Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM BPM vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM BPM
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (8th), Process Automation (5th)
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Business Process Management (BPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd), Data Quality (1st), Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), 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 (4th), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Almalki - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good case management and its integration with process design but there's a learning curve
If you're already an IBM shop with the necessary skills and personnel, then I would recommend using it. However, it requires a yearly investment. So, if you're prepared for that, then go for it. New users will need at least six months to get comfortable with IBM BPM, at least initially. So, there's a learning curve. Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. Two main reasons: the skillset required to manage it and its integration complexity.
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

"It continues to keep up with the changing needs of the business. That is the strong value proposition of BPM. It's not a one-time automation."
"Enabled us to convert most of the paper-based work into an automated workflow process, and some of them were converted into straight-through processing, with no human interaction involved whatsoever."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features come in the bundle, the design process, creating services, creating BPDs, creating coaches, and UI/UX."
"Some of the features that I like the most are team management and process performance. They are both very useful and very powerful with regard to the workflow."
"One thing that I love about them is that they make it easier to integrate with other systems, especially with the use of smaller files."
"It's a solid product. It covers most of the pain points for clients."
"IBM BPM is easy to deploy."
"The user interface which is very easy to use if we have any problems to solve."
"The valuable feature is that we can automate the integration part...It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features of Informatica MDM are it is cloud-enabled and has all the elements that are supposed to have in terms of MDM as a solution. All the features that are there. It is very well-integrated with any of the SAP and non-SAP applications. It is quite user-friendly. The user experience that you receive in Informatica MDM is quite good."
"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 user interface is flexible and the visibility of the data flow is amazing."
"Replication allows us to fully replicate all objects from Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC) to in-house/on-premises database in one job."
"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 solution scales well."
 

Cons

"The debugging needs improvement. There is some confusion surrounding the debugging."
"The business would like to use the product with a lot less IT and equipment involvement."
"Process versioning was tricky, not straightforward."
"Also, we would like to see integration with artificial intelligence, machine learning-type of technical capabilities. Right now, there are a lot Watson libraries out there. Building those integrations more, out-of-the-box, from IBM would be a good direction."
"One downside is that changing intermediate steps after you've finalized your flow can be challenging. Also, the integration with identity management could be easier. It would be helpful to have role-based access functions, allowing for specific custom models associated with certain streamlines in the IBM dashboard. Also, a simpler way to integrate some notation with other middleware platforms would be beneficial."
"One suggestion for IBM BPM is to provide better integration between their products, such as DataCap, which we use for scanning. Although the new CP4BA offers offline capabilities, not everyone is on CP4BA, so enhanced integration for those on older versions would be beneficial."
"We would like better performance and more ​visibility on each step of the tool.​"
"Importing and exporting between multiple environments is more difficult with other tools."
"Informatica's support understands the solution, but they lack the experience we need for our use case. That was one thing that we prioritized when we started searching for this kind of solution."
"The stability and the integration of the solution have room for improvement."
"It would be great if the cloud version could match the full range of capabilities available on-premise."
"I would like to see more API integration to have the capability to build a report using other third party reporting tools to streamline the operation."
"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."
"IEDC can improve the comparison of lineages."
"The tool should provide a unified user interface to manage the data objects."
"Database access is highly restricted particularly if you're using the cloud version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good but could be a little lower."
"IBM BPM is expensive, so most large companies opt for IBM based on their licensing options."
"I wish it was less expensive. I don't know why their pricing model is so high for a piece of software that could benefit so many. It just seems to me that they could have a lower cost, maybe with fewer features or whatever, but it should be possible to do a lower cost workflow software that uses the same interface and underlying engine but does not cost so much that you have to be a Fortune 50 company to buy it. It is annoying to me. There are a lot of solutions that IBM has that are really powerful but nobody can afford them. They know their business, but I still feel that there are a lot of customers who would benefit from this sort of thing. I don't know what this elitism is all about. I am sure they have people doing the money numbers, but it seems like you can make a lot more money by selling it to way more people for a little bit less."
"I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones."
"Licensing is managed by the client, but we know it is yearly. Camunda is relatively cheaper. There is not much difference in pricing of IBM and PEGA. For large licensing, there are discounts as well."
"Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product."
"Our customers do see ROI. They'll identify some particularly painful or uncoordinated processes to start with, then build out from there, picking off low hanging fruit."
"It's expensive. All software is always extremely high. The manufacturing cost that we have compared to the selling cost, it's not like you're building a house or building a car. But putting that aside, considering that it's expensive, it's a lot of money. If you compare it with some of the other alternatives in the market, it's a similar price. For instance, if you compare it with Pegasystems, it's a similar price."
"Informatica Axon is expensive."
"The pricing structure is good, but having to pay for extra drivers to be used in an ICS environment makes me a little nervous."
"The solution's pricing model is easy, but it is very expensive."
"The price is neither too high nor too low."
"My understanding is that Informatica is quite expensive compare to other tools that are available in the market."
"Informatica MDM recently changed its pricing model. It's usage-based but I don't have much insight into the current pricing."
"We have licenses, and we are provided with certain particular services in the solution."
"it's expensive, but if you're looking for a stable solution, Informatica MDM is a good one to choose."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better, IBM BPM or IBM Business Automation Workflow?
We researched both IBM solutions and in the end, we chose Business Automation Workflow. IBM BPM has a good user interface and the BPM coach is a helpful tool. The API is very useful in providing en...
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

WebSphere Lombardi Edition, IBM Business Process Manager, IBM WebSphere Process Server
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

Barclays, EmeriCon, Banca Popolare di Milano, CST Consulting, KeyBank, KPMG, Prolifics, Sandhata Technologies Ltd., State of Alaska, Humana S.A., Saperion, esciris, Banco Espirito Santo
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM BPM vs. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.