Remember this means buying it and paying maintenance.  SSIS is a great tool, even if you did have to buy it, but because it's free and bundled with SQL Server 2005/8, we rarely look at other ETL Tools with an open mind.  Recently my list of SSIS Pet Peeves and the Toughest SQL Server 2005 Migration ever, caused me to wonder, "Would I use SSIS if it wasn't free and bundled with SQL Server?"

I know the company i work did a RFP for ETL Tools, but I was never privy to the responses or even allowed to participate in the process ( why include DBA's in the search for an enterprise ETL Tool, that'd be foolish!).  Nothing ever came from this, so that leads me to think that SSIS must still be the best value out there, probably because it's free.  I sure would have liked to seen the responses, especially on cost.

I've found a nice web page on ETL Tools, though they want you to purchase their comparison, but if nothing else you can see a nice list of ETL Vendors:

http://www.etltool.com/etltoolslist.htm

No. List of ETL Tools Version   ETL Vendors
1. Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) 11gR1 Oracle  
2. Data Integrator & Services  XI 3.0 Business Objects, SAP
3. IBM Information Server (Ascential) 8.0.1 IBM
4. SAS Data Integration Studio 4.2 SAS Institute 
5. PowerCenter 8.5.1 Informatica  
6. Elixir Repertoire 7.2.2 Elixir 
7. Data Migrator 7.6 Information Builders
8. Integration Services (SSIS) 10 Microsoft  
9. Talend Open Studio 1.1 Talend
10. DataFlow Manager 6 Group 1 Software (Sagent)
11. Data Integrator 8.12 Pervasive
12. Transformation Server 5.4 IBM DataMirror
13. Transformation Manager  5.2.2 ETL Solutions Ltd.
14. Data Manager/Decision Stream 8.2 IBM Cognos
15. DT/Studio 3.1 Embarcadero Technologies
16. ETL4ALL 4.2 IKAN
17. DB2 Warehouse Edition 9.1 IBM
18. Pentaho Data Integration  3.0 Pentaho  
19. Adeptia Integration Server 4.9 Adeptia
20. Clover ETL 2.5.2 Javlin  

Interesting Blog post on evaluating some ETL Tools:
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/evaluating-software/evaluate-etl-tools-4169

If anyone has any experiences with other ETL Tools and how they compare with SSIS, i'd love to have you comment on this, letting me know why your using a different tool.  After working with SSIS now on several large projects I'm now very comfortable with SSIS and understand it's quirks, depending on it's "cost" compared to other products, I'd use it, even if it wasn't free.  I hope Microsoft doesn't read this and decide they want to start charging for ssis (and for sure there are already some features of SSIS that aren't available under certain editions).

One of the greatest strengths of SSIS is how quickly we (DBA, User, Developer, BA, QA Etc) can get at the data either for query, analysis, import or export...SSIS and it's predecessor DTS were one of SQL Server's greatest strengths in this area.  I work in a shop with other DBMS's and consistently SQL Server is more flexible in this area, because of SSIS/DTS.  I do think they could have made SSIS Better than it is, the learning curve compared to DTS is steep and the strong data typing of the meta data can be difficult at best.