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Alation Data Catalog vs IBM Data Governance vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.6%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Data Governance is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 6.0%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam - PeerSpot reviewer
Has metadata cataloging features but needs changes in domain model
The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature.  The tool's domain model needs to be changed.  Alation Data Catalog is stable.  The solution is scalable.  Alation Data Catalog's deployment is easy. I rate it a nine out of ten. Deployment takes only two to three hours to complete.…
Murali B - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a single interface to monitor and navigate data quality metrics
One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries provide quality scores and reports—having that capability within IBM Data Governance would be beneficial. We can see the pass/fail results, but getting additional percentage ratios would add significant value. My experience with IBM Data Governance has mostly been with the GUI. I've noticed some latency when accessing the portal. Also, automating reports can sometimes hang, though that might depend on the overall system. That's where I see the most room for improvement – quicker report generation. Fetching specific data from the IBM Data Governance repository tends to be slower compared to other vendors. For example, Collibra has a more responsive GUI. Retrieving large datasets from the IBM catalog is particularly slow.
Saikat Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Match and merge functionality is still the best but cloud version needs more functionality
There are various areas for improvement in IDMC. Enhancements on basic data management functionality and the UI front, such as multiple templates and improved grid views, would be beneficial. Bulk data management features could be improved from the UI perspective to get to the level of the on prem versions of Informatica MDM. The tool needs to mature but missing small but important features, like restricted dynamic attributes functionality, data inheritance rules in master hierachies, identifiers not being passed in jobs is a drawback.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We had some of our data science engineers, who had built out some cloud-based data and data products for users. They were spending a lot of their time, up to 30 to 35% of their time, answering questions about the data and helping people understand how to use it. Once they were able to document that information within Alation, they were only focusing on around 5% of the high-value questions that really couldn't be solved through the catalog itself. It freed them up to be more productive, it made their end-users more productive, and it made the adoption rate of their data products rise more quickly because people were able to get to using them."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"IBM Data Governance improved data analytics operations. During a company merger, we used IBM Data Governance to understand and bridge sample data between systems."
"The user interface is flexible and the visibility of the data flow is amazing."
"Their new licensing is very flexible. With Informatica Cloud, you have plenty of items under the same umbrella, such as services, offerings, data quality, and data masking. You have also got master data management and API management. What I really like about them is that you don't need to go to Informatica and say that you need a data integration module. You would say that you need iPaaS or Informatica Cloud. They'll then try to understand your needs and give you IPUs, which are the processing units. If I purchased a hundred IPUs from Informatica as a customer, I can use 70 IPUs for data integration. I would also need data quality, so I can use 10 IPUs for data quality. I can use the remaining 20 IPUs for API management. Down the line, if I see that my initial data integration needs for the development phase are met, then out of the 70 IPUs assigned for data integration, I can use 30 IPUs for data masking. I can shuffle these numbers in any way within the Informatica Cloud umbrella for the tenure for which I have subscribed to these IPUs. I can use all services the way I want. This flexibility is what I really love about Informatica. It also has got good connectors."
"Axon has something called Overlay, which can be used to extend the technical lineage."
"I have rated the stability a ten out of ten due to a high level of satisfaction."
"It's good for tool management, maintaining the golden record of customer status."
"The data quality component is very good."
"The match and merge functionality is invaluable for discovering golden master data records."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica Axon has been the data marketplace."
 

Cons

"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"I know that this has been on their roadmap and they're working on it, but as a whole, there's an untapped reservoir of capabilities within their article features that could be used and built upon."
"Alation Data Catalog doesn't support end-to-end lineage. By that, I mean the ability to trace the movement of data from when it first comes into our organization to where it's consumed."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"Alation Data Catalog needs to develop a lot in terms of data governance and would be improved with a built-in interactive data quality solution."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries provide quality scores and reports—having that capability within IBM Data Governance would be beneficial."
"The scalability is tough."
"The UI is extremely complex"
"Compared to other tools in the market, Informatica MDM is costly."
"I have encountered some issues using the substitution, which is one of the techniques of data masking."
"Interoperability is one area where EDC has room for improvement. It was challenging when the faculty took over the data world and had specific vendors they wanted to use, and some were not particularly open platforms."
"It is complicated to establish the lineage in EDC using PowerCenter mappings."
"It is more complicated to extract data using the product compared to Visio. The system could display the details on the screen."
"Permissions, scalability, and connection with other informatic tools are the main areas that need development. Integration with other tools, such as IDQ, is challenging. The management of data discovery is highly challenging because many data points have identical definitions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A three-year agreement is better than a one-year rolling 12-month agreement from a price point of view. I'd recommend looking at a three-year deal because you can't stand up a catalog and produce value in 12 months."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"The solution is a little expensive."
Information not available
"The pricing is quite flexible."
"It's an expensive solution."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price."
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
"So, there are plans for licensing. There are subscription-based and usage-based licenses. Also, there are licenses for exceptional analytics, etc. In short, there are different models of licensing for every enterprise."
"It's pretty high for us. It's more on the higher side, like low to middle high."
"I have heard from customers that the product comes with a huge license cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alation Data Catalog?
The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alation Data Catalog?
The price difference between Alation Data Catalog and Collibra was not significant. Collibra is a little bit expensiv...
What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?
Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, ...
What do you like most about IBM Data Governance?
IBM Data Governance improved data analytics operations. During a company merger, we used IBM Data Governance to under...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Data Governance?
I would rate pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. It's pretty expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM Data Governance?
One area with room for improvement would be the ability to generate detailed quality reports. Some Python libraries p...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transfor...
Which Informatica product would you choose - PowerCenter or Cloud Data Integration?
Complex transformations can easily be achieved using PowerCenter, which has all the features and tools to establish a...
What are the biggest benefits of using Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
When it comes to cloud data integration, this solution can provide you with multiple benefits, including: Overhead r...
 

Also Known As

Alation
No data available
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, BPM, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking, Cloud Test Data Management, PIM, , Enterprise Data Catalog, Data Integration Hub, Cloud Data Integration, Data Quality, Cloud API and App Integration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
TIAA CREF, Control Risks Group
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance. Updated: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.