We performed a comparison between Informatica PowerCenter, SAP Data Hub, and Zapier based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Oracle and others in Data Integration."UI-based ability to create data mapping."
"Good interface, reasonable documentation."
"Reusable definition of data sources and the out-of-the-box availability of a large number maplets for common transformation functions."
"It reduces a lot of legacy coding."
"The technical support is excellent."
"It is UI friendly and has all the advantages of an ETL tool."
"Deployment was simple and straightforward."
"We use Informatica PowerCenter to transfer the transitional database to and from the data warehouse. This is very efficient as it enables us to quickly find our data reports and the data, so we can build AI models."
"The most valuable feature is the S/4HANA 1909 On-Premise"
"Its connection to on-premise products is the most valuable. We mostly use the on-premise connection, which is seamless. This is what we prefer in this solution over other solutions. We are using it the most for the orchestration where the data is coming from different categories. Its other features are very much similar to what they are giving us in open source. Their push-down approach is the most advantageous, where they push most of the processing on to the same data source. This means that they have a serverless kind of thing, and they don't process the data inside a product such as Data Hub. They process the data from where the data is coming out. If it is coming from HANA, to capture the data or process it for analytics, orchestration, or management, they go to the HANA database and give it out. They don't process it on Data Hub. This push-down approach increases the processing speed a little bit because the data is processed where it is sitting. That's the best part and an advantage. I have used another product where they used to capture the data first and then they used to process it and give it. In Data Hub, it is in reverse. They process it first and give it, and then they put their own manipulations. They lead in terms of business functions. No other solution has business functions already implemented to perform business analysis. They have a lot of prebuilt business functions for machine learning and orchestration, which we can use directly to get an analysis out from the existing data. Most of the data is sitting as enterprise data there. That's a major advantage that they have."
"SAP is one of the most seamless ERPs that have integrated SAP archiving within Excel. I have not seen this with any other database."
"What's most valuable in Zapier is its simplicity, seamlessness, and smooth plug-in, so you won't need to build code for every action. I'm not a developer, but I can use Zapier."
"We can connect Zapier with Zoho CRM for lead generation. I like the tool's drag and drop feature."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"The product's most valuable feature is automation."
"Zapier is a really good tool for connecting multiple different platforms and data sources. For example, with Quickbase, I can easily integrate data from other sources like AWS or task-tracking platforms such as ClickUp or Asana."
"Webhooks are the most valuable feature of Zapier."
"We find it effortless to set up. We really don't have to do anything other than finding the application in the Zapier catalog. And as long as the application has been re-integrated into Zapier, they're able to then just provide the connection details and hook it up."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that it is very intuitive and has a very flat learning curve."
"The solution must improve the integration with new services."
"The solution's commercial cost is very high. Other open-source tools can do the tool's functions for free. The world is moving to the cloud, but the solution hasn't updated its drivers. I presume that its downfall will start soon. The tool is trying to cross-sell or upsell without helping customers derive benefits from the existing products. They have multiple tools and licenses. It is better to bring the smaller tools in one umbrella."
"Now they are migrating to a new version, and they have something that is called Informatica Developer. Previously, they just had PowerCenter. Now, when they move everything to Informatica Developer it's not as good or stable like it was when it was PowerCenter, though it has some nice features. This Developer tool could be better."
"The only problem with this product is the level of complexity with the number of levels of transformation that you have to go through."
"The multiple interfaces in Informatica PowerCenter are not great for the user experience. Because of this, I think it can cause confusion for any beginner developer."
"We need another tool for monitoring. It would be easier if all the features were consolidated into one tool."
"While Informatica is great for data-integration, it does not have any analytics features. Thus, organizations have to always look for another product for their BI needs."
"PowerCenter could be improved by having more big data components. Normally, we prefer Informatica as a relational database, but nowadays, companies are trying to understand and use big data components. I think it would be useful if we had more chances to create a hub ecosystem because customers try to use some data integration tasks by SQL, Spark and Spark codes, and Scala, but at the end of the day, the company will understand that we need to trace all the steps. An ETL tool is a must for that company, if we're talking about the regulated industries like finance, telcos, etc. If Informatica's biggest ecosystems feature were okay, I would prefer to use it."
"In 2018, connecting it to outside sources, such as IoT products or IoT-enabled big data Hadoop, was a little complex. It was not smooth at the beginning. It was unstable. It took a lot of time for the initial data load. Sometimes, the connection broke, and we had to restart the process, which was a major issue, but they might have improved it now. It is very smooth with SAP HANA on-premise system, SAP Cloud Platform, and SAP Analytics Cloud. It could be because these are their own products, and they know how to integrate them. With Hadoop, they might have used open-source technologies, and that's why it was breaking at that time. They are providing less embedded integration because they want us to use their other products. For example, they don't want to go and remove SAP Analytics Cloud and put everything in Data Hub. They want us to use SAP Analytics Cloud somewhere else and not inside the Data Hub. On the integration part, it lacks real-time analytics, and it is slow. They should embed the SAP Analytics Cloud inside Data Hub or support some kind of analysis. They do provide some analysis, but it is not extensive. They are moreover open source. So, we need a lot of developers or data scientists to go in and implement Python algorithms. It would be better if they can provide their own existing algorithms and give some connections and drop-down menus to go and just configure those. It will make things really quick by increasing the embedded integrations. It will also improve the process efficiency and processing power. Its performance needs improvement. It is a little slow. It is not the best in the market, and there are other products that are much better than this. In terms of technology and performance, it is a little slow as compared to Microsoft and other data orchestration products. I haven't used other products, but I have read about those products, their settings, and the milliseconds that they do. In Azure Purview, they say that they can copy, manage, or transform the data within milliseconds. They say that they can transform 100 gigabytes of data within three to five seconds, which is something SAP cannot do. It generally takes a lot of time to process that much amount of data. However, I have never tested out Azure."
"Nowadays there are some inconsistencies in data bases, however, they upgrade and release the versions to market."
"The company has everything offshore."
"After mapping them out, and they'd worked for a while, I've had Zapier fail."
"There is room for improvement in the support. They are not responsive, and they don't take much time to get resolved."
"The pricing of the solution is quite expensive."
"Zapier needs to improve in the same way most RPA solutions should, such as Robocorp, Make, or UiPath. They are not good at helping you find the connections that you need for the problem that you have. For example, if need something on Instagram. I'm going to have to do research for hours to be able to find the components or the app, which is going to do what I need it to do. It makes it difficult to use the system when you don't know what to use."
"My biggest concern with Zapier would be their pricing strategy."
"At the moment, they allow a limited number of apps. I look forward to getting more apps for each package."
"The user interface for Zapier could be improved. It also takes some time to sync the data between different environments."
"Being able to share Zaps and organize them with teammates would allow sharing and refining scenarios and even combining steps that require different people's credentials."
