI/CD by hosting the code on visualstudio.com
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Discontinued Products
  • Your developers will be able to design SOA services graphically, and it is very easy to document and implement the code.
  • Talend Open Studio is based on Eclipse IDE, so your developers will be very comfy using it
  • Open is Key in Talend Open Studio = Open Source
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Cons
Discontinued Products
  • 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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Microsoft
  • Connection managers for online data sources can be tricky to configure.
  • Performance tuning is an art form and trialing different data flow task options can be cumbersome. SSIS can do a better job of providing performance data including historical for monitoring.
  • Mapping destination using OLE DB command is difficult as destination columns are unnamed.
  • Excel or flat file connections are limited by version and type.
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Discontinued Products
  • The community is not that up to date and forum is not that great in response. Probably we should make people aware of the tool more on how to use and its implementations.
  • Talend crashes when transforming a lot of data (millions of rows).
  • Proper training documentation is a must for talend which is currently lagging. This will help users to learn more about Talend and use it effectively.
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Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
Our team enjoys using Informatica and feels that it is one of the best ETL tools on the market.
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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
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Discontinued Products
There is no licence requirement for Talend Open Studio. So, this is not relevant question. However, if you are asking whether we will use Talend in future. Yes. We will continue to use it. It's very powerful free tool which caters to all our extra, transform, load capabilities. We just love Talend for it's great functionality and ease of use.
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Usability
Discontinued Products
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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Microsoft
SSIS is a great tool for most ETL needs. It has the 90% (or more) use cases covered and even in many of the use cases where it is not ideal SSIS can be extended via a .NET language to do the job well in a supportable way for almost any performance workload.
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Discontinued Products
Talend Open Studio is based on Eclipse and is full of redundant procedures to do one thing, like when installing libraries. Sometimes I cannot manually download the libraries that it can't find.
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Performance
Discontinued Products
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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Microsoft
SQL Server Integration Services performance is dependent directly upon the resources provided to the system. In our environment, we allocated 6 nodes of 4 CPUs, 64GB each, running in parallel. Unfortunately, we had to ramp-up to such a robust environment to get the performance to where we needed it. Most of the reports are completed in a reasonable timeframe. However, in the case of slow running reports, it is often difficult if not impossible to cancel the report without killing the report instance or stopping the service.
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Discontinued Products
Many times, Talend freezes. When you give a cancel command, it takes several minutes to stop. It also takes a great toll on our PC with 16 GB of ram and I7 CPU, even in idle status. If you are downloading Maven Jar/Libraries, you cannot do anything and have to wait until the task is finished.
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Support Rating
Discontinued Products
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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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.
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Discontinued Products
Talend Open Studio is free and we are not using the enterprise version which comes with licence and support. So, mostly depend on the open source community for any issues that we face. The document is good and we didn't have to use any support so far. We did evaluate the enterprise version and so far sticking to the free version.
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Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
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
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
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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Microsoft
I think SQL Server Integration Services is better suited for on-premises data movement and ADF is more suited for the cloud. Though ADF has more connectors, SQL Server Integration Services is more robust and has better functionality just because it has been around much longer
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Discontinued Products
Informatica has a limited number of components that you can use. This places a heavy limitation on the capabilities of Informatica. On the other hand, Talend allows you to create your own custom components using Java. For businesses that need to perform a wide variety of data operations, it can be quite useful to have the option of creating your own custom components to satisfy business needs.
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Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • 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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Microsoft
  • Without this, we would have to manually update a spreadsheet of our SQL Server inventory
  • We would also have poor alerting; if an instance was down we wouldn't know until it was reported by a user
  • We only have one other person who uses SQL Server Integration Services , he's the expert. It would fall to me without him and I would not enjoy being responsible for it.
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Discontinued Products
  • I delivered projects the client did not believe were possible, and I provided intermediate value by providing visibility to hidden data problems in their systems they could not detect before.
  • I was able to work 3 projects at a time, pausing gracefully in one while switching to the other, with minimal effort.
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