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Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

erwin Data Intelligence by ...
Ranking in Data Governance
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Data Governance
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of erwin Data Intelligence by Quest is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Roy Pollack - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution provides more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term.
We have loaded over 300,000 attributes and more than 1000 mappings. The performance is slow, depending on the lineage or search. This is supposed to be fixed in the later versions, but we haven't upgraded yet. The integration with various metadata sources, including erwin Data Modeler, isn't smooth in the current version. It took some experimentation to get things working. We hope this is improved in the newer version. The initial version we used felt awkward because Erwin implemented features from other companies into their offering.
Al Mcpherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides clear visibility into our entire information estate, reduces our time to action, and saves us time
The integration across Azure is straightforward. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management has been a game-changer for our data governance. We now have clear visibility into our entire information estate, allowing us to pinpoint data location and implement effective classification. Even though real-time compliance isn't a current need, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management offers that capability for future requirements. Purview Data Lifecycle Management has reduced our time to action – since we previously lacked such a tool, it's effectively cut our response time in half. Purview Data Lifecycle Management has saved us one working day per month.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The data management is, obviously, key in understanding where the data is and what the data is. And the governance can be done at multiple levels. You have the governance of the code sets versus the governance of the business terms and the definitions of those business terms. You have the governance of the business data models and how those business data models are driving the physical implementation of the actual databases. And, of course, you have the governance of the mapping to make sure that source-to-target mapping is done and is being shared across the company."
"Data Intelligence creates a single source of truth for all of our metadata. This solution is better for data warehousing, but the metadata features speed up our development work. It's easy to create and manage mappings because we can export them to Informatica and pick up the work where we left off."
"Overall, DI's data cataloging, data literacy, and automation have helped our decision-makers because when a source wants to change something, we immediately know what the impact is going to be downstream."
"They have just the most marvelous reports called mind maps, where whatever you are focused on sits in the middle. They have this wonderful graphic spiderweb that spreads out from there where you can see this thing mapped to other logical bits or physical bits and who's the steward of it. It's very cool and available to your business teams through a portal."
"Data Intelligence has provided more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term. We have linked three critical layers of data, providing us with an end-to-end lineage at the column level."
"The biggest benefit with erwin DI is that I have a single source of truth that I can send anybody to. If anybody doesn't know the answer we can go back to it. Just having a central location of business rules is good."
"erwin has tremendous capabilities to map right from the business technologies to the endpoint, such as physical entities and physical attributes, from a lineage standpoint."
"The biggest impact for us is that erwin generates DDL extremely quickly. We're able to pull in metadata, map it to a target, generate DDL to create the tables, and generate SSIS packages. Previously, especially going back 10 to 15 years ago, hundreds of hours had to be spent to manually perform these tasks. This solution completely automates it and gets it 90% done. We can then pass it off to a developer to create the items in SSIS."
"The automatic data labeling is compelling, and we are investigating its use."
"Purview's built-in functionality provides immediate access to reports, streamlining the entire process."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"There may be some opportunities for improvement in terms of the user interface to make it a little bit more intuitive. They have made some good progress. Originally, when we started, we were on version 9 or 10. Over the last couple of releases, I've seen some improvements that they have made, but there might be a few other additional areas in UI where they can make some enhancements."
"Really huge datasets, where the logical names or the lexicons weren't groomed or maintained well, were the only area where it really had room for improvement. A huge data set would cause erwin to crash. If there were half a million or 1 million tables, erwin would hang."
"The fact that I sometimes have to go in and out of different applications, even though it's all part of the whole erwin suite, perhaps means it could be architected a little bit better. I think they do have some ideas for improvements there."
"There is room for improvement with the data cataloging capability. Right now, there is a list of a lot of sources that they can catalog, or they can create metadata upon, but if they can add more then that would be a good plus for this tool."
"The versioning can sometimes be confusing because we use the publishing feature for the mapping. Technical analysts sometimes have two versions, and they should know that the public version is the correct one."
"The solution's Arabic language processing is limited. The results are limited when you use the interface in Arabic."
"The technical support could be improved."
"It's a little bit clunky. I think a lot of these features were bolted on, and they don't necessarily transition smoothly in the interface. I would like to see a little more cohesion."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable and competitive. When you get into forward and reverse-engineering, the cost could go up. However, if you are a large organization, you would probably be able to access different packages. If, however, you don't need forward and reverse-engineering, then the price is relatively cheap."
"The price is reasonable, and a subscription is required."
"erwin was at a good price. The federal government wouldn't buy something if the pricing wasn't good."
"We operate on a yearly subscription and because it is an enterprise license we only have one. It is not dependent on the number of users."
"The licensing cost is around $7,000 for user. This is an estimation."
"Smart Data Connectors have some costs, and then there are user-based licenses. We spend roughly $150,000 per year on the solution. It is a yearly subscription license that basically includes the cost for Smart Data Connectors and user-based licenses. We have around 30 data stewards who maintain definitions, and then we have five IT users who basically maintain the overall solution. It is not a SaaS kind of operation, and there is an infrastructure cost to host this solution, which is our regular AWS hosting cost."
"The price is too high."
"erwin's pricing was cheaper than its competitors."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Non Profit
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
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 erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?
The data mapping manager is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement with erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?
The data quality assessment requires third-party components and a separate license. I would like to have better integration around the data quality. I would appreciate the inclusion of a non-struct...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We use Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management for labeling our data.
 

Also Known As

erwin DG, erwin Data Governance
Microsoft Information Governance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oracle, Infosys, GSK, Toyota Motor Sales, HSBC
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.