Ignition vs. Wonderware Part 1
Just a few short years ago, Wonderware was the hottest SCADA system software on the market. In the past few years things have changed dramatically as Inductive Automation has developed their reputation over many releases. It’s also one of the most popular choices for manufacturing companies choosing a new SCADA platform. In many ways, Ignition is also a more user friendly and easy to implement option. Since you might want an unbiased opinion, we will do our best to give you an apples to apples comparison of both platforms.
License Structure
Wonderware has two licensing flavors: System Platform and InTouch. System Platform uses a server license based on I/O count, then adds on client licenses, development environments, and a tag count license for historian tags. The InTouch licensing option (essentially a legacy product at this point) offers client licensing and I/O count licensing for your system with built-in historical collection. The System Platform option requires separate licenses for different functionality like OEE, Quality, etc. and each will have their own requirements. There are some exceptions to this—including InTouch Web Studio —that offer unlimited licenses.
Ignition uses a server based licensing model, with licensed modules that enable functionality for OEE, SPC, Historian, database access, etc. The basic Ignition license also includes unlimited clients, tags, and more. You can also choose to use Vision or Perspective for your visualization. Ignition has the potential for a higher upfront cost for a small system, but that’s also without additional costs to add more clients or tags.
Winner: Ignition. Their licensing is easy to understand. You can get a price without calling anyone, and you don’t have to worry about adding tags or clients to your system as your implementation grows.
Development Tools
Wonderware and Ignition are similar in that they each have a separate development environment to develop projects. Clients also launch projects for users to interact with them. This is a fairly standard architecture for any modern SCADA system. Ignition's development environment is included with the license. Wonderware requires a separate development license which needs to be purchased and installed on any computer needing the development environment. Compare this to just opening the designer in Ignition without installing any additional software.
Winner: Ignition. You can run their system on just about any computer you have, and don’t need to worry about licensing to make changes to your system.
Graphics
While graphics capabilities are roughly equivalent in most modern SCADA platforms, there are some factors to consider when choosing between Wonderware and Ignition. First, consider if you will want mobile device access to your system. If so, you want to choose Ignition’s Perspective Module. It provides browser-based access along with a mobile application. While you can technically do a browser based version of Wonderware’s screens, it is not recommended to use it for actually running your plant—frankly, it is cumbersome to implement and use.
If you want advanced graphics including gradients and transparency, you may still want to use System Platform on Wonderware. With Ignition you have the option to basically develop anything you want with Vision or Perspective. For comparison, the screens below were sdeveloped in Ignition and Wonderware:
Screen Developed in Ignition
Screen Developed in Wonderware
Winner: Ignition. You can make great looking screens in either platform, but Ignition makes it easy—and lets you deploy screens to any device.
Need to Convert to Ignition?
Corso Systems can quickly convert Wonderware and other Legacy SCADA systems
(iFix, FactoryTalk View, Win CC, and more) to Ignition.
Schedule a 15-min intro call with sales to learn how our process could work for you!
Ease of Use and Deployment
Ignition and Wonderware have similar basic architectures as server/client based systems all follow a similar deployment structure. Where you get into more choice is using Ignition Edge to develop robust IIoT solutions, or using Edge on an OEM machine for true fall-back functionality allowing you to run the machine if there are network issues between your PLCs and your gateway.
Winner: Ignition. You only need to install one software package and you will have access to any gateways you need, and can launch as many clients as you want.
3rd Party Vendor Options and Connectivity
Both Wonderware and Ignition have very similar functionality here, and either system can use built-in communication drivers, OPC-DA and OPC-UA servers, or options like Kepware if there are no built-in drivers. Much of the requirements here will depend on what PLCs you currently have or are looking for in the future.
Cirrus Link is run by one of the inventors of MQTT, which gives Ignition a massive advantage on the IIoT front.
Please contact us and we'll happily walk you through what this could mean for your system.
Winner: Slight edge to Ignition for MQTT ease of use. If we’re only considering PLC connectivity, it’s a tie.
Historian Capture, Store and Forward, Out of the Box Tools
Ignition writes historical data directly to a database, Wonderware uses flat files with accessibility via a SQL query interface.
Wonderware has better compression because of the flat files, however Ignition is much easier to configure and manage with a checkbox to enable history on any tag in the system. And with Ignition, you don’t need to worry about how many tags are left on your license!
Both Ignition and Wonderware have store and forward capabilities, and data can be interacted with in clients using trends, tabular formats, etc.
Learn more about Process Historians.
Winner: It wouldn’t necessarily be a fair fight for Ignition to sweep the board. For smaller systems, Ignition is the hands down winner. But, if you need large tag counts and better data compression, then Wonderware would be a good choice. Although, in a similar situation, we would also recommend checking out Canary Labs Historian if you are looking for an upgrade to the Ignition Tag Historian Module. Canary is very well integrated with Ignition.
What Will You Choose?
Ready to make your decision? Or would you like to have a more in-depth conversation about Ignition vs Wonderware for your business? Are you are already running Wonderware, but considering an automatic conversion to Ignition? You may also want to read our recent case study: Wonderware InTouch to Ignition Perspective Conversion to see how the process could work for you.
Continue reading the series: Ignition vs. Wonderware part 2
