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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs SAP Information Steward comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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

Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Data Quality
1st
Ranking in Metadata Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (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), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (3rd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd), AI Data Analysis (1st)
SAP Information Steward
Ranking in Data Quality
18th
Ranking in Metadata Management
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Quality category, the mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 9.7%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Information Steward is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Quality Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)9.7%
SAP Information Steward2.9%
Other87.4%
Data Quality
 

Featured Reviews

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.
FranciscoSantos - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Pixel Studio PTY
Provides accurate data that is validated against a personalized reference tool
For most SAP customers, Information Steward is enough because it is able to build quality data rules to detect issues in the source systems like SAP HANA, Business Warehouse, or other systems. A business user can first organize their data into several data domains. For example, procurement, human resources, and logistics setup. The domains can build data quality dimensions where you can describe the kind of rule that you are going to use. The user then can immediately see if something is wrong with their data using traffic lights. Another great feature of SAP Information Steward is the accuracy that the content is followed by validating against the reference tool. With the solution, you are creating data quality dimensions. Within these dimensions, you are creating business data quality rules that are looking for specific fields. From these rules, you can create a scorecard. The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits. SAP tables have field names that are very cryptic, making them hard to understand the meaning of the fields. Metapedia helps describe these fields in business terms.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mapping designer seems to be easier to use even when compared with PowerCenter which is a great improvement."
"Single and consistent view of Customer Data arising from a centralized data set with unique customer records."
"The solution has an excellent data profiler."
"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."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"This product really improves my organization and fits all of the needed requirements for working with cleansed data."
"Customer service is absolutely brilliant and their on-demand support is really good speaking from a development team perspective."
"We are gaining our customers' confidence, and they rely on us for data classification."
"I am very happy with the product."
"The Data Cleansing and the scorecard dashboard are very valuable. Additionally, the financial aspect of SAP Information Steward is very good. When a rule is incorrect then it will show how much is it costing the business. These features are very valuable."
"Data integration is much easier with Information Steward - irrespective of the data sources, integration is very smooth and easy."
"The ability to analyze the data even before we start the transformation of it, and generating the user-friendly interface, giving analytical reports, and helping create the transformation rules before we proceed with the data migration part was the most helpful part of the solution for our company."
"The product has improved company efficiency because we're able to categorize the need for user access at the folder level across storage enterprise wide."
"Initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very fast, very stable, and very easy to use and straightforward."
"The scorecard will highlight the percentage of good data and ensure the user can feel confident that the data is accurate within predetermined limits."
 

Cons

"I need to have some insight into the tool's cloud capabilities."
"You cannot import the data discovery rules you create in the solution to the Cloud Data Governance and Catalog (CDGC)."
"I have received feedback from certain teams and there is a steep learning curve to use this solution."
"It is expensive."
"The integration could be a bit better. The process is something new."
"Connectivity could be improved, it can be a little slow."
"Informatica Axon does not provide complete transparency about the level of detailing you need and the logic used in ETL."
"Currently, there are limitations in processing and the interface."
"The solution could improve by incorporating other applications, such as Power BI to show more visualization. More interaction with other solutions would be a good benefit."
"The user experience of metapedia could be improved."
"Granularity could be reduced from an application level to the object level."
"The support team is not very responsive."
"SAP Information Steward could be improved by offering a cloud version of the product."
"In some cases they have given extraneous or erroneous information, which is completely useless."
"From a performance perspective, sometimes it behaves weirdly. When we are connecting with the file-based system, it doesn't give us the correct results, or it somehow shows us there is this issue with the data or the file connectivity."
"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a costly solution"
"The product is highly-priced."
"I rate the licensing cost of Informatica MDM a five out of ten."
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the cheapest and ten is the most expensive. The product is a bit expensive."
"Cost-wise, I think it is on the higher side, and that is why we are looking for some better options. Licensing costs are huge compared to other players in the market and for my company."
"Informatica Axon is expensive."
"Informatica Cloud Data Quality is a costly solution."
"Pricing is determined by the number of licensed users as well as the number of Core CPUs."
"SAP Information Steward is an expensive solution compared to others."
"Smaller-sized organizations may not be able to invest in SAP Information Steward because of the cost."
"I do not know if there were additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"A bit pricey, and better tools are available for a lower price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise155
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
Information Steward, SAP Data Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Travel Company, Carbonite
American Water, Graphic Packaging International, OSRAM Licht AG, Maxim Integrated
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs. SAP Information Steward and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.