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

The compared IBM and Informatica solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #6 in MDM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 8.8% mindshare in the category. Informatica is ranked #2 in DMPD , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 15.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Informatica users who would recommend it.

IBM InfoSphere MDM

Read 9 IBM InfoSphere MDM reviews

1,235 Views
371 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Informatica Intelligent Dat...

Read 185 Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) reviews

24,254 Views
243 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere MDM

Informatica Intelligent Dat...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM InfoSphere MDM and Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, TIBCO, Microsoft and others in Master Data Management (MDM) Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Master Data Management (MDM) Software Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Master Data Management (MDM) Software

June 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

Master Data Management (MDM) Software (6th)

Informatica Intelligent Dat...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

185

Ranking in other categories

Data Integration (3rd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (10th), Business-to-Business Middleware (5th), API Management (7th), 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), Metadata Management (1st), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Data Integration and Access solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM InfoSphere MDM is designed for Master Data Management (MDM) Software and holds a mindshare of 8.8%, up 7.3% compared to last year.
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC), on the other hand, focuses on Data Management Platforms (DMP), holds 15.0% mindshare, up 14.0% since last year.

Master Data Management (MDM) Software

Data Management Platforms (DMP)

Q&A Highlights

it_user545286

Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Dec 09, 2016

Reltio: Question about Master Data Management Capabilities

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 have cloud based and on premise solutions. It can scale from small projects to biggest implementations of the planet, different geographies/locations, langauges and near infinite entities. Their licensing can vary based on required modules; but they offer Matching, Deduplication, Searching, Workflow, Modeling, Analytics, Integration, Domain / cross-domain, Governance tools to change / commit / rollback. The applications modeling and framework is flexible so it can handle any domain, product, retail, manufacturing, customer, vendor, finance, investment vehicles, jewelry, oil and gas, person, auto, high tech, oil gas, fast food, grocery, etc. Hands down this is best product in its class. It's top shelf. Given the choice and having used other products, I'd choice Riversand over the other competing products. If you didn't check them out yet, you definitely should.

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Featured Reviews

SoumikDolui

Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services

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.

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Saikat Ghosh

Consulting Principal & Founder at Digital Data Consultancy

Match and merge functionality is still the best but cloud version needs more functionality

There are various areas for improvement in IDMC. Enhancements on basic data management functionality and the UI front, such as multiple templates and improved grid views, would be beneficial. Bulk data management features could be improved from the UI perspective to get to the level of the on prem versions of Informatica MDM. The tool needs to mature but missing small but important features, like restricted dynamic attributes functionality, data inheritance rules in master hierachies, identifiers not being passed in jobs is a drawback.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"There are not really many areas of the product that need improvement because the product stays up-to-date with data management needs."

"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."

"The features that are most valuable are the governance, the end-profiling and the ETL which allows you to see the metadata repositories."

"It is easy to create REST-based interfaces of the master data objects."

"We use parts and standardization for most of our testing. We purchase the US Postal Service address database, which is updated periodically. Many useful tools, such as Google Maps, can detect and mark new businesses or changes in business locations. Informatica captures and updates this information. Some periodic maintenance is involved, but setting it up is not overly complicated."

"Axon has a marketplace that allows you to showcase all the assets the data owner has, so they can request access. That's one feature we use extensively. Axon also offers great visibility and intuitive searchability, allowing you to easily search data assets. You can check the lineage and see the work EDC does. EDC handles all the classification, cataloging, and lineage. It's integrated with Axon, and anyone can see that."

"The most valuable features of the solution are pushdown, optimization, and partitioning, which can be used for frequent data loading, especially when we have a huge data volume in our company."

"The features I find most valuable is the synchronization, verification, functionalities and all the data integration features."

"The most valuable feature is data discovery. This is the most exciting feature for all of the banks."

"It's got a reputation in the industry as one of the best solutions for master data management. So, it's what we see in the Gartner top right quadrant as the best product in that space."

"Offers data lineage feature"

More Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) pros

Cons

"The product is really only created for large organizations."

"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."

"IBM InfoSphere MDM's UI is complicated. It also needs to improve its on-prem configuration."

"They have to improve their relationship discovery tool. They say that they have AI inside, but this AI did not automatically find relationships or suggested relationships between entities."

"If I want to scan the metadata from the data lineage or the Python code, such areas can get tedious in the tool."

"Informatica Cloud Data Integration can improve by being more user-friendly. When you're working with the solution a lot of technical knowledge is required. It's not a solution that anyone can use properly, you need knowledge of what's happening at the back end, such as SQL. When you get stuck, you need to look into your logic. For other tools, such as Dell Boomi, anyone can use them."

"Its cloud-based version has a few limitations compared to the on-premise version."

"The pricing model is problematic."

"It needs to be a little more intuitive but it’s really not bad."

"Needs to implement the new workflow with simple steps and a quick visualization with a 360 view of the data."

"Performance also needs to be significantly improved, especially when connecting to SFDC for read and write operations."

More Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be costly for small organizations but adds value for large organizations with demanding workflows."

"It's a very expensive solution"

"The price is high, but the competitors are even higher, like Collibra."

"A yearly subscription is paid based on the number of people using the solution. Price-wise, it falls under the medium range since it is neither very costly nor too cheap."

"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."

"We saw an ROI. We have been able to get data from various sources and consolidate it into a data lake, which is helping us in data analytics."

"The solution is very expensive."

"It's pretty high for us. It's more on the higher side, like low to middle high."

"The product is not very pocket-friendly for small and medium-sized businesses, and it is understandable because of the kind of features the tool gives."

More Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

it_user545286

Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Dec 9, 2016

Reltio: Question about Master Data Management Capabilities

2 out of 7 answers

it_user348246

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)

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it_user311469

Works at Deloitte

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

Read full answer

See all 7 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

27%

Healthcare Company

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM InfoSphere MDM?

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. In...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere MDM?

IBM InfoSphere MDM's UI is complicated. It also needs to improve its on-prem configuration.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere MDM?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Master Data Governance vs IBM InfoSphere MDM

Compared 19% of the time

TIBCO EBX vs IBM InfoSphere MDM

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Master Data Management on Cloud vs IBM InfoSphere MDM

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft MDS vs IBM InfoSphere MDM

Compared 8% of the time

Reltio Cloud vs IBM InfoSphere MDM

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM InfoSphere MDM Competitors

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

Compared 4% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

Compared 4% of the time

Reltio Cloud vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

Compared 4% of the time

Profisee vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

Compared 2% of the time

More Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Master Data Management (MDM) Software

June 2025

Download IBM InfoSphere MDM product report

Buyer's Guide

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)

April 2025

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) report

Download Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) product report

Also Known As

InfoSphere MDM, InfoSphere Master Data Management

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

InfoSphere Master Data Management (MDM) is the most complete, proven and powerful MDM solution with collaborative and operational capabilities. InfoSphere MDM manages master data for single or multiple domains - customers, patients, citizens, suppliers, locations, products, services offerings, accounts and more - for improving application & business process effectiveness

IBM

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is a robust platform used by banks, financial institutions, and health sector organizations for data management, governance, and compliance.

IDMC provides comprehensive tools for data discovery, profiling, masking, and transformation. It supports Salesforce integration, real-time data streaming, and scalable data management solutions. Health organizations manage national product catalogs while financial entities focus on data protection and regulatory compliance. Its intuitive interface, flexible features, and robust tools make it valuable across sectors, though enhancements in data integration and human workflow are being sought.

What are the most important features?

Data discovery: Facilitates identifying and understanding data sources.
Data profiling: Analyzes old databases for data quality.
Data and platform masking: Ensures data protection.
Salesforce integration: Seamless connectivity with Salesforce.
Mastering data: Centralizing and standardizing data.
UI intuitiveness: User-friendly interface.
Feature map flexibility: Adapts to user needs.
Business glossary creation: Defines business terms.
Data lineage: Tracks data flow and transformations.
Automation: Streamlines data processes.
Enterprise data cataloging: Organizes extensive data assets.
Scalability: Supports expanding data requirements.
Easy setup: Quick deployment process.
Bulk upload: Efficiently handles large data volumes.
Customizable data management: Tailors data solutions.
Real-time data streaming: Manages live data streams.
Integration with Hadoop and NoSQL: Connects with big data platforms.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Regulatory compliance: Ensures adherence to regulations.
Data protection: Safeguards sensitive information.
Enhanced data quality: Improves accuracy and reliability.
Centralized data: Consolidates data for better management.
Process automation: Reduces manual tasks and errors.

Banks and financial institutions use IDMC for data masking, transformation, and compliance, while health sector organizations leverage it for national product catalogs. Industry applications focus on automating business processes, centralizing data, and managing data catalogs to meet regulatory demands and ensure data protection.

Informatica

Sample Customers

L'Oreal S.A., Kingland Systems, Oncor, Farmaceuticos Maypo, Volkswagen Financial Services

The Travel Company, Carbonite

Buyer's Guide

Master Data Management (MDM) Software

June 2025

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