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Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Ranking in Data Integration
27th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Workload Automation (17th)
IBM InfoSphere DataStage
Ranking in Data Integration
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere DataStage is 4.8%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Enables creation of sophisticated applications with powerful parallelism and quick, effective support
The most valuable features of Ab Initio Co>Operating System are its performance and the ability to implement parallelism. There are three kinds of parallelism in Ab Initio Co>Operating System, which allow us to create very sophisticated solutions for almost any kind of application. This parallelism is one of the strongest features. Additionally, its scalability offers a unique way to escalate applications that differs from other technologies. In terms of data processing, the emphasis is on understanding the data. Data profiling is fundamental, and Ab Initio Co>Operating System integrates tools to perform this within the GDE, as well as specialized products for this purpose. Data profiling graphs can be implemented when necessary to understand the data sources.
Swetha S - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution streamlines design, development, and deployment with effective ETL features
The support has been really good. Typically, if we have any issues, we raise a ticket with IBM, and they help us resolve the issues if required. We also have the flexibility to submit a feature request to be included as part of the wishlist, potentially becoming a product feature in subsequent releases.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Ab Initio Co>Operating System support is the best I have encountered."
"Co>Operating System's most valuable feature is its ability to process bulk data effectively."
"Ab Initio reaches the highest performance and is very flexible in processing huge amounts of data."
"The graphical interface of Ab Initio Co>Operating System is very easy to understand and allows me to visualize the data flow effectively."
"IBM is stable and accurate to monitor. It's easy to understand to monitor the data lineage from source to target."
"Once you have Infosphere up and running properly, it is stable."
"The support has been really good."
"We like the flexibility of modeling."
"The data lineage report can be filtered for reporting. The reports are user-friendly and take less time to find what you need."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to transfer information via notes."
"I am impressed with the tool's ETL tracing."
"It's useful for reporting and selecting different extract files."
 

Cons

"An awesome improvement would be big data solutions, for example, implementing some kind of business intelligence or neural networks for artificial intelligence."
"Co>Operating System would be improved with more integrations for less well-known technologies."
"Ab Initio Co>Operating System is a very expensive product."
"Their web interface is good but the on-prem sites are outdated. The solution could also be improved if they could integrate the data pipeline scheduling part of their interface."
"The documentation and in-application help for this solution need to be improved, especially for new features."
"It takes a lot of time to actually trigger your job and then go into the logs and other stuff. So all of this is really time-consuming."
"In terms of intermediate storage, we have some challenges, especially with customers who store data in intermediate locations."
"I am unsure of whether it supports other databases like Postgres or Redshift."
"Reduced cost would allow more customers to choose the product. It's quite expensive in relation to the cost of other similar solutions."
"They can provide better support for non-IBM tools when it comes to the target."
"The troubleshooting guide is very bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Co>Operating System's pricing is on the expensive end since it tends to be used by big enterprises."
"Small and medium-sized companies cannot afford to pay for this solution."
"It's very expensive."
"The cost is too high."
"The pricing depends on the setup. However, we paid $100,000 as a one-time cost for an on-premises setup."
"Our internal team takes care of group licensing and cost. We don't have individual licenses. We have group licensing at the company level. Usually, IBM doesn't charge anything separately on the licensing side. For storage and everything else, we are paying around $6,000 per month, which is not very high. It includes Linux data storage, execution, and licensing. They're charging $40 for one-hour execution. Based on that, we are spending around $2,000 on the production environment and $1,000 on the lower environment for testing and development-side executions. For the mainframe, we are using the Db2 mainframe database, and we are spending around $1,000 on the Db2 mainframe database as well. All this comes out to be around $6,000. We, however, would like to have some cost reduction."
"The price is expensive but there are no licensing fees."
"The pricing is competitive but on the higher side of the pricing scale."
"The solution is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
35%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
If Ab Initio Co>Operating System could provide an environment that allows users to practice or use it on their own computers, it would be beneficial. Additionally, having more accessible online ...
What is your primary use case for Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
I am primarily in charge of building applications using Ab Initio Co>Operating System.
What advice do you have for others considering Ab Initio Co>Operating System?
If Ab Initio Co>Operating System provided an environment for users to practice on their own computers, it would be preferable. I sometimes recommend it based on company needs. I rate it eight or...
Would you upgrade to more premium versions of IBM InfoSphere DataStage?
My company currently uses the free version of the product, and we are definitely switching to a paid one. We needed a tool that can help us not only integrate our data but use it effectively. For ...
Is IBM InfoSphere DataStage more difficult to use compared to other tools in the field?
I think the tool may cause some difficulties if you have not used other data integration solutions before. I have worked at companies that used different tools for data integration, and they work ...
Do you rely on IBM Cloud Paks for your data? Have you utilized this product, or do you use IBM InfoSphere DataStage without it?
IBM Cloud Paks makes a big difference in your data integration. My company has been using it alongside IBM InfoSphere DataStage and while the main product is good on its own, this one truly expands...
 

Also Known As

Co>Operating System
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

A multinational transportation company
Dubai Statistics Center, Etisalat Egypt
Find out what your peers are saying about Ab Initio Co>Operating System vs. IBM InfoSphere DataStage and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.