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SAP Information Steward vs dbt comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

dbt
Ranking in Data Quality
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (17th)
SAP Information Steward
Ranking in Data Quality
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Quality category, the mindshare of dbt is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Information Steward is 3.1%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Quality Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
dbt2.0%
SAP Information Steward3.1%
Other94.9%
Data Quality
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Principal Data Engineer at Integrant, Inc.
Data teams have streamlined code-driven pipelines and now collaborate faster on shared models
We are still experimenting with testing, but not that much. We are not using some features yet. We are trying to introduce them because we are coming from a background of SSIS. The team used to work with SSIS, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services. We are still adapting one feature at a time. Currently, we are working with the SQL modules and with the Jinja templating. We are experimenting with testing, but I would say towards the end of this year, we are planning to explore more of the documentation and the data lineage options as well. I would say the benefits are coming from GUI-based tools like SSIS. We have more control on the codebase. We can create something of a system where we can use macros and templating, speeding up the development cycle. We are now trying to introduce a little testing, and also we are using some sort of a CI/CD cycle, so continuous integration and continuous deployment. I do not believe that these kinds of features are that common as a package as a whole package. dbt excels in that area. I used to have a couple of notes about the performance, but lately I have discovered something called dbt Fusion, which, according to dbt Labs, they proclaim is much faster during the parsing of dbt models. However, I would love to see even more of an out-of-the-box solution regarding the testing. They are treating the testing in a good way so far, but I would love to see even more improvement because the whole data testing field is not very mature. It is not the same as software testing; for example, you have test suites, test tools, and profilers, but for data testing, it is not yet that advanced. I would love for dbt to take the lead on that.
FranciscoSantos - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Pixel Studio PTY
Provides accurate data that is validated against a personalized reference tool
For most SAP customers, Information Steward is enough because it is able to build quality data rules to detect issues in the source systems like SAP HANA, Business Warehouse, or other systems. A business user can first organize their data into several data domains. For example, procurement, human resources, and logistics setup. The domains can build data quality dimensions where you can describe the kind of rule that you are going to use. The user then can immediately see if something is wrong with their data using traffic lights. Another great feature of SAP Information Steward is the accuracy that the content is followed by validating against the reference tool. With the solution, you are creating data quality dimensions. Within these dimensions, you are creating business data quality rules that are looking for specific fields. From these rules, you can create a scorecard. The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits. SAP tables have field names that are very cryptic, making them hard to understand the meaning of the fields. Metapedia helps describe these fields in business terms.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a developer point of view, I find the ease of development and the code to be the most useful capabilities of dbt."
"dbt has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to create our data pipelines much faster, going from ingestion of data to creating a data product in weeks instead of months, and we can do it in-house with the skillset we already have."
"Since we migrated from SSIS to dbt model architecture, it takes around four hours only to complete a full refresh, and the client is now happy because our downtime was drastically reduced when we perform a complete refresh of the data."
"I would say the best feature or the most desirable feature for dbt is the ability to write everything in code."
"The product is developer-friendly."
"There is operational efficiency achieved, and data quality and governance have also been achieved with modular SQL and version controlling, which reduced duplication of data and data errors."
"The Data Cleansing and the scorecard dashboard are very valuable. Additionally, the financial aspect of SAP Information Steward is very good. When a rule is incorrect then it will show how much is it costing the business. These features are very valuable."
"The most valuable features are data quality insight, metadata management, and metadata dictionary."
"The solution is very fast."
"Initial setup was straightforward."
"The data profiling was excellent, as was the ease of generating the dashboards."
"Data insight is the most valuable feature."
"The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits."
"Setup is straightforward."
 

Cons

"If I needed to name a few areas for improvement, I would mention the migration of code to Git and GitHub, which sometimes fails and can be confusing for developers during handover."
"dbt can be improved as I find the co-pilot in dbt is not very good, and my team has tried using it but opted to move off it and use other co-pilots such as GitHub."
"Since dbt has a license cost, if a company is small and does not have much budget, they can explore other tools because there are other tools that provide the same functionality at a lower cost."
"The solution must add more Python-based implementations."
"Dbt is not as stable as preferred, as it has had a few outages in the current year itself, so improvement should be made in the outages section as it is not stable."
"Every upgrade is a little bit of a risk for us because we do not know if the workarounds that we developed will be available for the next version."
"Needs to be more powerful on rules."
"The user experience of metapedia could be improved."
"The solution could improve by incorporating other applications, such as Power BI to show more visualization. More interaction with other solutions would be a good benefit."
"Granularity could be reduced from an application level to the object level."
"The support team is not very responsive."
"SAP Information Steward could be improved by offering a cloud version of the product."
"We'd like to see some manipulation techniques included in SAP Information Steward."
"Performance could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is affordable."
"Smaller-sized organizations may not be able to invest in SAP Information Steward because of the cost."
"A bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."
"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
"I do not know if there were additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Government
17%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for dbt?
The course content that dbt provides is free and excellent for anyone starting out.
What needs improvement with dbt?
We are still experimenting with testing, but not that much. We are not using some features yet. We are trying to introduce them because we are coming from a background of SSIS. The team used to wor...
What is your primary use case for dbt?
I am working with one of our enterprise customers, managing their newly established cloud warehouse. They are using Snowflake and we are using dbt to manage all the transformation and views and tab...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
Information Steward, SAP Data Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
American Water, Graphic Packaging International, OSRAM Licht AG, Maxim Integrated
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Information Steward vs. dbt and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.