Alteryx Designer vs FME comparison

Alteryx and Safe Software are both solutions in the Data Integration category. Alteryx is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.5, while Safe Software is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.5. Alteryx holds a 1.8% mindshare in DI, compared to Safe Software’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Alteryx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Safe Software users who would recommend it.

Alteryx Designer

Read 31 Alteryx Designer reviews

3,279 Views
3,017 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

FME

Read 7 FME reviews

2,587 Views
2,018 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Alteryx Designer

FME

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

FME and Alteryx Designer are competing in the data integration tools category. While FME leads in system integration and geospatial data processing, Alteryx Designer distinguishes itself with advanced analytics capabilities, making it worth the higher cost for users needing deep analytical insights.

Features: FME offers robust system integration, efficient geospatial data handling, and intuitive workflow automation. Alteryx Designer provides comprehensive analytics tools, complex data preparation, and predictive modeling.

Room for Improvement: FME could enhance its data transformation features and expand its analytics capabilities. It may also improve user interface intuitiveness. Alteryx Designer could lower its pricing to be more competitive, enhance deployment efficiency, and simplify advanced feature implementations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FME is praised for straightforward deployment and strong integration support, ideal for technical teams with spatial data focus. Alteryx Designer offers a more user-friendly deployment and accessible support, appealing to a wider user base.

Pricing and ROI: FME offers a competitively priced setup with strong ROI in spatial data tasks. Alteryx Designer, although having a higher setup cost, justifies the investment with extensive analytics capabilities, providing significant long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Alteryx Designer vs. FME Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alteryx Designer vs. FME

September 2025

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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

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

FME

Ranking in Data Integration

23rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Alteryx Designer is 1.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FME is 1.6%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Alteryx Designer	1.8%
FME	1.6%
Other	96.6%

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Ajay Nayak

Senior Data Engineer at Baxter International Inc.

An easy-to-use automation solution with satisfying customer support

Sometimes, while getting data from a third-party product, like data sources that are not present in your system, Alteryx works a bit slowly. Even if you have a good configuration and you are pulling data from an SQL server like SAP, then the solution also has a slow work process. It shouldn't be that much slow if you are pulling ten thousand records, it should not take thirty minutes.

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Alan Bloor

Geographic Information System Developer at Public Sector

Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high

When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. 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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alteryx Designer is a tool that is pretty much easy to install."

"The solution is easy to integrate and user-friendly."

"Alteryx Designer's best features are that it's easy to use and performs well."

"I have been using Alteryx Designer only for data modeling and data structuring."

"We use Alteryx Designer for analytics. It's quite helpful because once we set it up, we don't have to manually update or process data repeatedly. It saves time, especially for financial reporting, which is typically done monthly or quarterly. Once we set it up initially, we only need to make occasional updates if necessary."

"Alteryx is quite easy to use, learn, and understand as a product."

"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."

"It has great UI."

More Alteryx Designer pros

"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."

"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."

"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."

"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."

"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."

Cons

"Alteryx's data science and machine learning capabilities are where it loses out to DataIQ."

"Alteryx could move faster to create a cloud equivalent of the desktop version of Designer."

"I would like to be able to include small snippets of code inside of the solution. The tool has only drag-and-drop features to make it easy to use, but sometimes I feel like this makes it more complicated."

"When configuring the Logix, the UA could be improved."

"When it comes to the pivoting part, the drill-through option is not there in Alteryx."

"We discontinued using Alteryx's data science studio because it was not very user-friendly."

"Alteryx Designer's pricing and support 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."

More Alteryx Designer cons

"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."

"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."

"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."

"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."

"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licenses are expensive, making it difficult to consider acquiring additional licenses to the existing ones."

"Alteryx Designer is an expensive solution."

"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."

"The solution is expensive. It has license fees, which are renewable every year."

"The product is a bit expensive, it should be looked into."

"The pricing is bit expensive."

"Alteryx Designer is an expensive solution."

"Alteryx Designer is a very expensive solution."

More Alteryx Designer pricing and cost advice

"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Government

33%

Energy/Utilities Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alteryx Designer?

When you open a raw Excel file, it can be hard to look at everything in detail. Alteryx makes it much easier to go through the data, summarize it, and use different tools for analysis.

See all answers

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.

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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.

See all answers

What do you like most about FME?

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?

The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alteryx Designer

September 2025

Download Alteryx Designer product report

Buyer's Guide

FME

September 2025

Download FME product report

Overview

Information not available

Alteryx

FME is the data integration platform with the best support for spatial data. Run workflows on the desktop or deploy them in a server or cloud environment.

Safe Software

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System

Buyer's Guide

Alteryx Designer vs. FME

September 2025

Free Report: Alteryx Designer vs. FME

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