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IBM InfoSphere MDM vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) 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

IBM InfoSphere MDM
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Master Data Management (MDM) Software (8th)
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (1st), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (6th), Business-to-Business Middleware (2nd), API Management (7th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (3rd), Test Data Management (2nd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (2nd), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (3rd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd), AI Data Analysis (1st)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user545286 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Dec 09, 2016
 

Featured Reviews

SoumikDolui - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Provides inbuilt data model and good matching engine
It's a tough tool for developers. Right now in the market, I think Informatica MDM is number one and is used a lot. IBM MDM was developed by some other company and IBM developed it more. There are definitely some flaws. The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers. Generally, customers can understand Informatica MDM and its functionality easily. If a developer is facing issues with IBM MDM, then a customer will definitely not understand most of the functionality. That is the main concern. IBM is introducing some Next-Gen MDM, where they are using a lot of current technologies and machine learning. Most of the problems we may be facing right now are probably solved in that version.
RC
Contractor at Sanlam
Cloud data catalog has streamlined lineage and quality while leaving more automation to improve
I have not explored IDMC's automation capabilities driven by AI and metadata too much at the moment, but it is on the cards. We are basically creating the foundation, as the whole migration has taken place recently and it is still early days. I think Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is evolving, and as the vendors move forward, they pick up new concepts from each other. I have seen that products leapfrog each other, and from my experience over the years, the big players tend to copy features or add enhancements based on industry trends. I feel whatever the tool does not have now, there is a feedback loop allowing us to request new features, and we continually ask for different ways to do things as we have a pipeline into the product management team. It is difficult to say what additional features I would prefer to see in the next release of IDMC. I would appreciate more automation on the lineage front, with more AI to seamlessly join independent sources and create seamless lineage between different technologies, such as from file into database A into a different database and landing up in a reporting system such as Cognos, Qlik, Qlik Sense, QlikView, or Power BI.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is one of the best MDM solutions available on market."
"The ability to standardize and match names using a combination of global name recognition and an MDM server is a valuable feature for us."
"The features that are most valuable are the governance, the end-profiling, and the ETL which allows you to see the metadata repositories."
"The advantage is that the matching engine is very good, so that's why customers generally prefer it, and from the inbuilt data model perspective, IBM MDM is good."
"It is a great product for your workflow, with seamless integration processes (batch, real time and near real), availability of exhaustive customization feature (Java-based and Script-based), business rules and validation framework, good technical support."
"For the company I work for, not having MDM is not an option."
"There are not really many areas of the product that need improvement because the product stays up-to-date with data management needs."
"When users update their information on one product, the data is sent to a database. My approach was to maintain a master data record, ensuring that each platform loads the latest updated record. Instead of having three separate records, the system keeps one master data record, storing the historical records for reference."
"It's helpful in integration, and it can be moved around in SharePoint. So, from the SharePoint View, data integration and reporting, it help a lot in that way."
"The most valuable feature is data discovery. This is the most exciting feature for all of the banks."
"It's a stable product without any bugs or glitches."
"What I like best about Informatica MDM is its structured, table-based approach. Unlike Reltio, where data is only visible through the UI and cloud-based, the solution allows access to normalized tables. This means I can directly query and see data in each table. For instance, I can easily get all customer details from the customer table. However, for more complex queries, like seeing all customer interactions with the organization, some SQL knowledge is needed to join different tables and retrieve the details."
"Technical support and Informatica Professional Services are friendly and helpful."
"Scalability is on par or better than any other solution on the market, with one of our customers having over 21 million SKUs in PIM and others having hundreds of international users."
"Informatica MDM has a defined data model we can customize with user and developer options."
"We went with Informatica because we have functional and non-functional requirements with respect to the market data management of our customers and Informatica is a suitable product for their needs."
 

Cons

"It's complex because of the poor quality of the documentation."
"It needs a better database."
"We also want better cloud integration, so we could do things in the cloud if we needed to. This would be a good feature to add in a future release."
"The stack architecture seems too complicated as a result of having too many components that needed to be built together."
"The product is really only created for large organizations."
"However, it needs to mature in several areas including, UI, DAM, lighter out-of-box features, and simplify the currently complex technical footprint."
"If you are a small company, it is more likely overkill."
"The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers."
"In terms of cost effectiveness, Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is more than 20% costly compared to the industry."
"It would be helpful if there was a GenAI feature integrated into the system, especially regarding the data quality."
"Informatica Enterprise Data Lake's setup process was complex since it doesn't support a lot of real-time systems."
"The tool is quite good overall, but sometimes the number of modules can be overwhelming. If the development interface could be optimized to have fewer modules, it would be greatly beneficial."
"Certain applications are not being synced with the ION."
"Support response time could be better."
"I think the price modeling could be improved."
"GUI is poor in IDQ"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be costly for small organizations but adds value for large organizations with demanding workflows."
"Informatica Cloud Data Quality is a costly solution."
"The solution's pricing model is easy, but it is very expensive."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price and ten is the highest price."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"The product is very expensive"
"The pricing model is something that can be improved."
"You pay for this solution based on IPUs, Informatica Processing Units. This depends on how much data you process and how much memory you consume from the cloud provider, and you pay as you go."
"Informatica is very expensive."
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Answers from the Community

it_user545286 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016
Riversand technology is leader in the MDM space and makes a product called MDMcenter. Gartner and Forrester put these guys in a leader and visionary quadrant topping Informatica, oracle, and sap. They have a product used by many fortune 1000s and multinational companies. I have rolled out MDM solutions for a bunch of customers using different platforms and Riversand's is the best. They hav...
2 out of 7 answers
it_user348246 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 8, 2016
If you buy InfoSphere MDM Domain Hub Standard Edition you can use following products: IBM Process Server Standard v8.5.6 IBM Process Server Standard for Non-production Environment v8.5.6 IBM Process Center Standard v8.5.6 IBM Process Designer v8.5.6 IBM Content Integrator v8.6 IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition v10.5 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.2.2.0 IBM InfoSphere Information Server Enterprise v11.5 IBM Integration Bus Healthcare Pack v3.0.0.0 IBM Integration Bus Express Edition v9.0.0.3 IBM Watson Explorer v10.0 IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software v9.5 IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment v8.5.5 IBM WebSphere Application Server Base v8.5.5 IBM WebSphere MQ v8.0 IBM WebSphere Portal Server v8.5 IBM Installation Manager & IBM Packaging Utility for Rational Software Development Platform v1.8 IBM Security Directory Server v6.4.0.0 For IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management Enterprise Edition you can use also: IBM InfoSphere Big Match for Hadoop v11.5 InfoSphere Information Server contains both DataStage (ETL engine) and QualityStage (DQ components which are fully integrated with ETL). You could always check which products are provided in license on Software License Portal (http://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/sladb.nsf/search)
it_user311469 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works with 10,001+ employees
Dec 8, 2016
Will do but can you help me out with my groceries for this week ? ( please stop sending me these emails. I am a professional not a volunteer) Sent from my iPhone
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Healthcare Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise155
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

InfoSphere MDM, InfoSphere Master Data Management
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

L'Oreal S.A., Kingland Systems, Oncor, Farmaceuticos Maypo, Volkswagen Financial Services
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Informatica, Palantir and others in Cloud Data Integration. Updated: July 2026.
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