Comparison
Aditum Data vs AVEVA PI System and CONNECT
AVEVA PI System is a historian: it collects, stores and contextualises plant data at very large scale, and most large process companies already run it. Aditum Data is not a historian; it reads PI through the PI Web API and turns that data, together with your other sources, into comparable multi-site KPIs, alerts and dashboards.
So the usual question is not "PI or Aditum Data" but what to put on top of PI when you need the same number from every site.
Facts checked
Aditum Data and AVEVA PI System at a glance
PI stores and serves plant history; Aditum Data prepares, checks and compares it across sites.
| Aditum Data | AVEVA PI System | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Industrial data pipelines and dashboards as a managed service: connect plant and business sources, prepare the data without code, deliver it to your platform or to live dashboards. | "An integrated portfolio of solutions that enables industrial operations to collect, cleanse, store, enrich and visualize real-time operations data." (AVEVA) |
| Where it runs | Managed by Aditum Data in Frankfurt (EU); a small read-only edge connector at each site (Windows or Linux), outbound HTTPS on port 443 only. | Hybrid: PI Server installed on premises; CONNECT data services (formerly AVEVA Data Hub) is cloud SaaS. (AVEVA, rename) |
| Plant connectivity | Edge connector for OPC UA, MQTT (Sparkplug B) and Modbus TCP; AVEVA PI (PI Web API) and GE Proficy; SQL databases, InfluxDB, warehouses, data lakes, Kafka, SAP OData and REST. See connectors. | PI Interfaces, PI Connectors and AVEVA Adapters (Linux and Windows). (AVEVA, software schedule) |
| Historian | Not a historian. Reads your historian, or stores prepared data in the Aditum database (hosted PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB) or your own destination. | Yes, the core product: one PI Server manages "up to twenty million tags or data streams", with exception and compression filtering. (AVEVA) |
| Asset model and context | A reviewed plant graph per organisation: naming rules (ISA-5.1, KKS), OPC UA folders and MQTT topics become site, unit and equipment; P&IDs and 3D models link to time series after a person approves. | Asset Framework for "data models, hierarchies, and templates"; Event Frames for batches, shifts and downtime. (AVEVA) |
| Calculations | f(x): no-code engineering calculations with unit checks on every step, nine equipment templates (LMTD, duty, OEE, specific energy and more), time-weighted averages. | PI Analytics with "streaming calculations" for KPIs; PI DataLink brings PI data into Excel. (AVEVA, AVEVA) |
| Data health and alerts | Incidents without setting up rules: failed runs, stale sources, stuck or silent tags, missed schedules, data received but not stored, offline connectors; email, Teams, Slack, webhooks, PagerDuty, Opsgenie. | Notifications: "real-time alerts when a data stream moves beyond user-defined thresholds." (AVEVA) |
| Dashboards | Live dashboards, including from a plain-language request that a person approves; every number traces to its source tags. | PI Vision, "a web-based display and dashboard building tool"; CONNECT data services offers self-service dashboards and a Power BI connector. (AVEVA, AVEVA) |
| AI | AI drafts pipelines, dashboards and formulas for approval; the platform calculates every number. Metadata only by default; an organisation can switch AI off. | Industrial AI Assistant in CONNECT: natural-language questions over CONNECT data. (AVEVA) |
| How it is sold | Per organisation, never per seat: a free self-serve start, a pilot, then a site subscription. Prices on request. | Moving to subscription with AVEVA Flex credits; licensing by node and data streams, or an aggregate-tag model. (AVEVA, software schedule) |
Checked 24 October 2026. Statements about AVEVA PI System come from the vendor's public pages listed under Sources.
Where AVEVA PI System is the better choice
AVEVA PI System is ahead of Aditum Data in these areas today.
- Installed base and proof at scale. AVEVA states that "25 of the top 25 pharma companies use AVEVA PI System" and "9 of the top 10 mining companies" (AVEVA).
- Historian storage. Decades of high-rate data with tuned exception and compression filtering, up to twenty million tags on one server (AVEVA). Aditum Data does not replace that.
- Engineer tooling people already know: Asset Framework, Event Frames and PI DataLink in Excel.
- On-premises operation. PI Server runs inside the plant; Aditum Data is a managed service in Frankfurt with an edge connector at the site.
Where Aditum Data is different
What Aditum Data adds for teams that need the same, trustworthy number from every site.
- One KPI definition for every site. A KPI is defined once with an owner and a version, and each site maps its own PI points to it. A new site is a mapping, not a new project.
- Not only PI. The same pipeline combines PI with OPC UA, MQTT and Modbus through the edge connector, GE Proficy, SQL databases, SAP OData and lab data.
- Loud data health by default. Stale sources, stuck tags, renamed tags and missed runs open incidents without writing rules first.
- Delivery to your platform. Prepared data lands in Snowflake, Databricks, PostgreSQL, Azure Data Lake or Kafka, as well as on Aditum dashboards.
- No-code engineering calculations with unit checks (f(x)) and time-weighted averages, so deadbanded PI points give correct numbers.
Can Aditum Data work with AVEVA PI System?
Yes. Aditum Data reads PI points through the PI Web API, read-only, either from Frankfurt or through the on-site reader inside the plant network, and can place PI points on its plant graph. PI stays your historian.
Questions
Do we have to replace PI to use Aditum Data?
No. Aditum Data reads PI as a source and writes nothing back to it.
Our PI Web API is only reachable inside the plant. Does that work?
Yes. The on-site reader makes the connection from inside the plant network and sends data out over HTTPS on port 443.
Sources
Public pages the statements about other products rely on, read on . Product names are trademarks of their owners.
- AVEVA PI System product page
- AVEVA PI Server product page
- AVEVA PI Vision product page
- CONNECT data services (formerly AVEVA Data Hub) product page
- AVEVA blog: AVEVA Data Hub is becoming CONNECT data services
- AVEVA PI Integrator for Business Analytics
- AVEVA Software Schedule: PI System (licensing metrics, June 2026)
- AVEVA blog: generative AI in CONNECT with Industrial AI Assistant (Spanish)
Discuss architecture with an industrial data specialist.
Source compatibility, security boundaries, deployment and multi-site operation. Or request a 45-minute technical session to select one KPI and three sites and draft the acceptance criteria.