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Alteryx Designer vs FME comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alteryx Designer
Ranking in Data Integration
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FME
Ranking in Data Integration
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Alteryx Designer is 1.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FME is 1.0%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alteryx Designer1.2%
FME1.0%
Other97.8%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

CP
Senior Systems Analyst at Optum
Useful for ETL process but improvement is needed in the performance of large datasets
Alteryx Designer helps us scale simple projects effectively. The analyst can develop their own ETL processes without much technical skill, reducing the need for developer involvement. The user interface is intuitive and easy to follow, but it struggles with complex datasets and large data. Overall, I'd rate Alteryx Designer as six out of ten.
Gert Booysen - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Solutions Leader at GE Vernova
Extensive format support and reliable integration enhance data management while new pricing model requires reassessment
I haven't had any input or requirements from any customers that are not currently covered, so I don't have any additional needs that were identified or raised to me. Regarding pricing, with the model changes that they've implemented a while back, it actually made it more expensive to use, especially on the server side. They changed the licensing model, and that made customers think it is overpriced. Some customers were actually looking at alternatives. Pricing with the model changes was perceived negatively. I work primarily with enterprise customers, Vodacom, Eskom, so it's tier-one customers. For small customers, this solution is a bit too expensive. They don't really use it and just do direct integration on smaller implementations. This is basically used by tier-one customers. FME is still able to save time and money for clients. It's still a good investment. Regarding similar products to FME, GE developed a product called Data Fabric. That is a real-time operational integration platform, Data Fabric Network Connect, which is a GE Grid OS product. It is actually more expensive than FME, but the purpose is different as it's operational. The vendor in this case is GE, and it's a company that we bought that used to be called Greenbird. In current use scenarios, FME is still leading compared to Data Fabric. The GE product has a different application.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product offers very good analytics."
"The solution is easy to integrate and user-friendly."
"I like Alteryx's browser tool because you can view how your data is handled live. There are many other valuable tools like transpose and the crosstab. You can quickly pivot your data, and there are connections throughout the database. It's so easy to create a connection. If you connect to sign apps or a more complex database, the tool contains all the tools you need."
"The solution's ability to hold a huge amount of data in its memory is significant."
"Alteryx Designer's user interface is great, as it is very user-friendly."
"One of the things I like about Alteryx Designer is how easy it is to connect numerous data inputs, including API connectors. This helps tremendously in reducing the time required to extract data from systems like SAP that don't have straightforward connectivity options."
"It has great UI."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface."
"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."
"From my reseller perspective, the best features in FME are the ease of operation and the fact that it works."
"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."
"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."
"FME is spatially aware and understands how to deal with the conversion of spatial objects and their attributes."
"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."
"FME's features that I have found most valuable are that it has a very friendly user interface, you don't need to use a lot of code, it has a lot of connectors and few forms, and it has a strong facial aspect that can do a lot of facial analysis."
 

Cons

"When configuring the Logix, the UA could be improved."
"Its price can be improved. It is too expensive for our country. Because of its high price, we can't sell Alteryx Designer in this region. We used to be their reseller partner. There is also an additional cost for automating the data and running the flows, which makes it even more expensive. It will be very good if they can let users automate the data for free. Other solutions like Tableau provide this feature for free."
"Alteryx's data science and machine learning capabilities are where it loses out to DataIQ."
"Optimizing processing times is one area I would like to see improved in Alteryx Designer. Sometimes, the workflows take an extremely long time to run. There are days when I have had to wait two to three hours for a single process to complete. There needs to be a functionality to split the processes."
"Alteryx could move faster to create a cloud equivalent of the desktop version of Designer."
"If the price were reduced then it would be more competitive."
"Based on my experience, the tool could be improved by providing sample reports or pre-configured workflows tailored to specific industries, like finance. It needs to integrate an AI chatbot as well."
"The price of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"FME is a great tool, but I don't know if we can scale it up since the prices are high and we would need to convince the decision makers to provide more budget."
"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."
"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."
"We are looking at the possibility of using Glue instead of FME, using the native AWS product."
"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."
"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."
"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Each license is something like $4,000."
"Alteryx is a little bit expensive compared to competing solutions."
"I rate the product's pricing a two to three out of ten."
"It is too expensive for our country. We are a small country, so it is too difficult to sell this solution. With Alteryx Designer, if you want to automate the data and run the flows, you have to pay more money. We were trying to automate the flows, and we found out that people have to pay 600 more for this feature, which makes it even more expensive. We are a partner for Tableau, and we are working with Tableau Prep, which is like a mini Alteryx. In Tableau Prep, you can drag and drop and make new connections with the different data sources. You can make all the connections. You can also publish a source. You don't have to pay more money with Tableau. You pay like $5 per user per month to access it."
"I rate the price of Alteryx Designer as a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is a highly cheap product."
"The tool is priced high."
"The solution is expensive. It has license fees, which are renewable every year."
"Alteryx Designer is a very expensive solution."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."
"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
27%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alteryx Designer?
It's cheaper than Palantir, but even Alteryx is too much for small clients. It is expensive, considering the server capabilities.
What needs improvement with Alteryx Designer?
For smaller clients with ten to 15 employees, Alteryx can be expensive. The server capabilities are costly too. The technical support could also improve by being quicker in response times.
What is your primary use case for Alteryx Designer?
I have used Alteryx Designer to perform predictive analytics that helps in predicting the selling of products, particularly in banking and financial areas.
What needs improvement with FME?
I haven't had any input or requirements from any customers that are not currently covered, so I don't have any additional needs that were identified or raised to me. Regarding pricing, with the mod...
What is your primary use case for FME?
The use cases for FME are mainly integration to the GE Smallworld product. GE Smallworld is a GE product, and we are using it to integrate with other third-party products into GE Smallworld and ADM...
What advice do you have for others considering FME?
The overall rating for FME is eight out of ten, and I prefer the feedback to be anonymous. My job title is Senior Solutions Architect.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System
Find out what your peers are saying about Alteryx Designer vs. FME and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.