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IBM App Connect vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 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 App Connect
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), API Management (7th), Data Governance (2nd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (1st), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (1st), Test Data Management Services (2nd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexible adapters, good scalability but logging can be difficult at times
There is room for improvement in the logging messages. Sometimes, if you put someone new into App Connect, they can abandon it the same day. The logging is really painful. However, IBM has made efforts to integrate with Elasticsearch for logging, so that's an improvement. Overall, the logging can be difficult at times. One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient. Back in 2013, I worked with Sonic ESB, and even then, it had CI/CD with Maven. With App Connect, you need to build everything yourself when using tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, or CircleCI. IBM really needs to provide official support for this.
Raj Sethupathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers profiling and address standardization but can be complicated
Informatica Data Quality has its data warehouse, primarily using Oracle and some SQL databases. You need a database to host the data. The cleansed version of the data is stored in the data warehouse. It integrates with PowerCenter and other Informatica tools. The integration details can be complex, but a regional setup is involved in this process. Profiling smaller datasets, such as 10,000-50,000 records, worked fine. However, unexpected issues could arise with larger datasets, such as thousands of records or more, especially with tables containing many columns. Handling tables with fifty or more columns can be challenging, even in Excel. A mismatch in data types could cause the entire system to crash. Continual enhancements are being made to address these issues, which can be unique to specific industries like finance and healthcare.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is fast and supports Open UI 3.0 certification."
"It has an efficient design flow."
"It can handle API conversions with mapping and transformation rules, simplifying the development process."
"When using IBM stacks, IBM App Connect is suitable and integrates well with other IBM products like WebSphere."
"It's a powerful application for collaboration. It has many features for customization and integration."
"App Connect's best feature is that it can be deployed in a container."
"The solution is very fast-paced when it comes to making things right. We can quickly download what we need if we need any app migrations for our software business. We can download it plenty of times when we need to use it. It gives us very high speed for delivering any development."
"Provides good security features."
"One of the most valuable features is that I don't need to buy a subscription for any functionality. With Informatica Cloud Data Management, I have all the functionality and features available. If I need to make an integration, I can go to that integration service. If I need to mask, provide, or clean some information, I can easily just pick up that feature and use it. It's very simple, and I have all the functions and capabilities I need to work with data."
"The most valuable features are data quality, data integrate transformations, match-merge, and a few MDM solutions we build into data quality transformation."
"The most valuable features of Informatica MDM are the IDQ and RDM data management."
"Performance and flexibility-wise, they're very user-friendly."
"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 feature of Informatica Enterprise Data Catalog is it provides clients with a full view of the enterprise data assets. For example, how many data assets they have and who owns them."
"We are able to set rules, establish a data quality management platform, and monitor the quality."
"The product improves data quality."
 

Cons

"The addition of string functionality would be a benefit, particularly in the ESQL space that IBM already uses internally."
"The product should improve its support."
"IBM App Connect is scalable. From the administration side, they need to improve the RBAC model, as well as the clustering of this product. It will be good if we can start up the cluster, via IBM Connect Console. Some other products like MuleSoft, are providing this type of administration. MuleSoft is easy to use and user friendly."
"In the next release, I would like to get some quality connectors."
"One more important point is that if IBM improves its CI/CD capabilities, it will make a big difference. Right now, I have to create my own CI/CD setup from scratch for every client, which is inefficient."
"IBM App Connect should improve security features."
"When we do a version upgrade of the system, the platform is kind of complicated."
"Updates are constantly delayed."
"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."
"The error information provided is not informative, as compared to Power Center."
"Although we are very satisfied with the design of the UI, executing tasks with it can be difficult."
"The biggest pain point for us is the documentation. Typically, you have to go through knowledge forums and knowledge groups to find out about the syntax issues for interfacing with new products. Typically, you've got to deal with someone who has been through the pain before. Their documents are not really up to date with current innovations happening in the industry. As big as they are, you can't really expect it, but that's our pain point."
"The scalability is tough."
"Informatica is very expensive."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"They need more feature flexibility, as it is not fully developed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive if we want to scale."
"Initially, App Connect was quite expensive because the cost was based on the number of processors we used. However, it's now based on containers, which means we can be more specific about our consumption and get a better price."
"The licensing cost for IBM App Connect is very high."
"IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products."
"App Connect is not cheap."
"The price could be better."
"The solution's pricing isn't cheap, but you can get good discounts based on your competitive deal."
"The cost depends upon the consumer."
"We are quite happy with the licensing model."
"It's a costly solution"
"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."
"So, there are plans for licensing. There are subscription-based and usage-based licenses. Also, there are licenses for exceptional analytics, etc. In short, there are different models of licensing for every enterprise."
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It is an expensive solution. I would say it is the most expensive solution in the market."
"The price of Informatica Cloud Data Integration could be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
58%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM App Connect?
I like the adapters. The adapters help us achieve scalability. If you want to connect to SAP, there's an adapter. Salesforce? There's an adapter. You want to connect to another system? There's like...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM App Connect?
IBM App Connect's pricing is high compared to other products.
What is your primary use case for IBM App Connect?
Our company has a big project for delivery and e-commerce sites. We use IBM App Connect to deliver information to our end users after they buy our products. We get information from many places, suc...
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...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

IBM Cast Iron
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
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Way of Allegheny County, Saint-Gobain CPS, Ricoh, SunTrust Banks Inc.
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM App Connect vs. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.