Nexla Vs. Informatica
Head-to-Head Comparison
Compare Nexla and Informatica and see the differences between the two platforms.
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INFORMATICA |
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| Overview | Data integration, transformation, delivery, observability, and monitoring for all data, from anywhere to anywhere | iPaaS data integration and management to data warehouses and applications |
| Connector Types | SaaS Apps, Warehouses, Lakes, Streaming, Webhooks, API, Databases, Files, Spreadsheets, and more | SaaS Apps, API and Data Lakes & Warehouses |
| Bulk/batch data movement | ELT, ETL, Streaming, API, API Proxy | ELT and ETL |
| Data Integrity & Governance | Data monitoring, error reporting and triage, validations, quality transformations, and access control | Quality transformations and monitoring |
| Batch, Streaming, and Real-time Processing | Bulk, Batch, Streaming, and Real-time | Bulk load only, Data Engineering Streaming product |
| API services | Integrated REST, SOAP, and Oauth connectors, ad-hoc API generation | API generation and no-code API building |
| Data Mesh Architecture Principles | Data products (Nexsets), domain governance, metadata intelligence, and more | Data Integration (iPaaS) Approach Only |
Informatica is an enterprise iPaaS solution while Nexla is built for usability on Data Mesh principles. Although similar in nature with both integrating data and building pipelines, a few key differences separate an iPaaS solution and data mesh solution.
Nexla’s data mesh solution focuses on data products and federated domain data ownership in a self-serve infrastructure as a platform, while Informatica’s focuses on data integration, preparation, and accessing and creating APIs. Rather than just integrating some kinds of data, Nexla is made to build pipelines on the fly regardless of source, velocity, or format, beyond the data warehouses and applications that Informatica focuses on.
Nexla enables anyone to build exactly the flow they need while making data engineers’ jobs easier by automating the straightforward tasks. Nexla envisions a platform where anyone who works with data is enabled to build any flow they need in minutes rather than months, providing a people-focused architecture to promote cross- and inter-team collaboration.
Difference #1: Data Products
Nexla automatically detects, creates, manages, and organizes data products from all of your data sources and transformations. At scale, data products enable inter-team and cross-team collaboration with ease and make it simple to find and use exactly the right data anyone needs every time. As an iPaaS solution, Informatica is not focused on data products.
Difference #2: Federated Domain Governance
Using data products, teams and organizations can own the data they work with every day in Nexla. Rather than a single domain for an enterprise or separate engineering teams building specific integrations for data consumers, Nexla enables data consumers to integrate, prepare, and monitor their data flows. Data products in Nexla belong to individuals, teams, and domains, enabling rapid collaboration and reducing back-and-forth with engineering. As an iPaaS solution, Informatica is not focused on domain architecture.
Difference #3: Self-Serve Platform Architecture
Nexla’s platform is built with an organizational focus as opposed to a technology-centric data fabric like Informatica. That means rather than just focusing on tackling data and metadata, Nexla enables people and processes to access and work with data at scale. Besides providing similar capabilities of unlimited connectivity, monitoring, transformation, and governance, Nexla’s architecture is designed to empower data consumers to have ownership over the data products they use and analyze.
Difference #4: API-Driven Solution
Informatica’s API integration provides a platform for API development and integration. Nexla’s platform is API-driven, meaning APIs are leveraged directly by connection and created automatically for external use. Rather than coding and designing APIs in Nexla, APIs are created automatically and data from anywhere can be leveraged using the Nexla API. No-code tools as well as custom configuration for advanced users make Nexla’s API connector both powerful and easy to use, while Informatica’s approach is only modular and codeless.
Difference #5: Unlimited Connectors
Informatica offers a set of pre-coded connectors developed and launched by their team. Nexla offers an open ended connector template for any type of data from APIs, webhooks, FTP, SFTP, spreadsheets, email, warehouses, or any other place that your data might be stored - all both as sources and destinations. Informatica only has ETL and ELT connectors to databases, lakes, and apps. New connectors in Nexla are simply configured, not coded, so they can be added in a matter of minutes. Nexla’s universal connector template ensures the right connector will always be available, or configurable, when needed.
Difference #6: Data Processing Controls
Nexla offers flexibility in how users can set up their data processing. Not only batch processing, but streaming, real-time, and API style processing are all available to configure as needed, supporting many use cases that are crucial to customers. A full suite of collaboration and sharing tools aims to accelerate the data operations process between and across teams. Informatica supports batch processing, with separate products for streaming integration.
Difference #7: Built for Data Engineers
In addition to a no-code and low-code interface for data users, Nexla also offers complete platform capabilities for Data Engineers to automate the mundane tasks and tackle the most complicated challenges. Nexla’s powerful suite of APIs - the same ones available to our own UI developers - are accessible for custom solutions. The Nexla CLI offers complete control of Nexla from an engineer’s terminal of choice, allowing for automation through scripts to manage CI/CD for dev and production pipelines. JSON manifests of every flow enable managing versions in Github, while our Airflow operator further enables automation. Finally, a complete Python SDK extends Nexla’s pre-built transformations to any custom code. Nexla is built for everyone, from non-coders to seasoned Data Engineers. Informatica is primarily focused on data users rather than Data Engineers.