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SAP Information Steward vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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

SAP Information Steward
Ranking in Metadata Management
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (17th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Metadata Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of SAP Information Steward is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 3.2%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP PowerDesigner3.2%
SAP Information Steward3.2%
Other93.6%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kopparapu Venkatesh Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Data modeling tool improves data management and decision-making efficiency
The lineage analysis helps my organization understand data dependencies at an enterprise level. As a SAP PowerDesigner developer, I monitor data across the organization, creating data models that reflect not just one data warehouse but comprehensive organizational information. If you have a small company, lineage helps track employee data across different areas such as finance and HR. Data governance prevents duplicate records, so when tracking employee details, SAP PowerDesigner highlights where data exists in various areas, helping ensure we only use the appropriate sources. This functionality allows us to assess the impact of data deletions effectively. I utilize the reverse engineering capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner. Reverse engineering is helpful, especially since I have colleagues new to SAP PowerDesigner. They often do not know which columns are available where. In SAP PowerDesigner, we can reverse engineer existing data from its source and identify errors in production. For instance, by using Ali's example, if an error arises, I can trace it back to the table and environment it originated from using the reverse engineering feature. 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. The first feature acts as a bridge between systems. The second allows us to see what data is already available and what new data can be brought in. The third, impact analysis, helps determine how many tables will be affected if a specific table is deleted. This critical point allows us to capture how much data will be lost if any table is removed. Currently, these features shape my daily work. SAP PowerDesigner primarily benefits business management units by offering three types of data modeling structures: conceptual, logical, and physical models. The conceptual model communicates high-level insights to top executives, while logical and physical models address complex queries faced by developers in analytics. SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems. The tool enables mapping from end to end, making my work faster and more efficient than using other ER data modeling solutions. The interface allows easy creation of data models and searching for existing data, ensuring I can complete my tasks significantly quicker. The importance of SAP PowerDesigner's collaboration capabilities lies in fostering a unified data management approach. It acts as a unified tool, preventing the duplication of existing data in analytical processes, thus saving both effort and storage costs, which is essential for effective data management. We utilize collaboration capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner with various source systems such as PG admin, Postgres, Oracle, and Snowflake. Recently, we have added Snowflake for cloud data modeling and POC work, streamlining the collaboration process across different systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is user-friendly even for those who are dealing with it for the first time."
"The ability to analyze the data even before we start the transformation of it, and generating the user-friendly interface, giving analytical reports, and helping create the transformation rules before we proceed with the data migration part was the most helpful part of the solution for our company."
"The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits."
"The product has improved company efficiency because we're able to categorize the need for user access at the folder level across storage enterprise wide."
"The solution is very fast."
"Data insight is the most valuable feature."
"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 solution is very fast, very stable, and very easy to use and straightforward."
"Even if you don't customise or extend PowerDesigner, the tool is still the easiest modelling tool to use, with spreadsheet-like editing capabilities, the ability to link to or replicate (in a managed fashion) objects from a different model."
"It is a very stable solution, which is one of the advantages of using PowerDesigner, especially in big databases."
"By using SAP PowerDesigner, we are able to create a product that is always up to date, so the model always represents the implementation."
"I previously used Erwin and I switched because PowerDesigner is a more powerful tool."
"SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems."
"I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use."
"It's a great tool for documentation."
"The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function."
 

Cons

"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
"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."
"We'd like to see some manipulation techniques included in SAP Information Steward."
"Granularity could be reduced from an application level to the object level."
"Needs to be more powerful on rules."
"The user experience of metapedia could be improved."
"The support team is not very responsive."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds."
"I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all."
"I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all."
"Reverse-engineering of late JDK and .NET. Use third party parsers and enhance Object-Oriented metamodel to cater for newer language features."
"SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"Although the presentation for viewing the models is good, I think it could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."
"Smaller-sized organizations may not be able to invest in SAP Information Steward because of the cost."
"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
"I do not know if there were additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Government
16%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Government
9%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
It was a long time back when my company purchased it, but I am now participating in upgrading it to the latest version. I found customer support to be tedious during the upgrade process to the late...
 

Also Known As

Information Steward, SAP Data Insight
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Water, Graphic Packaging International, OSRAM Licht AG, Maxim Integrated
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Information Steward vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.