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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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 InfoSphere Information ...
Ranking in Metadata Management
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Metadata Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
185
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (11th), Business-to-Business Middleware (5th), API Management (8th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (2nd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 5.2%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 24.3%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tirthankar Roy Chowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and has a lot of automation, with just a little bit of manual intervention required
An area for improvement in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it's missing a lot of connectors. Clients complain about not being able to connect some data sources because there's no available connector, so my company raised that issue with IBM. In some cases, third-party connectors are available, but not for all data sources. Another area that needs improvement in the solution is stability because it also has some stability issues. This is the same issue with the other IBM products bundled with IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog. The solution is connected with IBM Infosphere Information Analyzer and IBM InfoSphere DataStage in my company, so if one has issues with stability, the rest of the products are affected as well.
Raj Sethupathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers profiling and address standardization but can be complicated
Informatica Data Quality has its data warehouse, primarily using Oracle and some SQL databases. You need a database to host the data. The cleansed version of the data is stored in the data warehouse. It integrates with PowerCenter and other Informatica tools. The integration details can be complex, but a regional setup is involved in this process. Profiling smaller datasets, such as 10,000-50,000 records, worked fine. However, unexpected issues could arise with larger datasets, such as thousands of records or more, especially with tables containing many columns. Handling tables with fifty or more columns can be challenging, even in Excel. A mismatch in data types could cause the entire system to crash. Continual enhancements are being made to address these issues, which can be unique to specific industries like finance and healthcare.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog for me is that it's easy to use and only requires a little bit of manual intervention. Once you discover the data sources, everything flows into the tool automatically, so you do not have to map it manually. There's been a lot of automation in the solution which I like best."
"It is easy to use."
"The solution allows us to leverage a concept called Open IGC to create custom assets and data lineages that are not technologies typically supported by IBM via connectors."
"Ability to connect with multiple types of sources."
"The ability to create special rules inside the solution using Portuguese is the most valuable feature."
"The feature I found most valuable in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is the lineage as it's very powerful and it provides data analytics in terms of where the data lives and where it goes. The interface is also clear, though it could still be sorted out, but the lineage is the most powerful thing in the solution."
"What I liked about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it seemed to have most of the options that you would want from a government catalog. The features of the product are very rich and comprehensive."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"The fuzzy matching capability is a great feature."
"We have a lot of integrations, and it's very easy to create integrations. They have a lot of connectors."
"​The tool manually checks on applying business rules and helps to implement them."
"The tool's most valuable feature is bulk upload. We upload files in CSV or Excel format."
"Informatica is user-friendly, stable, and scalable. These three aspects are the most valuable for us. If we can make it work well with the CRM, we can continue or try again this year to complete that part of the project. I am confident that this kind of solution is what we need because we have a third-party resource that works in the development."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica Cloud Data Integration is Pushback. You are able to push the data to the solution itself, and it can handle the queries. It helps us a lot. With other tools, the burden is kept on the server."
"The features I find most valuable is the synchronization, verification, functionalities and all the data integration features."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to extract metadata from various sources- be it an old SaaS application or the latest cloud application."
 

Cons

"What I would tell IBM in terms of what needs to change or improve is that the product is too complicated. IBM purchased various components from different vendors over time and certainly in the UK, IBM did not have anybody that had the expertise to be able to get IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog to run properly."
"The simplicity of usage could improve. Perhaps the simplicity of use for end users, not for system integrators, but for the user, the end users."
"A complex solution that requires a lot of coding."
"Sometimes, if the product is new, getting support is difficult and the team was facing some challenges."
"An area for improvement in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it's missing a lot of connectors. Clients complain about not being able to connect some data sources because there's no available connector, so my company raised that issue with IBM. In some cases, third-party connectors are available, but not for all data sources. Another area that needs improvement in the solution is stability because it also has some stability issues. This is the same issue with the other IBM products bundled with IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog. The solution is connected with IBM Infosphere Information Analyzer and IBM InfoSphere DataStage in my company, so if one has issues with stability, the rest of the products are affected as well."
"They need to improve asset management."
"What could be improved in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is its query tool, including its terms, labels, and reports because the query tool isn't user-friendly. This would also be an additional feature or enhancement in the solution that would make it more attractive to users and would make IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog a really good solution."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"The UI is terrible and not user-friendly."
"Enhancements on the UI front, such as multiple templates and improved grid views, would be beneficial."
"The ability of the product to leverage the power of big data could be improved."
"Considering internal data from legacy systems, it is quite difficult to know if Informatica Data Quality meets that high level of accuracy criteria."
"The user interface can be a bit more functionality-aligned."
"I have encountered some issues using the substitution, which is one of the techniques of data masking."
"The cloud version of Axon is far behind the on-prem, and many of my clients want to go fully to the cloud. However, Axon has to be an on-prem installation. I would like to see their cloud products catch up with their on-prem capabilities."
"I would like to see more functionality added so that it is a bit closer to how much you can do with Informatica PowerCenter."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"In terms of pricing, I find IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog excessive. It's at the top end of the price range in terms of what you get for your money. It's an expensive product, and contractually, IBM is difficult to deal with. I can't remember the exact cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog, but it could be in the region of three hundred thousand pounds."
"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"Informatica Cloud Data Integration is famously known for its high price. The vendor targets large enterprises, and not medium or small companies. These large companies, and organizations, handle large amounts of data. If you go into any large bank, such as American or Canadian banks, these banks use this solution because it is more reliable, secure, and has more functionality."
"Informatica MDM is very expensive. Apart from licensing fees, they have broken down their products into multiple products, and they charge for each and every product. If the data is huge, they charge for the data. At times, we have to use third party services for data cleaning, and they charge for that as well."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"Informatica is very expensive."
"The pricing is high compared to other tools on the market."
"I have no idea what the price actually is. It is probably not going to be the cheapest, but it is a pretty stable and robust platform from the backend standpoint."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
40%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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 transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
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 real data governance strategy. Additionally, PowerCenter is able to manage huge...
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 reduction by integrating data on any cloud in various ways Effective integration ...
 

Also Known As

IBM Information Governance Catalog
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

Rabobank, QuadReal Property Group, Jakarta Smart City
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.