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Energy · head to head

AVEVA PI System vs VTScada

AVEVA PI System logo

AVEVA PI System

Energy

Industrial data infrastructure for real-time insights

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
VTScada logo

VTScada

Utilities

SCADA software for water, wastewater and remote telemetry with a published price list

From
$3395/one-time
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: AVEVA PI System pricing is not published and comes through an account representative; VTScada licences are per installed PC rather than per system, so a redundant pair plus a development machine means paying three times unless you buy the discounted multi-server bundles.
  • They diverge on capability: AVEVA PI System covers Real-time data collection, VTScada covers Automatic version control.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which AVEVA PI System and VTScada actually diverge.

Attributes where AVEVA PI System and VTScada differ
AttributeAVEVA PI SystemVTScada
Starting priceOn request$3395/one-time
Pricing modelone-timeOne-time purchase
PlatformsDesktop, Web, Mobile, ApiWindows
CategoryEnergyUtilities
Founded1967Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in AVEVA PI System

  • Real-time data collection
  • Time-series data storage
  • Asset framework
  • Visualization
  • Analytics
  • Event management
  • Notifications
  • Data integration

Only in VTScada

  • Automatic version control
  • Bundled historian
  • Alarm notification
  • Driver set included
  • Redundancy and sync
  • Thin clients
  • Idea Studio
  • Slippy maps

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

AVEVA PI System

  • Industrial data collection and storage for oil, gas, and chemical processingnot VTScada
  • Real-time operational data visualization and HMI dashboardsnot VTScada
  • Supply chain and asset performance monitoring across sitesnot VTScada
  • Compliance and audit trail management for regulated industriesnot VTScada
  • Integration with SCADA systems and manufacturing executionnot VTScada

VTScada

  • A municipal water authority with 60 remote pump stations on licensed radio that needs DNP3 polling and regulator-facing change recordsnot AVEVA PI System
  • An oil and gas gathering operator polling wellsite RTUs over intermittent cellular links with store and forwardnot AVEVA PI System
  • A small utility that must produce a defensible budget number before going to council for capital approvalnot AVEVA PI System
  • An integrator standardising on one product where historian, alarming and dialler costs are inside the licence rather than quoted separatelynot AVEVA PI System

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

AVEVA PI System

  • Pricing is not published and comes through an account representative
  • The vendor is moving to a subscription commercial model, so perpetual licence expectations no longer hold
  • Made up of several separately named components, including PI Server, PI Vision, Edge Data Store and the adapters and connectors needed per data source

VTScada

  • Licences are per installed PC rather than per system, so a redundant pair plus a development machine means paying three times unless you buy the discounted multi-server bundles.
  • Thin client licensing is by concurrent connection and is priced steeply at scale: unlimited thin clients on a 50,000 tag system costs 59,395 USD on top of the base licence, more than the base licence itself.
  • It is Windows only with no Linux or container deployment, which rules it out of modern edge and virtualised architectures that other SCADA products now support.
  • SupportPlus at 15 percent of the original software price must be maintained continuously; if you let it lapse you cannot simply resume, and reinstatement is negotiated rather than published.
  • The scripting environment and the integrator pool are both proprietary and small, so finding a second-source integrator in a region where Trihedral has thin coverage is genuinely difficult.

Pricing, plan by plan

AVEVA PI System

On request
  • Data Archive$undefined/license
    • Time-series data storage
    • High-speed data collection
    • Data compression
  • Operations$undefined/license
    • PI Vision dashboards
    • AF analytics
    • Event frames
  • Enterprise$undefined/license
    • PI Integrator
    • Cloud connectivity
    • Advanced analytics

VTScada

$3395/one-time
  • Base licence up to 1,000 I/O$3395/one-time
    • Runtime and full historian
    • All I/O drivers included
    • Alarms and events
  • Base licence up to 5,000 I/O$4295/one-time
    • Runtime and full historian
    • Development add-on 4,100 USD
    • Alarm notification add-on 2,895 USD
  • Single Server bundle, 5,000 I/O$19095/one-time
    • Development node
    • Alarm notification
    • 2 thin clients
  • Single Server bundle, 50,000 I/O$32495/one-time
    • Development node
    • Alarm notification
    • 2 thin clients

Which should you pick?

Choose AVEVA PI System if

  • You need real-time data collection.
  • You work on Desktop, Web, Mobile, Api.
  • You also want time-series data storage.
AVEVA PI System review

Choose VTScada if

  • You need automatic version control.
  • You work on Windows.
  • You also want bundled historian.
VTScada review

Questions people ask

Is AVEVA PI System or VTScada better?
Neither clearly leads. AVEVA PI System starts at On request and VTScada at $3395/one-time, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, AVEVA PI System or VTScada?
AVEVA PI System starts at On request and VTScada at $3395/one-time.
Does AVEVA PI System or VTScada run on more platforms?
AVEVA PI System runs on Desktop, Web, Mobile, Api. VTScada runs on Windows.
What is AVEVA PI System best used for?
AVEVA PI System is most often used for industrial data collection and storage for oil, gas, and chemical processing, real-time operational data visualization and hmi dashboards, supply chain and asset performance monitoring across sites, compliance and audit trail management for regulated industries. Of those, industrial data collection and storage for oil, gas, and chemical processing and real-time operational data visualization and hmi dashboards are not what VTScada is typically brought in for.
What can AVEVA PI System do that VTScada cannot?
AVEVA PI System covers Real-time data collection, Time-series data storage, Asset framework, Visualization. VTScada covers Automatic version control, Bundled historian, Alarm notification, Driver set included.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

AVEVA PI System: What is AVEVA PI System pricing?

AVEVA does not list PI System pricing on its website. AVEVA markets industrial software through enterprise sales channels with custom quotes.

Source
VTScada: Is VTScada perpetual or subscription?

Perpetual. Licences are one-time purchases per installed PC, with an optional annual SupportPlus contract at 15 percent of the original software price.

AVEVA PI System: Does AVEVA offer a Flex Subscription Program?

AVEVA mentions Flex Subscription Program on its site for flexible product access, but pricing and terms are not published publicly.

Source
VTScada: Are drivers extra?

No. Standard and proprietary I/O drivers, the historian, trending, reporting and security are all included in the base licence.

AVEVA PI System: Is AVEVA PI System available in the cloud?

AVEVA offers cloud options for its products, but per-seat or usage-based pricing for cloud deployments is not disclosed on the vendor website.

Source
VTScada: What does support actually cost?

Annual SupportPlus is 15 percent of total software purchase price. Adding 24/7 emergency support is a further 5 percent with a 1,540 USD minimum.

VTScada: Does it run on Linux?

No. VTScada is Windows only.

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