Comparing FME with Informatica PowerCenter and Weld
Carolina Russ6 min read
What is FME
FME (by Safe Software) is a data integration and transformation platform primarily focused on spatial and GIS data, but it also supports a wide range of non-spatial ETL. It provides a graphical workspace where users can build data pipelines, handling over 450 formats and applications, with strong data quality and validation capabilities.
Pros
- Supports 450+ data formats, making it ideal for GIS and non-GIS integration.
- Graphical Workspaces with extensive transformer library for spatial (coordinate reprojection, topology) and non-spatial transformations (joins, data cleansing).
- FME Server enables automated scheduling, breakout clustered processing, and REST API for triggering workflows.
- Strong data validation and quality features—users can apply conditional checks and notifications when data doesn’t meet criteria.
Cons
- High licensing costs for desktop (FME Desktop) and server components; often priced per core for server deployments.
- Primarily geared toward GIS/spatial use cases; non-spatial ETL use is possible but the interface and transformers are optimized for spatial workflows.
- Large learning curve for complex workspaces—dragging many transformers can become unwieldy visually.
FME Product Overview:
What I like about FME
FME’s ability to handle complex spatial transformations and 450+ formats is unmatched. The drag-and-drop workspace builder drastically speeds up geospatial ETL.
What I dislike about FME
Licensing can be expensive for smaller organizations. Focus on spatial means some general ETL features are less polished than GIS-specific functions.
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.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Ease of Use & Interface
FME
FME’s Workbench is a desktop application where users connect Reader and Writer transformers to map and transform data. While powerful for spatial, the GUI can feel cluttered for workflows with hundreds of transformers.
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.
Pricing & Affordability
FME
FME Desktop licenses start around $2,000/year. FME Server pricing is per-core (often $20k+/core for an annual license). Expensive for small teams, but justified where spatial data integration is critical.
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.
Feature Set
FME
Supports reading/writing 450+ formats (GIS, CAD, JSON, XML, databases), transformer library (spatial & non-spatial), workflow orchestration via FME Server, automation (event-based, scheduled), and REST API endpoints for triggering.
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).
Flexibility & Customization
FME
Users can embed Python, R, or Shell scripts within transformers for custom logic. FME Server can be deployed in any environment (on-prem, AWS, Azure) and scaled horizontally. However, no built-in data catalog or lineage; separate tools needed.
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 FME vs Informatica PowerCenter vs Weld
| Weld | FME | Informatica PowerCenter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connectors | 200+ | 450+ | 200+ |
| Price | $79 / No data volume limits | Per-seat for FME Desktop ($2,000+/year) and per-core for FME Server (custom) | Enterprise licensing (six-figure annual contracts) |
| Free tier | No | No | No |
| Location | EU | Surrey, BC, Canada (Safe Software HQ) | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Orchestration | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lineage | Yes | No | Yes |
| Version control | Yes | No | Yes |
| Load data to and from Excel | Yes | Yes | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| G2 Rating | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.3 |
Conclusion
You’re comparing FME, Informatica PowerCenter, Weld. Each of these tools has its own strengths:
- FME: supports reading/writing 450+ formats (gis, cad, json, xml, databases), transformer library (spatial & non-spatial), workflow orchestration via fme server, automation (event-based, scheduled), and rest api endpoints for triggering. . fme desktop licenses start around $2,000/year. fme server pricing is per-core (often $20k+/core for an annual license). expensive for small teams, but justified where spatial data integration is critical. .
- 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..
