No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs Talend Data Fabric comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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 Data Integration
34th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (7th)
Talend Data Fabric
Ranking in Data Integration
33rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Server is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Talend Data Fabric is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Talend Data Fabric0.8%
IBM InfoSphere Information Server0.9%
Other98.3%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

MI
Senior Data Engineer at Mohammed Mansour Alrumiah
Faced challenges with customer support and documentation but have benefited from reliable data integration over the years
As for utilizing the platform's metadata management feature, I have not worked on that feature yet, but personally, I have done that. To evaluate the effectiveness of IBM InfoSphere Information Server's data integration capabilities, if IBM is providing all the solutions we are using, then it is definitely a helpful thing. Mostly, the other thing is that it is a big area including data governance, data lineage, data management, and metadata, but every customer is not putting that much effort and money on that. They mostly migrate the data, use it, and forget it, but slowly things are changing. I am working in Saudi Arabia, so here also data governance, data management, and those kinds of things are getting attention. Regarding how scalable IBM InfoSphere Information Server is, I need to learn how to tune performance and scalability on the cloud. I am familiar with localized hardware, but on the cloud, I still have to do the work around it. In the beginning, we estimate the load and based on that, we put the hardware, but if there is continuous increase, I believe IBM also faces problems. Scalability needs to be improved because once the demand comes, you should be able to improve it, but for that, documentation on how to add hardware or resources to the software needs to be proper. I do not have much hands-on experience with that.
Salini RAVINDRANATH - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Spire Solutions
Data governance has improved and complex integrations are handled with flexible customization
Regarding Talend Data Fabric, the ease of use and the customization options that are available are particularly valuable. There are a lot of built-in components and features that we can modify in any way we want to transform the data and make it analytics ready. Talend Data Catalog is another product that, when combined with Talend Data Fabric, can be used for the data governance piece. The stewardship, ownership, and curation happen mainly from the Data Catalog side. Within Talend Data Fabric, the role-based access control is used for user segregations such as security infrastructure-related or integration-related activities. It bifurcates the roles and responsibilities. From the data standpoint, the RBAC functions with the help of Data Catalog.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Deploying the solution is straightforward for me."
"The initial IBM InfoSphere Information Server is straightforward and you can choose what type of installation you want, such as a customized installation, with clear-cut documentation that, if followed, works fine and the installation has not given us issues."
"The integration with different technologies is the most valuable feature."
"This solution has reduced the time it takes for ETL. We took an existing Teradata ETL application from three days to eight minutes."
"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."
"Over the years of working with IBM InfoSphere Information Server, I see basically the strength of the tool, capability, and load balancing, which I see is really good."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."
"Data connections, data partitioning, flexibility, and performance are the most valuable features."
"There are a lot of built-in components and features that we can modify in any way we want to transform the data and make it analytics ready."
"We've had no issues with the stability so far."
"Talend can be used for multi-cloud purposes, allowing users to orchestrate data across various cloud platforms without purchasing AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, or similar cloud-specific tools."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"Everything in Talend Data Fabric is GUI-based, making it very user-friendly and easy to learn quickly."
"Talend has very good support for big data."
"From my experience around Business Intelligence for data and analytics for around twenty-something years, I can say that what I appreciate about Talend Data Fabric is that we can connect sources to everything and be able to customize everything."
"It is a smart tool for us to design data pipelines. It lets us populate our three data lake instances. We like this solution for its connection capabilities, since it is very important to be able to use many different types of software. We tested a lot of SAP sources successfully, including cloud sources with SAP. It is also very easy to anonymize data with TIBCO, as well as populating HDFS files, packet files, and raw files. It is very easy to do that with Talend Data Fabric."
 

Cons

"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."
"Customer Service: It's poor."
"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."
"We have decided to decrease the usage of metadata management because we did not see any significant advantages."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"Heavy use of scratch disk which sometimes leads to failure."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be more scalable. It should have the option to change the configuration to run on a single, non-multiple node, or multi-threading processing."
"Unlike other tools, IBM tools do not provide much help from the internet, so additional support should be available."
"Talend's architecture is complex to configure, especially due to the various components involved. It requires a more intricate setup."
"Deployment can be difficult, but I didn't test the latest version yet."
"The support is not very good. The team is not well-trained, and resolving a ticket can require several discussions."
"The downside, however, is indeed the pricing, which has been the biggest challenge; since it went to Click, there is no longer a free license version such as Talend Open Studio, so either you pay or you do not have anything."
"We are currently using version 7.3.1, but preferred the version before. The problem that we currently have is that Talend are releasing patches for Talend Studio every quarter. Our technical team has to be on top of these patches and constantly ensure everything is updated."
"We encounter issues getting email notifications. They should provide enough information about the configuration process for email components."
"Support is something that drives me crazy these days."
"I would like to see better integration with other tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Server depends on how many users there are."
"There are no additional licensing fees when you scale"
"There are multiple subscriptions available with Talend, each with its own scope. Subscriptions depend on the number of users you have and how many remote engines you want to install."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are using the on-premises version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, but we feel that all new development is mainly for the cloud. We receive corrections of errors, but we do not see new func...
What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
My usual use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server is ETL, where we take data from one source to another data warehouse solution.
What advice do you have for others considering IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are about to change our platform from IBM AIX to SUSE Linux, as our whole platform is changing, so everyone should change from IBM to SUSE Linux. It would be very difficult for us to have a diff...
What needs improvement with Talend Data Fabric?
Regarding the downsides of Talend Data Fabric, I think they can improve overall pricing. It is a challenging question to answer because, while I see advantages, the disadvantages revolve mostly aro...
What is your primary use case for Talend Data Fabric?
I am currently phasing out of Talend Data Fabric, as the client where I have worked for many years migrated out of Talend this year into a different tool. I have helped the team to migrate out of T...
What advice do you have for others considering Talend Data Fabric?
At the moment of phasing out Talend Data Fabric, maintenance from my end is not applicable. A new user would need to monitor the drivers associated with the tools being used closely. For example, i...
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canadian National Railway Company, Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce, Swedish Armed Forces, BG RCI, Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd., University of Arizona, Biogrid Australia
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Talend Data Fabric and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.