

SAP PowerDesigner and Alation Data Catalog compete in the data management and cataloging sector. Alation Data Catalog is seen as having the upper hand due to its advanced features and collaborative environment.
Features: SAP PowerDesigner offers robust data modeling, comprehensive enterprise architecture functionalities, and a strong data migration feature. Alation Data Catalog is noted for powerful search and query tools, strong data discovery capabilities, and collaborative platform support.
Room for Improvement: SAP PowerDesigner could improve its ease of use, user interface, and initial training requirements. Alation Data Catalog could enhance its scalability, integration with non-cloud environments, and provide more detailed documentation.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP PowerDesigner requires more technical expertise during deployment but offers responsive support. Alation Data Catalog, with its cloud-based model, offers simplified deployment and emphasizes community support and comprehensive documentation.
Pricing and ROI: SAP PowerDesigner is more budget-friendly, with lower setup costs and favorable ROI for detailed data design needs. Alation Data Catalog, despite higher upfront costs, delivers better long-term ROI for organizations prioritizing data cataloging and governance.
We have seen a return on investment, having saved close to 10.5% of our costs, with expected ROI growing yearly by about 17%.
Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself.
I cannot put a number on it, but if you think about developing software manually or using a tool to generate software and considering the license cost of SAP PowerDesigner, the ROI is pretty positive relatively quick because it's not that expensive.
Some of them have dragged on for six months, which is much longer than we would ever want some support issues to go on.
we have defined several SLAs that have resolved critical issues and incidents with excellent support.
we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues
It relies heavily on VBScript, which is something that will be end of life in a few years in Windows.
Regarding technical support, after a recent licensing issue caused a temporary halt, we realized the importance of tracking licensing and version updates to avoid future disruptions in service.
Until I get 16.7 and complete the migration, I'm not getting any help from them.
As data sizes grow, we can also scale categorizations, calibrations, and the types of data we ingest and catalog through this tool.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability has met our needs as our data and user base has grown.
Currently, there are no scalability limitations in SAP PowerDesigner, allowing us to create numerous data models for various projects.
The scalability of SAP PowerDesigner is very good.
Our main objective is to upgrade to the supported version and be able to do whatever we are doing at the moment.
It has never gone down when we wanted to access it.
Alation Data Catalog has been stable for me, as I haven't seen much downtime.
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
If you use a lot of customizations, especially using VBScript, it becomes less stable.
This may lead to frequent downtimes requiring server maintenance; thus, it is not suitable for highly complex solutions, but moderate complexities can be handled.
The product is reliable.
The platform needs improvement in integrating with BI tools, reducing manual efforts, and facilitating a smooth connection.
Additionally, bringing in AI capabilities to automate tracking and labeling can optimize how we handle data information levels.
Alation Data Catalog can be improved by enhancing their lineage capabilities to make it easier for us as users to search the lineage without having to use the Alation Data Catalog user interface.
SAP PowerDesigner does not have a cloud option. It's only on-premise.
I would like to see a feature added to SAP PowerDesigner where, upon extracting data from a source, it automatically identifies relationships between tables.
The web portal is unstable and does not work. It freezes up all the time.
Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that little bit of money was not a big deal.
Discussions with the vendor partners provided a detailed breakdown of costs and how they can be reduced over time.
One issue is the cost, as it is a high-priced tool coming from SAP.
It was the only data catalog tool where I could save and even create SQL queries.
Importantly, we establish a single source of truth, centralizing metadata and standardizing definitions, which minimizes confusion and helps with consistent data use across the organization.
My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data.
The best features of SAP PowerDesigner, from my perspective, are its ability to keep the connectivity between the source database and the new system, data redundancy and availability, and impact analysis.
SAP PowerDesigner doesn't only allow you to model the structure of your database, but you can also model data mappings or data flows or lineage.
What I appreciate best about SAP PowerDesigner is that it is a very detailed and comprehensive tool.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Alation Data Catalog | 11.7% |
| SAP PowerDesigner | 2.7% |
| Other | 85.6% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 15 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 18 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 18 |
Alation pioneered the data catalog market and is now leading its evolution into a platform for a broad range of data intelligence solutions including data search & discovery, data governance, lineage, stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation.
Thanks to its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight to successfully tackle even the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management. With Alation, analysts are empowered to search, query and collaborate on their data to achieve faster, more accurate insights.
Trusted by 400+ enterprises worldwide like Salesforce, Nasdaq, LinkedIn, Finnair, and Cisco.
SAP PowerDesigner is a valuable solution for developing several different types of data models according to business process needs. Data models can be logical, conceptual, and physical, and can also include dimensional and relational models. PowerDesiger has the ability to integrate a designed business process model with the actual database design to ensure that all the data process steps are included in the logical model. PowerDesigner is able to use the physical model to create the actual database, and from there, design various physical iterations from a single logical model.
PowerDesigner can perform excellent reverse-engineering of existing databases to create a model diagram. The solution integrates well with many of today's most recognized database management systems (DBMS). Some of the solution’s featured outputs include custom or standard reports of every object in the design (relationships, field, and tables), design impact analysis, and entity-relationship (ER) designs.
PowerDesigner offers intuitive capabilities such as metadata management, link and sync, and data modeling. Users can instantly view architecture layers and essentials, access the robust metadata repository, and share findings with the user’s entire team.
SAP PowerDesigner Features
SAP PowerDesigner Benefits
Reviews from Real Users
“The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too. I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling and documentation. It interacts well with the other tools. Additionally, we use it for all of the business requirements, such as CDM and PDM.” - Saadat T., Emerging Cloud Solution Architect at a tech services company
“It's a great tool for documentation. A new data scientist can easily understand the data just by looking at it. Once you are managing your physical data with a logical data model, by looking at this data model, you can understand what it means, the business meaning of the elements which are maintained by the relational database.” - Michael R., DA
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