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Explore a detailed comparison of top iPaaS vendors
Are you exploring what an iPaaS (integration Platform as Service) is? Looking to learn how iPaaS solutions are benefiting businesses looking to future-proof their digital growth? Or are you simply looking for a scalable integration solution to enable your system integration and data management plans?
Navigating through the plethora of integration solution providers can be quite challenging. To support you in finding a suitable solution, we’ve created a step-by-step comparison of three popular integration solution providers, namely Celigo, Zapier, and Alumio. We’ve compared the common attributes, pricing structures, platform complexities, and user-friendliness of these three integration solution providers.
When investigating how integration solutions stand apart from each other, there are several key aspects that need to be addressed. What do the specific integration platforms include and what do they specialize in? What kinds of pricing plans do they offer? Are there any differences in to consider? To explore this and more, let’s see how the popular iPaaS vendors Celigo, Zapier, and Alumio compare.
Celigo is an integration platform that’s designed for business process automation. It supports sharing data across applications and the standardization of inner organizational app connections. The platform offers role-based access controls and is well-suited for users with little technical knowledge.
Zapier is a no-code application automation platform that’s designed to help swiftly connect apps and automate workflows with little technical knowledge. Each workflow is called a “Zap”. Thus, Zapier users can mainly build integrations by choosing from their rich library of pre-selected apps. The integration solution is designed to enhance productivity by helping automate tasks such as sending emails, updating spreadsheets, posting to social media, or syncing data between tools.
The Alumio iPaaS is a cloud-native, low-code integration platform that helps connect multiple systems, SaaS, cloud apps, and data sources, across on-premises and cloud environments. Its user-friendly web interface provides no-code features for both developers and business users to create, monitor, and manage integrations and data flows. However, Alumio presents itself as a low-code solution because it offers deep customizability and advanced integration features for developers, making it flexible enough to adapt to virtually any use case. The platform provides extensive data manipulation features and workflow automation options.
A key benefit of an iPaaS is how it simplifies integrations, so even non-coding professionals or business users can create, monitor or manage software connections. This criteria thus determines how user-friendly the compared iPaaS solution’s interface and functionalities are.
The features category determines how users rate the integration tools these popular iPaaS platforms offer, such as monitoring, logging, mappers, transformers, SDK, Storage or native connectors.
The customer service category displays user ratings on how these integration solutions are evaluated in regards to the various support and help features they offer.
In this category the pricing plans of these key integration platforms are compared, based on their applicability to various business needs and circumstances.
This category is tied to the pricing frameworks of these popular iPaaS systems. It entails how users evaluate them based on their cost-effectiveness,in context to features and customer support offered.
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A key benefit of an iPaaS is how it simplifies integrations, so even non-coding professionals or business users can create, monitor or manage software connections. This criteria thus determines how user-friendly the compared iPaaS solution’s interface and functionalities are.
The features category determines how users rate the integration tools these popular iPaaS platforms offer, such as monitoring, logging, mappers, transformers, SDK, Storage or native connectors.
The customer service category displays user ratings on how these integration solutions are evaluated in regards to the various support and help features they offer.
In this category the pricing plans of these key integration platforms are compared, based on their applicability to various business needs and circumstances.
This category is tied to the pricing frameworks of these popular iPaaS systems. It entails how users evaluate them based on their cost-effectiveness,in context to features and customer support offered.
A key benefit of an iPaaS is how it simplifies integrations, so even non-coding professionals or business users can create, monitor or manage software connections. This criteria thus determines how user-friendly the compared iPaaS solution’s interface and functionalities are.
The features category determines how users rate the integration tools these popular iPaaS platforms offer, such as monitoring, logging, mappers, transformers, SDK, Storage or native connectors.
The customer service category displays user ratings on how these integration solutions are evaluated in regards to the various support and help features they offer.
In this category the pricing plans of these key integration platforms are compared, based on their applicability to various business needs and circumstances.
This category is tied to the pricing frameworks of these popular iPaaS systems. It entails how users evaluate them based on their cost-effectiveness,in context to features and customer support offered.
Both low-code and no-code solutions lower the technical threshold for creating integrations. No-code solutions simplify the process for non-developers, usually enabling integration of pre-defined software and applications via pre-built templates. Low-code solutions are also developer friendly, providing advanced features to create complex integration and flexible customizations.
Modern digital enterprises and domestic IT landscapes often times consist of both on-premise systems like ERP systems and cloud-based applications like PIM systems. Some integration solutions only connect cloud apps, while bigger iPaaS solutions also integrate on-premises systems.
The iPaaS enables businesses to integrate multiple applications easily via a central user interface. This could mean an interface that provides drag and drop options or one that offers click-and-configure features. The former enables building integrations by simply dragging and dropping options together, the click-and-configure interface involves developing integrations by choosing from a drop-down of multiple options.
This category is tied to the pricing frameworks of these popular iPaaS systems. It entails how users evaluate them based on their cost-effectiveness, and in context to features and customer support offered.
The Celigo Integrator.io core features include:
Zapier's core features include:
The Alumio iPaaS core features include:
As a powerful nex-gen integration solution with capabilities exceeding traditional ESB solutions, one of the key novelties of iPaaS solutions is how they simplify integrations. Thus, ease of onboarding, user-friendliness, and well-developed training and support features are crucial factors that determine how quickly users adapt to a particular iPaaS solution. Having established an overview of how the three integration platforms stack up against each other, let's now compare the platform features Celigo, Zapier, and Alumio.
As a self service solution, an iPaaS is all about allowing users to deploy, manage and monitor integrations from a user-friendly dashboard. Thus the dashboard of an iPaaS is a key technical feature that allows detailed overview of active integrations, data transfers, integration errors, logging and all other information.
The ETL - or ‘Extract, Transfer, and Loading’ - iPaaS tool allows for effective data migration. The ETL feature allows for data to be accessible and usable at all times.
When creating effective data integrations, a key feature that’s sought out is Data Management, which is defined as the process of storing, organizing, or maintaining data created by an organization.
To create connections between software and systems using an iPaaS solution, it is essential to integrate the web services of an application. These web services essentially comprise of each service offered by a web applications or software, which enables applications to interact with each other over the web.
The Multiple Data Sources feature is an integral feature of an iPaaS solution, which is useful for unifying or centralizing data from various databases to one central output location.
As a self service solution, an iPaaS is all about allowing users to deploy, manage and monitor integrations from a user-friendly dashboard. Thus the dashboard of an iPaaS is a key technical feature that allows detailed overview of active integrations, data transfers, integration errors, logging and all other information.
The ETL - or ‘Extract, Transfer, and Loading’ - iPaaS tool allows for effective data migration. The ETL feature allows for data to be accessible and usable at all times.
When creating effective data integrations, a key feature that’s sought out is Data Management, which is defined as the process of storing, organizing, or maintaining data created by an organization.
To create connections between software and systems using an iPaaS solution, it is essential to integrate the web services of an application. These web services essentially comprise of each service offered by a web applications or software, which enables applications to interact with each other over the web.
The Multiple Data Sources feature is an integral feature of an iPaaS solution, which is useful for unifying or centralizing data from various databases to one central output location.
As a self service solution, an iPaaS is all about allowing users to deploy, manage and monitor integrations from a user-friendly dashboard. Thus the dashboard of an iPaaS is a key technical feature that allows detailed overview of active integrations, data transfers, integration errors, logging and all other information.
The ETL - or ‘Extract, Transfer, and Loading’ - iPaaS tool allows for effective data migration. The ETL feature allows for data to be accessible and usable at all times.
When creating effective data integrations, a key feature that’s sought out is Data Management, which is defined as the process of storing, organizing, or maintaining data created by an organization.
To create connections between software and systems using an iPaaS solution, it is essential to integrate the web services of an application. These web services essentially comprise of each service offered by a web applications or software, which enables applications to interact with each other over the web.
The Multiple Data Sources feature is an integral feature of an iPaaS solution, which is useful for unifying or centralizing data from various databases to one central output location.
Connector are pre-configured connections between two software or apps, minimizing the integration effort required to establish the pre-determined connection.
The ETL - or ‘Extract, Transfer, and Loading’ - iPaaS tool allows for effective data migration. The ETL feature allows for data to be accessible and usable at all times.
When creating effective data integrations, a key feature that’s sought out is Data Management, which is defined as the process of storing, organizing, or maintaining data created by an organization.
To create connections between software and systems using an iPaaS solution, it is essential to integrate the web services of an application. These web services comprise each service offered by a web applications or software, which enables applications to interact with each other over the web.
The Multiple Data Sources feature is an integral feature of an iPaaS solution, which is useful for unifying or centralizing data from various databases to one central output location.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a standardized format through which business information can be exchanged. For example, if your organization uses EDI and is seeking to connect APIs the iPaaS enables both systems to be connected and exchange data smoothly..
Integration or task errors can significantly hinder business efficiency and operations. Thus, the ease with which the platform enables users to detect integration errors or API conflicts can significantly reduce troubleshooting time and cost.
The iPaaS is built to connect multiple systems and software, allowing for seamless data transfer between the connected systems. Thus, providing strong data security features is vital to ensuring the safe transfer of business relevant information.
Being compliant with key data privacy regulations like GDPR & CCPA is vital for digital enterprises. Thus, when opting for an integration solution, it is important to consider whether they provide sufficient data security and compliance measures.
In case of queries or issues occurring with a an iPaaS solution, the Email/Help Desk support feature can be used to get in contact with the iPaaS vendor and their customer service personnel.
Through the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and forum, users of an iPaaS solution can access helpful information regarding the most common questions and queries that need to be answered.
A knowledge base is a self-service library, containing all kinds of information regarding a product or service. In context to an iPaaS platform, this includes useful blogs, tutorials, videos, and a support portal to teaching users how to use their integration platform.
Via the phone support tool, users can request on-call support for iPaaS related concerns by contacting the respective iPaaS vendor’s customer service personnel during business hours.
When encountering difficulties with integrating software or applications, especially when encountering issues unanswered by the provided knowledge base or Forum section, the chat support feature can help with getting a fast answer to a specific question.
Initial implementation and familiarization with the platform features of an iPaaS tool can be intimidating and overwhelming. While video tutorials and knowledge base articles can hep in this regard, iPaaS vendors may provide an in-person demo or proof-of-concept to all stakeholders before they get started with the platform.
During Live online training sessions, common integration platform functionalities can be visually presented to the viewer. Since this training is live and online, viewers can participate regardless of how far their location is from the provider’s location. Additionally, viewers can ask questions and get real time answers.
Webinars are recurring events during which key subject related topics are explained or demoed, such as ‘What is an iPaaS’, 'How can an iPaaS be used?', or how to integrate software A to system B’.
Documentation of topics like how to connect software, how to create integrations, or other iPaaS-related topics is a frequently used support and training feature that many iPaaS vendors make use of. It is a self-service feature that allows a wide variety of information to be stored in one place, ready to be used on demand at any time.
Training videos allow for integration platform vendors to provide useful training information on how to use their products and services to their fullest potential. Training videos are available on demand at all times and can be paused and repeated.
Integration solutions are typically priced based on multiple variables such as volume, number of connections, utilization, API calls, feature access, support and training availabilities, and storage space. Here are some key points to consider when deciding which solution is right for your particular business use case:
Alumio iPaaS Pricing
Celigo Pricing
Zapier
The iPaaS is a self-service integration solution empowering even non-technical users to connect multiple software, applications, and systems. As such, the iPaaS can serve as either a low-code or no-code solution. The main difference between these different complexities is the levels of simplicity versus flexibility offered.
In context to this comparison, Zapier serves as a no-code solution, while the Celigo integration platform serves as a low-code platform. The Alumio iPaaS works as a scalable low-code/no-code solution that can be tailored to fit the complexity of the integration projects.
No-code integration solutions:
Low-code integration solutions:
Despite having both low-code and no-code features, Alumio defines itself as a low-code integration solution. While making it easy for developers and non-developers to collaborate on managing integrations, Alumio is designed to offer developer-friendly flexibility and customizability needed to create advanced, custom integrations. While enabling faster integrations with popular systems via pre-built connectors, Alumio also provides advanced mappers and transformers to flexibly transform data and customize integrations. This high degree of adaptability is designed to help modern digital businesses prepare for unpredictable future integration needs.
An iPaaS solution is designed to simplify how developers and non-developers collaborate to create, manage, and monitor integrations and data operations. Thus, it is essential to compare iPaaS solutions based on their user-friendliness, ease of navigation, and the clarity with which users can navigate platform features.
A comparison of the user-friendliness of graphic interfaces explores several key elements: Does the platform provide a good feature overview? How easily can errors be detected? Are all platform features accessible and intuitive? Here’s a detailed UI comparison of Alumio, Celigo, and Zapier:
Celigo Integrator.io:
Zapier
The Alumio iPaaS
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Alumio offers a usage-based pricing model with advanced storage space, task run capabilities, and data retention options available with each plan. However, it also offers full-feature access and unlimited connectivity for all users and plans. Celigo provides a feature-based pricing model with a free base version and additional costs are incurred for operating the Celigo Integrator.io platform and for implementing smart connectors. Zapier provides a usage-based pricing model with a free version that supports the creation of five single-step actions/triggers. More sophisticated workflows require multi-step actions/triggers that will depend on the subscription option you choose.
The Alumio iPaaS provides a low-code/no-code platform with a modern UI and an intuitive interface design that gives users immediate insight into their integrations, features, tasks running, and integration health. Celigo provides a low-code integration platform with an interface that’s rich with visual graphs. However, it has a traditional design with little to no colorful highlights and icons that positively contribute to the user-friendliness of the interface. Zapier is a no-code application automation platform with a modern drag-and-drop integration interface. However, it doesn’t have a reporting tool, health monitor, or dedicated error management feature.
The Alumio iPaaS provides an extensive range of easily accessible support and training measures, including in-person and live online training, mail support, phone, and chat support. Celigo provides a wide range of training measures, including live online training, in-person training, and webinars, but it doesn’t provide phone support. Zapier provides essential support features without in-person or live online training support, and no chat or phone support.
The Alumio iPaaS provides data security along with extensive monitoring & logging features within the Alumio platform. This helps detect and notify users about integration errors or API conflicts and saves troubleshooting costs. Both Celigo and Zapier provide data security but Celigo also provides an error notification tool.
The Alumio iPaaS is a cloud-native, low-code integration platform. It helps connect multiple systems, SaaS, cloud apps, and data sources, across on-premises and cloud environments. While providing no-code features for non-developers and business users to collaboratively create, monitor, and manage integrations, Alumio also provides developer-friendly advanced integration features. This includes an extensive repertoire of flexible data manipulation, workflow automation, and data synchronization features. It also provides automated monitoring and logging features that helps instantly detect integration errors and saves on troubleshooting costs.
The Alumio integration platform (iPaaS) provides high-end reliable performance, guarantees great uptime, provides extensive data security measures, and offers diverse customization abilities. It also provides reactivation procedures and data caching to ensure business continuity.
Integration solutions usually focus on providing either data integration or application automation functionalities. The Alumio iPaaS provides both cloud application integration and data integration capabilities, across on-premises and cloud environments. It empowers users to reuse API integrations for future integration projects.
Eliminating the need for custom code, the Alumio integration platform empowers both developers and business users to collaboratively create, monitor, and manage integrations with a clear visual overview of all integrations and data flows. The platform also offers an extensive repertoire of developer-friendly data-enriching features and workflow automation options. Providing extensive monitoring and logging features, it automates error detection and simplifies troubleshooting.
Additionally, the Alumio iPaaS ensures extensive data security, diverse customization abilities, and high-end reliable performance, with guaranteed uptime. It also offers reactivation procedures, data caching, and buffering in the rare case of system crashes, ensuring business continuity.
Usually, integration projects can take multiple weeks or months to fully deploy. With the Alumio iPaaS integration projects can be finished within 2-4 weeks, depending on the complexity of the specific project. This means the Alumio integration platform enables 75% quicker integration deployment time.
The Zapier integration platform has the least training and support features in this comparison. It also lacks dedicated error notifications, as well as a phone or chat support feature. In addition, Zapier users cannot make use of in-person or live-online training measures. The Celigo iPaaS lacks phone support but provides its users with a wider range of training and support features than Zapier. The Alumio iPaaS has the most established support and training features in this comparison, including extensive logging, error notifications, phone support, webinars, and in-person training.
The Alumio iPaaS supplies users with extensive, dedicated data security and error management features. Alumio users receive notifications concerning integration errors or task flow issues via email. Celigo and Zapier also provide great data security measures. Additionally, Celigo’s iPaaS also offers an error management feature while Zapier’s integration platform does not provide error management at all.
The Alumio iPaaS provides a usage-based pricing model with varying capacities, offering full feature access and unlimited connections to all users. Higher capacity plans provide increased storage spaces, enlarged task capabilities, dedicated support functionalities, and data retention options. Extensive data transformation and enrichment features, reusable connections, and configurable alerting and logging are available to all Alumio users without limitations.
The Zapier integration platform has a usage-based pricing model, offering increasing amounts of Zaps and varying upload times depending on the chosen plan. Celigo provides pay-per-feature annual pricing plans to fully implement their Celigo Integrator.io platform, with additional costs for smart connectors and custom connector costs based on the number of flows built. This can complicate pre-determining the costs of a planned integration project, especially for first-time users.
The user interfaces by Zapier and Alumio have an overall modern design with visually appealing UIs and intuitive navigation. The Celigo interface sports a more traditional design, using little to no colorful highlights and icons. While Zapier is a no-code solution and Celigo is a low-code solution both provide a drag-and-drop feature. The Alumio iPaaS is a low-code solution with developer and non-developer-friendly click-and-configure actions, enabling the integration of virtually any application, on a use-case-specific instance. The Alumio iPaaS platform is particularly user-friendly thanks to the central health monitor displayed on the dashboard home page where users gain immediate insight into their integrations and run tasks.
As a dedicated low-code integration platform, Alumio offers the flexibility needed to adapt to virtually any business use case. Alumio empowers both developers and non-developers to create, monitor, and manage advanced integrations while also providing instant connectivity for well-known software and systems via pre-established connectors. Zapier, on the other hand, is more of an application automation platform than a full-fledged integration platform, enabling connectivity exclusively between vendor-supported applications.
In terms of support, Zapier lacks a phone and chat support feature, and users aren’t provided in-person or live-online training measures. The Alumio iPaaS provides a wide range of support and training features from phone and chat support to in-person training.
Zapier does not provide error management features, while the Alumio IPaaS provides extensive error management functionalities. Providing extensive monitoring and logging, Alumio delivers holistic insights into integrations, run tasks, and potential errors, while automating real-time integration error detection and email alerts.
The Zapier platform provides multi-tenant architecture. Alternatively, as a single-tenant solution, the Alumio iPaaS ensures extensive data security, diverse customization abilities, and high-end reliable performance, with guaranteed uptime. It also offers reactivation procedures, data caching, and buffering in the rare case of system crashes, ensuring business continuity.
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