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IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

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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
10th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Metadata Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 2.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 3.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP PowerDesigner3.4%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog2.7%
Other93.9%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

Giuseppe Innamorato - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Client Director at Alkemy digital_enabler
Reasonably priced, easy to install, and reliable
We recently suggested FlexiCapture and the ABBYY platform to a customer in Italy, but we are now waiting for their response. Unfortunately, we have no direct experience with the platform. We are a consulting service and a consulting company that also works on system integration. We use a variety of platforms ranging from IBM to Microsoft. We are specifically focused on data management and artificial intelligence solution. We use many different solutions, such as InfoSphere, and Db2 for databases for example. We have many projects also on Information Governance where we use not only IBM products but also Informatica products, for example, in the MDM arena. We work with both IBM InfoSphere Information Server and Governance Catalog.
HemantKUMAR6 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at Sopra Steria
Customer support has delayed successful upgrade to supported version
It was a long time back when my company purchased it, but I am now participating in upgrading it to the latest version. I found customer support to be tedious during the upgrade process to the latest version. I tried to upgrade to a trial version before purchasing a new license. During that process, I had some technical issues. When trying to go from 12.5 to 16.5, I could migrate but faced technical challenges. When I approached customer support, they informed me that even 16.5 is not supported. They stated I would need to go to 16.7 before they could look at my issue. They didn't spend any time on the issue because according to them, 16.5 is not supported. Until I get 16.7 and complete the migration, I'm not getting any help from them. I was not too happy with the customer support. This was my only interaction with customer support, and I haven't received any resolution to my issue. It can be rated as low as zero because that's the only time I approached them. I cannot even say zero out of ten because I approached only once. Perhaps they are correct that they don't support 16.5, so they don't want to spend any time on that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this 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 and the features of the product are very rich and comprehensive."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is a stable product."
"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."
"The valuable feature is that you can connect with multiple types of sources."
"IBM tools always get inherent trust from companies."
"It helped us streamline and organize our data."
"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."
"I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability."
"I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has."
"The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use."
"Even if you don't customise or extend PowerDesigner, the tool is still the easiest modelling tool to use, with spreadsheet-like editing capabilities, the ability to link to or replicate (in a managed fashion) objects from a different model."
"It is a very stable solution, which is one of the advantages of using PowerDesigner, especially in big databases."
"In terms of operational efficiency and cause savings or return on investment, I can say that with SAP PowerDesigner, our company saves a lot of time."
"SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable."
"I previously used Erwin and I switched because PowerDesigner is a more powerful tool."
 

Cons

"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 simplicity of usage could improve. Perhaps the simplicity of use for end users, not for system integrators, but for the user, the end users."
"Stability is a concern, actually. As a heavy tool, it always has some performance-related issues, and there are some cases that have a constraint on the stability."
"The solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC."
"They need to improve asset management."
"A few years ago, I would have rated the solution an eight or nine. With competition in the market and other products available, IBM needs to focus on fixing existing issues and adding more customizable features that provide the end user with a better product."
"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."
"There were two failed installations and IBM could never actually get the product to work."
"The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions (UHD, 4K), and multiple displays."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"SAP PowerDesigner can improve the ease of use. It is not the best tool on the market because it is tough to navigate and use. A beginner would not be able to use it well, it requires some experience. If the solution was more user-friendly it would be able to be used by more audiences. I do not think many people are aware of this solution and they should use it."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"The data governance should be improved, like ER/Studio."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"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."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"PowerDesigner is not the cheapest solution on the market, so make sure that you are using it to its full potential."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
Synchronization is vital since I experience multiple problems, such as mismatched models and manual DDL handling. Improving the synchronization between models and databases can enhance integration ...
What is your primary use case for SAP PowerDesigner?
I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling, which greatly enhances the clarity of my data management processes. I manage data across multiple databases, including cloud databases, Teradata, and Orac...
 

Also Known As

IBM Information Governance Catalog
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rabobank, QuadReal Property Group, Jakarta Smart City
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.