Within this work, powder metallurgical and mosaic TiAl targets for sputter deposition of Ti1-XAlXN hard coatings were compared with respect to the coating process and some characteristics of the obtained coatings. After development of a sputter process for the powder metallurgical targets by optimization of sputter power and nitrogen partial pressure, this process was compared to the commercially applied mosaic target process by taking into account the sputter yields of Ti and Al and the respective deposition rates. The coatings were evaluated with respect to their thickness, structure, domain size, adhesion, hardness, Youngs modulus, residual stresses and tribological properties. The experiments revealed that in order to run a stable deposition process with the powder metallurgical targets, a 7 % higher nitrogen partial pressure is required than with the mosaic targets. The deposition rate of the powder metallurgical targets was 30 % higher than of the mosaic targets. Basically, the characteristics of the coatings obtained with the two different targets were similar. The aluminum content in the coatings deposited with the powder metallurgical targets was slightly higher than in the coatings deposited with the mosaic targets. The domain size of the cubic Ti1-XAlXN solid solution obtained with the mosaic targets was considerably smaller than with the powder metallurgical targets. The hardness of the coating deposited with the mosaic targets was slightly higher than that of the other coatings. Tribological investigations revealed that the coatings deposited with powder metallurgical targets show slightly lower wear and friction coefficients than the coating deposited with the mosaic targets. In conclusion, the investigations showed that by sputtering from powder metallurgical targets coatings with comparable properties to those deposited with mosaic targets could be grown in less deposition time and with longer target life time.