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

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.
Divya-Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant cum Assistant Manager & Offshore Lead at Deloitte
Handles large data volumes effectively and offers competitive pricing
There is a lot of improvement required, as we still face some cache issues most of the time, which is a challenge that we expect to see resolved in the future. Additionally, there is some limitation when we are working with a tool, especially regarding In and Out parameters, and I feel that this aspect should be improved going ahead. We face issues with the API side, as Cloud Application Integration cannot handle large volumes; according to the API page, there is a limitation of 500 records or 500 MB. The AI integrated into the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services solution is called Application Integration, where we still face challenges when dealing with huge volumes, as previously explained.
reviewer1524357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Has supported endpoint management while revealing areas where usability and latency can improve
The couple of times we found issues with technical support from Microsoft for Microsoft MDS, they resolved them. The response time and understanding were adequate, though there was always a language barrier between the teams. The teams we worked with were in Korea, and it was sometimes a language issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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. 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."
"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."
"Flexibility Web services"
"For the company I work for, not having MDM is not an option."
"The ability to standardize and match names using a combination of global name recognition and an MDM server is a valuable feature for us."
"We can scan anything."
"The connectivity and their whole suite are valuable features because whether we need data cleansing or data mastering, we get it all in one platform and there's no need to test different cloud vendors and then integrate with one solution since Informatica is a one-stop shop."
"What took 10 hours to do in the on-prem version, takes less than an hour in the cloud."
"We are gaining our customers' confidence, and they rely on us for data classification."
"It is very useful for testing purposes and designing mappings for small projects. If you go for IDQ in the mapping itself, you can see the data. You can then correct it, and test it so easily. It is working fine. It is also stable, scalable, and easy to deploy."
"Technical support and Informatica Professional Services are friendly and helpful."
"The most valuable features are that MDM has a very strong master merchant, and it's possible to model all kinds of domains in one solution."
"The feature that allows me to search across the entire organizational database and then look through what objects are in which tables and which locations is quite handy."
"It has been a long-standing tool in our organization since it was free."
"It has been 200% useful in our organization."
"The backup and restore functionality are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"I would recommend Microsoft MDS to companies that need a simple solution at no cost."
"What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users."
"It's very easy to use."
"It's Microsoft, so it's not always perfect, however, is a good step to start with."
"The solution is easy to install."
 

Cons

"The master data, and the reference data management in the toolset are not good."
"The stack architecture seems too complicated as a result of having too many components that needed to be built together."
"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 tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers."
"If you are a small company, it is more likely overkill."
"It's complex because of the poor quality of the documentation."
"IBM InfoSphere MDM's UI is complicated. It also needs to improve its on-prem configuration."
"The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers."
"Data integration should be improved."
"Perhaps the web services need to improve because when you create a new data file and add some changes, we must edit it and create a web service transformation again."
"Informatica MDM's UI is not intuitive enough."
"Error analysis becomes difficult as finding the exact location of the error in the logs is challenging."
"It could be a bit more intuitive, rather than technically complex."
"User/group administration could use improvement."
"In terms of cost effectiveness, Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is more than 20% costly compared to the industry."
"I would like to see more API integration to have the capability to build a report using other third party reporting tools allowing things to be streamlined."
"Stability can be fragile at times. If you are not attentive or make a mistake, it can cause problems."
"The only drawback is that it does not have the matching, merging, and all true MDM components."
"Most of the Microsoft partners, especially digitally, are separate. Personnel are business people, and they do not have technical expertise, so you end up as a company spending a lot of money training your staff and your engineers."
"Most of the Microsoft partners, especially digitally, are separate. Personnel are business people, and they do not have technical expertise, so you end up as a company spending a lot of money training your staff and your engineers."
"The program's navigation tools could be improved."
"The solution could be better integrated into Microsoft's other products."
"The version that I work with is on-premises and it required an additional virtual machine on the cloud. It would be a better option to have an on-cloud version."
"JMD repositories have records that come in thousands and millions, which takes a long time to process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be costly for small organizations but adds value for large organizations with demanding workflows."
"The product has a high price point."
"There is no doubt that it is very expensive, but the brand value comes at a cost. Other MDM solutions in the market that haven't proven themselves like Informatica are also pretty expensive. We need to understand that MDM itself is very expensive to implement. So, Informatica is also pretty expensive. I would rate it a two out of five for being pretty expensive."
"The pricing is quite flexible."
"Informatica MDM recently changed its pricing model. It's usage-based but I don't have much insight into the current pricing."
"We pay for a yearly subscription."
"it's expensive, but if you're looking for a stable solution, Informatica MDM is a good one to choose."
"Informatica Axon is a costly solution. I rate Informatica Axon a four out of ten for its pricing."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing nine and a half out of ten."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Healthcare Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Media Company
8%
 

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 Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Microsoft MDS?
More generic related things can be included in the services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft MDS?
Microsoft MDS was pretty affordable. We implemented the solution without a problem.
What needs improvement with Microsoft MDS?
I cannot really give specifics about disadvantages. From what we have seen, speaking to customers, Microsoft MDS was ...
 

Also Known As

InfoSphere MDM, InfoSphere Master Data Management
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
Microsoft Master Data Services, Microsoft MDM, Microsoft SQL Server Master Data Services, MS MDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

L'Oreal S.A., Kingland Systems, Oncor, Farmaceuticos Maypo, Volkswagen Financial Services
The Travel Company, Carbonite
ETA a.s., Apeejay Surrendra Group, Blue Star Infotech, Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation, The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, New Belgium Brewing
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Informatica, Salesforce and others in Cloud Data Integration. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.