IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs Informatica PowerExchange comparison

IBM and Informatica are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #25 with an average rating of 7.0, while Informatica is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 1.8% mindshare in DI, compared to Informatica’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Informatica users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Read 13 IBM Cloud Pak for Data reviews

2,309 Views
2,170 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Informatica PowerExchange

Read 23 Informatica PowerExchange reviews

1,525 Views
1,388 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Informatica PowerExchange

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Informatica PowerExchange and IBM Cloud Pak for Data compete in the field of data integration and management solutions. IBM Cloud Pak for Data has a slight edge due to its advanced AI-driven functionalities and comprehensive cloud-native features.

Features: Informatica PowerExchange offers robust real-time integration, native transformation capabilities, and strong connectivity to various data formats. It includes transparent pushdown optimization and an effective Change Data Capture feature. IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides Watson Studio, Watson Machine Learning, and Watson Knowledge Catalog for governance and data preparation, with strengths in containerization and data virtualization.

Room for Improvement: Informatica PowerExchange could improve in integrating with other tools, enhancing high availability, and supporting new data types. Pricing is a concern, and better cloud integration is needed. IBM Cloud Pak for Data could benefit from performance improvements, easier deployment processes, and mature data curation. Enhancements in the user interface and connector integration could also be made.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Informatica PowerExchange is mainly deployed on-premises, with mixed reviews on technical support responsiveness and initial setup complexity. IBM Cloud Pak for Data, often deployed in hybrid cloud environments, offers flexibility but has average support with reported response delays.

Pricing and ROI: Informatica PowerExchange's straightforward licensing model is considered expensive, affecting smaller enterprises, yet praised for its ROI in digital transformation. IBM Cloud Pak for Data, described as costly, aligns with larger companies due to its comprehensive functions. Both solutions measure ROI complexly, focusing on data-driven decision-making, though cost remains a significant consideration.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica PowerExchange Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica PowerExchange

September 2025

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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

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Ranking in Data Integration

25th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Virtualization (3rd)

Informatica PowerExchange

Ranking in Data Integration

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Data is 1.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica PowerExchange is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Informatica PowerExchange	1.1%
IBM Cloud Pak for Data	1.8%
Other	97.1%

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Starts strong with data management capabilities but needs a demo database

What I would love to see is an end-to-end, almost a training demo database of some sort, where one of the biggest problems with data management is demonstrated. There are so many components to data management, and more often than not, people understand one thing really well. They may understand DataStage and how to move data around, but they do not see the impact of moving data incorrectly. They also do not see the impact of everyone understanding a piece of data in the same way. I would love Cloud Pak to come with a demo database that illustrates the different components of data management in a logical way, so I can see the whole picture instead of just the area I'm specializing in. It would be great if Cloud Pak, from a data modeling point of view, allowed us to import our PDMs, for example. It would be ideal to import and create business terms in Cloud Pak. The PEA would be great to create the technical data. The association between the business and the technical metadata could then be automated by pulling it through from your ACE models. The data modeling component is available in Cloud Pak. Additionally, when it comes to Cloud Pak, even though it has the NextGen DataStage built into it, there is Cloud Pak for data integration as well. Currently, I do not think we have a full enough understanding of how CP4D and CP4I can enhance each other.

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Mohammad Faizan Ahmad

Sr. Technical Engineer at Investcorp Bank BSC

Helpful in handling areas like complex data sources and data processing but needs improved support services

The major challenge with the tool stems from the fact that if you are implementing it in the cloud, then it has to be within the framework. Another challenge is the large volume of data. Informatica PowerExchange is a product through which we enable connectivity, so it is not an application product or a stand-alone tool, but Informatica's core systems or IICS uses it to connect to multiple systems. The major challenge associated with the tool is on the infrastructure side. The tool's features could be something faster with more connectors. A number of connectors can help connect to a wide variety of applications. The tool should focus on reducing the resilient time, like, if any network disconnectivity happens, then auto-reconnection and the retry method should be more robust so that manual intervention is not required. We communicate with the tool's support team as we need to raise our issues with them. I have already worked with Informatica and have a total experience of around eight to nine years; the one problem with the tool is its support team since they take a lot of time to address a particular issue. If one time you schedule a call and explain the situation to them about the issue, the support team will raise tickets and take notes. They will ask you to share the logs or screenshots of the errors, and you will get no resolution. The support team will randomly give you some documents and expect you to go through them, and if you get back to them with questions, a new person will be allocated, and you will have to start explaining everything again. I would not say it is a pleasant experience.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Watson Catalog and data pipelines are the most valuable features of the solution."

"The most valuable features are data virtualization and reporting."

"I love the way that I can start at a very basic level with my data management journey by capturing my policies, justifying my data, and putting them into different categories to say this is data relating to individuals, for example, or data relating to geography."

"What I found most helpful in IBM Cloud Pak for Data is containerization, which means it's easy to shift and leave in terms of moving to other clouds. That's an advantage of IBM Cloud Pak for Data."

"DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources."

"The most valuable features of IBM Cloud Pak for Data are the Watson Studio, where we can initiate more groups and write code. Additionally, Watson Machine Learning is available with many other services, such as APIs which you can plug the machine learning models."

"You can model the data there, connect the data models with the business processes and create data lineage processes."

"Cloud Pak is a very, very, very good system."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data pros

"Provides a significant amount of control over the landscape and overall implementation."

"The most valuable feature is connectivity to data sources."

"The data transformation is the solution's most valuable feature."

"PowerExchange is one of the best software solutions to build integrations with non-Oracle or standard database services, especially for SAP and Hana products."

"The user interface and user experience are perfectly all right."

"Mainstream integration and real-time integration are the best features."

"PowerExchange is one of the best software solutions to build integrations with non-Oracle or standard database services, especially for SAP and Hana products."

"The agentless RCDC enablement through PowerExchange is a great idea and has worked very well so far."

More Informatica PowerExchange pros

Cons

"Cloud Pak would be improved with integration with cloud service providers like Cloudera."

"The solution's user experience is an area that has room for improvement."

"One challenge I'm facing with IBM Cloud Pak for Data is native features have been decommissioned, such as XML input and output. Too many changes have been made, and my company has around one hundred thousand mappings, so my team has been putting more effort into alternative ways to do things. Another area for improvement in IBM Cloud Pak for Data is that it's more complicated to shift from on-premise to the cloud. Other vendors provide secure agents that easily connect with your existing setup. Still, with IBM Cloud Pak for Data, you have to perform connection migration steps, upgrade to the latest version, etc., which makes it more complicated, especially as my company has XML-based mappings. Still, the XML input and output capabilities of IBM Cloud Pak for Data have been discontinued, so I'd like IBM to bring that back."

"The solution could have more connectors."

"There is a solution that is part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data called Watson OpenScale. It is used to monitor the deployed models for the quality and fairness of the results. This is one area that needs a lot of improvement."

"The solution's catalog searching or map search needs to be improved."

"The tool depends on the control plane, an OpenShift container platform utilized as an orchestration layer...So, we have communicated this issue to IBM and asked if it is feasible to adapt the solution to work on a Kubernetes platform that we support."

"The setup cost is very expensive. The cost depends on the pieces of the solution I'm using, how much data I have, and whether it's on the cloud or on-prem."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data cons

"Apache Spark has a machine learning algorithm, an area where Informatica PowerExchange lacks."

"The solution needs better integration with other tools."

"The solution could be made more user-friendly. The configurations are also quite difficult."

"I would like to have easier integration with cloud platforms."

"They should make it quick and easy for use of citizen data integration or for people or integrators developing at the customer side. They could be development teams within the business team. For them, the product owners can consider making it a little bit more seamless and a little bit more democratized."

"Pushdown optimization could be improved."

"The one place where it could be improved is definitely pricing. That's a very big problem. It depends product to product, but pricing is an issue."

"Should diversify more, maybe with a reporting and visualization utility,"

More Informatica PowerExchange cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Cloud Pak for Data is expensive. If we include the training time and the machine learning, it's expensive. The cost of the execution is more reasonable."

"I don't have the exact licensing cost for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, as my company is still finalizing requirements, including monthly, yearly, and three-year licensing fees. Still, on a scale of one to five, I'd rate it a three because, compared to other vendors, it's more complicated."

"It's quite expensive."

"For the licensing of the solution, there is a yearly payment that needs to be made. Also, since it is expensive, cost-wise, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten."

"Cloud Pak's cost is a little high."

"I think that this product is too expensive for smaller companies."

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's pricing is competitive with that of other vendors."

"Many users don't prefer to use the product, considering the high costs attached to the licensing part of the solution."

"An annual package license fee is required."

"The product is not very expensive."

"It's expensive. In fact, nobody would buy any product of Informatica if the price was the only consideration. It costs money, and it doesn't come cheap, but it provides value for money in many ways."

"The cost of PowerExchange is reasonable. It does not rely on complicated formulas or unrealistic equations. The pricing model is straightforward. There is one component, and real-time integration is included. Some other solutions require purchasing additional modules or third-party plugins for this capability."

"There are licensing and connector costs. Basically, Informatica is pay-as-you-use."

"There is a need to pay towards the licensing cost of the product. It is an expensive product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

26%

Government

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The setup cost is very expensive. The cost depends on the pieces of the solution I'm using, how much data I have, and whether it's on the cloud or on-prem.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

My primary use case for Cloud Pak is that I am the reference Data steward for the Africa regions in the banks where I work. My main objective is to capture the reference data in Caltech or Data and...

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What do you like most about Informatica PowerExchange?

The product’s flexibility is valuable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Informatica PowerExchange?

Informatica PowerExchange is considered cost-efficient due to reduced number of APIs needed, enabling re-utilization of existing channels, cutting down on development and training costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Informatica PowerExchange?

It would be helpful to have more metadata provided, which is useful for engaging more users in data exchange. The addition of data quality dashboards or measures would also help in profiling data t...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 44% of the time

Denodo vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 13% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 9% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 9% of the time

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Informatica PowerCenter vs Informatica PowerExchange

Compared 63% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Informatica PowerExchange

Compared 11% of the time

Oracle GoldenGate vs Informatica PowerExchange

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Database Migration Service vs Informatica PowerExchange

Compared 5% of the time

Qlik Replicate vs Informatica PowerExchange

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

September 2025

Download IBM Cloud Pak for Data product report

Buyer's Guide

Informatica PowerExchange

September 2025

Download Informatica PowerExchange product report

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data

PowerExchange, Connectors

Overview

IBM Cloud Pak® for Data is a fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data to infuse AI throughout their organizations. Cloud-native by design, the platform unifies market-leading services spanning the entire analytics lifecycle. From data management, DataOps, governance, business analytics and automated AI, IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps eliminate the need for costly, and often competing, point solutions while providing the information architecture you need to implement AI successfully.

Building on the streamlined hybrid-cloud foundation of Red Hat® OpenShift®, IBM Cloud Pak for Data takes advantage of the underlying resource and infrastructure optimization and management. The solution fully supports multicloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud™ and private cloud deployments. Find out how IBM Cloud Pak for Data can lower your total cost of ownership and accelerate innovation.

IBM

Informatica PowerExchange Connectors provides high performance, out-of-the-box connectivity without having to develop custom data access programs.

Informatica

Sample Customers

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival

ACH Food, BNSF Railway Company, Illinois State University

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica PowerExchange

September 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica PowerExchange

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica PowerExchange and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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