Comparing Equals with Informatica PowerCenter and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
What is Equals
Equals is an all-in-one GTM analytics platform that handles data sync, transformation, and analysis in a single interface. It automatically ETLs data from sources like Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe, and SQL into a managed Snowflake warehouse, and then surfaces it in a spreadsheet-style BI layer for real-time pipeline, ARR, and other revenue metrics.
Pros
- Built-in ELT: automatically syncs data from Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe, SQL, etc.
- Managed Snowflake warehouse included (no infra to maintain)
- BI spreadsheet interface: combine spreadsheet flexibility with live queries
- Pre-built GTM templates for pipeline, ARR, churn, and more
- Real-time alerts and Slack/email pushes keep teams aligned
Cons
- Primarily focused on revenue/GTM analytics—less flexible for non-revenue use cases
- Custom SQL transforms require some technical skill
- Pricing can be high for companies that outgrow the included Snowflake instance
From an Equals customer success story:
What I like about Equals
Within a week, we had a pipeline performance dashboard up and running. Building something similar ourselves would have taken 3+ months.
What I dislike about Equals
Some advanced customization options (beyond the built-in GTM templates) require SQL knowledge and deeper familiarity with their Snowflake layer.
What is Informatica PowerCenter
Informatica PowerCenter is a legacy enterprise-grade ETL platform that provides a visual designer, metadata management, scheduling, and monitoring for complex, large-scale ETL workloads. It supports a vast range of sources (mainframes, relational, NoSQL, cloud) and advanced transformations (data quality, profiling, master data management) within the Informatica ecosystem.
Pros
- Extremely powerful and scalable for enterprise ETL with parallel processing and pushdown optimization.
- Comprehensive transformation library, data quality, and metadata management integrated in the platform.
- Robust scheduling and workflow orchestration with detailed logging and recovery capabilities.
- Supports heterogeneous environments: on-prem, cloud, hybrid, and mainframe data sources.
Cons
- High total cost of ownership: expensive licensing, dedicated infrastructure, and specialized admins.
- User interface is dated; development and maintenance require specialized training, increasing time to onboard new users.
- Less agility for rapidly changing data needs vs. modern cloud-native ETL tools; upgrades and patches are time-consuming processes.
Informatica PowerCenter Overview:
What I like about Informatica PowerCenter
PowerCenter’s ability to handle massive ETL workflows with rich transformation libraries and metadata governance is unmatched for large enterprises.
What I dislike about Informatica PowerCenter
Steep learning curve and high licensing costs make it unsuitable for smaller teams. Administration overhead is significant compared to cloud-native ETL.
What is Weld
Weld is a powerful ETL platform that seamlessly integrates ELT, data transformations, reverse ETL, and AI-assisted features into one user-friendly solution. With its intuitive interface, Weld makes it easy for anyone, regardless of technical expertise, to build and manage data workflows. Known for its premium quality connectors, all built in-house, Weld ensures the highest quality and reliability for its users. It is designed to handle large datasets with near real-time data synchronization, making it ideal for modern data teams that require robust and efficient data integration solutions. Weld also leverages AI to automate repetitive tasks, optimize workflows, and enhance data transformation capabilities, ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity. Users can combine data from a wide variety of sources, including marketing platforms, CRMs, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, APIs, databases, Excel, Google Sheets, and more, providing a single source of truth for all their data.
Pros
- Premium quality connectors and reliability
- User-friendly and easy to set up
- AI assistant
- Very competitive and easy-to-understand pricing model
- Reverse ETL option
- Lineage, orchestration, and workflow features
- Advanced transformation and SQL modeling capabilities
- Ability to handle large datasets and near real-time data sync
- Combines data from a wide range of sources for a single source of truth
Cons
- Requires some technical knowledge around data warehousing and SQL
- Limited features for advanced data teams
A reviewer on G2 said:
What I like about Weld
First and foremost, Weld is incredibly user-friendly. The graphical interface is intuitive, which makes it easy to build data workflows quickly and efficiently. Even with little experience in SQL and pipeline management, we found that Weld was straightforward and easy to use. What really impressed me, however, was Weld's flexibility. It was able to handle data from a wide variety of sources, including SQL databases, Google Sheets, and even APIs. The solution also allowed us to customize my data transformations in a way that best suited my needs. Whether I needed to clean data, join tables, or aggregate data, Weld had the necessary tools to accomplish the task. Weld's performance was also exceptional. I was able to run large-scale ETL jobs quickly and efficiently, with minimal downtime via a Snowflake instance and visualization via own-hosted Metabase. The solution's scalability meant that I could process more data without any issues. Another standout feature of Weld was its support. I never felt lost or unsure about how to use a particular feature, as the support team was always quick to respond to any questions or concerns that I had. Overall, I highly recommend Weld as an ETL solution. Its user-friendliness, flexibility, performance, and support make it an excellent choice for anyone looking to streamline their data integration processes. I will definitely be using Weld for all my ETL needs going forward.
What I dislike about Weld
Weld is still limited to a certain number of integrations - although the team is super interested to hear if you need custom integrations.
Equals vs Informatica PowerCenter: Ease of Use and User Interface
Equals
Equals provides a familiar spreadsheet UI layered on top of live SQL queries, making it intuitive for analysts and revenue ops teams with spreadsheet backgrounds. The GTM-specific templates accelerate time-to-value.
Informatica PowerCenter
PowerCenter’s Designer and Workflow Manager GUIs are comprehensive but dated. Developers need formal training to use transformation and mapping components effectively. The metadata integration assists with governance but adds complexity.
Equals vs Informatica PowerCenter: Pricing Transparency and Affordability
Equals
Pricing is custom and scales with data volume and Snowflake usage. While it includes a managed Snowflake instance (removing infra overhead), costs can rise quickly once usage grows beyond the base tier.
Informatica PowerCenter
Pricing is custom enterprise quotes—often $100k+ per year depending on nodes and users. Best for large enterprises that need high SLAs and rich feature sets; impractical for startups or small teams.
Equals vs Informatica PowerCenter: Comprehensive Feature Set
Equals
Equals combines ELT (data ingestion), a managed Snowflake warehouse, a BI spreadsheet interface, pre-built GTM dashboards, scheduled Slack/email alerts, and real-time collaboration. It’s designed end-to-end for revenue analytics.
Informatica PowerCenter
Includes: visual mapping designer, advanced transformations (data cleansing, lookups, aggregation), parallel processing, workflow orchestration, metadata manager, data quality, master data management, and extensive connectivity (mainframe to cloud).
Equals vs Informatica PowerCenter: Flexibility and Customization
Equals
Users can drop into SQL when they need custom transformations or advanced modeling. While most teams rely on the built-in GTM templates, the platform is extensible via SQL and custom Snowflake functions for deeper bespoke analysis.
Informatica PowerCenter
Highly customizable via Expression Transformations, Java Transformations, and stored procedure calls. Integration with command tasks allows custom scripts. However, it’s not open-source; you rely on Informatica for feature updates.
Summary of Equals vs Informatica PowerCenter vs Weld
| Weld | Equals | Informatica PowerCenter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200++ | + | 200+ |
| Price | €99 / Unlimited usage | Enterprise licensing (six-figure annual contracts) | |
| Free tier | No | No | No |
| Location | EU | US | Redwood City, CA, USA (Informatica HQ) |
| Extract data (ETL) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sync data to HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Excel etc. (reverse ETL) | Yes | No | No |
| Transformations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Assistant | Yes | No | No |
| On-Premise | No | No | Yes |
| Orchestration | Yes | No | Yes |
| Lineage | Yes | No | Yes |
| Version control | Yes | No | Yes |
| Load data to and from Excel | Yes | No | Yes |
| Load data to and from Google Sheets | Yes | No | No |
| Two-Way Sync | Yes | No | No |
| dbt Core Integration | Yes | No | No |
| dbt Cloud Integration | Yes | No | No |
| OpenAPI / Developer API | Yes | No | Yes |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.3 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing Equals, Informatica PowerCenter, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- Equals: equals combines elt (data ingestion), a managed snowflake warehouse, a bi spreadsheet interface, pre-built gtm dashboards, scheduled slack/email alerts, and real-time collaboration. it’s designed end-to-end for revenue analytics.. pricing is custom and scales with data volume and snowflake usage. while it includes a managed snowflake instance (removing infra overhead), costs can rise quickly once usage grows beyond the base tier..
- Informatica PowerCenter: includes: visual mapping designer, advanced transformations (data cleansing, lookups, aggregation), parallel processing, workflow orchestration, metadata manager, data quality, master data management, and extensive connectivity (mainframe to cloud). . pricing is custom enterprise quotes—often $100k+ per year depending on nodes and users. best for large enterprises that need high slas and rich feature sets; impractical for startups or small teams. .
- Weld: weld integrates elt, data transformations, and reverse etl all within one platform. it also provides advanced features such as data lineage, orchestration, workflow management, and an ai assistant, which helps in automating repetitive tasks and optimizing workflows.. weld offers a straightforward and competitive pricing model, starting at €99 for 2 million active rows, making it more affordable and predictable, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises..
