IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs Quest SharePlex comparison

IBM and Quest Software are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0, while Quest Software is ranked #47. IBM holds a 4.8% mindshare in DI, compared to Quest Software’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Read 42 IBM InfoSphere DataStage reviews

7,117 Views
6,049 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Quest SharePlex

Read 5 Quest SharePlex reviews

1,559 Views
1,091 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Quest SharePlex

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Quest SharePlex and IBM InfoSphere DataStage compete in the data integration and replication market. Quest SharePlex has an edge in pricing and ease of use, while IBM InfoSphere DataStage excels in handling complex transformations for demanding data environments.

Features: Quest SharePlex provides real-time data replication, ensuring continuous availability and reliability. It is beneficial for disaster recovery plans due to its robust replication tools like Compare and Repair, and PEP, enhancing performance for high-transaction volumes. IBM InfoSphere DataStage offers extensive data manipulation capabilities, excels in managing parallel data streams, and provides comprehensive ETL tools for better data integration.

Room for Improvement: Quest SharePlex could enhance its functionality by improving integrations with a broader range of data transformations, increase scalability for larger enterprise environments, and offer more comprehensive data quality management tools. IBM InfoSphere DataStage can benefit from simplifying its initial deployment, reducing configuration complexity for new users, and optimizing integration features for non-IBM systems to enhance compatibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Quest SharePlex is recognized for its straightforward deployment process, reducing setup complexity with quick, supportive customer service. IBM InfoSphere DataStage offers comprehensive support to tackle challenges despite its potentially complex initial setup due to its rich feature set, providing robust assistance through its customer service channels.

Pricing and ROI: Quest SharePlex is cost-effective, offering a lower setup cost leading to an attractive ROI for businesses focused on economical data replication solutions. IBM InfoSphere DataStage, with its higher initial investment, offers a broad range of features and scalability, potentially yielding greater long-term ROI for enterprises with extensive data integration needs. Companies must balance short-term costs with possible future benefits to determine the best fit for their data strategies.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

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 DataStage

Ranking in Data Integration

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Quest SharePlex

Ranking in Data Integration

47th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere DataStage is 4.8%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest SharePlex is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Swetha S

Sr Product Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

The solution streamlines design, development, and deployment with effective ETL features

The support has been really good. Typically, if we have any issues, we raise a ticket with IBM, and they help us resolve the issues if required. We also have the flexibility to submit a feature request to be included as part of the wishlist, potentially becoming a product feature in subsequent releases.

Read full review

Kristopher Wells

Oracle DBA at Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.

It reduces the downtime and migration time exponentially

I would rate SharePlex's high availability, and disaster recovery features highly. It works as advertised in terms of rapid fill-over and switch-over opportunities. It reduces the migration time for a multi-terabyte database to an hour or less because it performs real-time replication. SharePlex reduces downtime and migration time exponentially. Something that could take 12 to 24 hours is cut down to one to two hours. By the time you start to migrate, the only remaining replication is a slight difference in data from the point when SharePlex has shut down, and the application has to also switch over to the new database. It allowed the company to replicate data more transparently. Some of the business executives probably don't even know it's there. It works 100 percent of the time, with little downtime or problems. It provides what is needed. There's little concern about whether or not it functions. It's allowed the company to achieve its objectives with its clients, reducing and minimizing downtime for substantial migrations and upgrades. It can reduce hardware and storage costs, but my company doesn't utilize it with high-availability architecture.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite useful and powerful."

"The best feature of IBM InfoSphere DataStage for me was that it was very much user-friendly. The solution didn't require that much raw coding because most of its features were drag and drop, plus it had a large number of functionalities."

"The solution has improved the time it takes to perform tasks related to batch applications."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to incorporate very complex business rules in Data Stage."

"It's useful for reporting and selecting different extract files."

"The most valuable feature is the data integration for data warehousing."

"It is straightforward from a design and development perspective, and also for deployment."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to transfer information via notes."

More IBM InfoSphere DataStage pros

"Because of the volume of the transactions, we heavily use a feature that allows SharePlex to replicate thousands of transactions. It's called PEP, Post Enhancement Performance, and that has helped us scale tremendously."

"There are some capabilities within SharePlex where you can see how the data is migrating and if it still maintains good data integrity. For example, if there are some tables that get out of sync, there are ways to find them and fix the problem on the spot. Since these are very common issues, we can easily fix these types of problems using utilities, like compare and repair. So, if you find something is out of sync, then you can just repair that table. It basically syncs that table from source to target to see if there are any differences. It will then replicate those differences to the target."

"I like SharePlex's Compare and Repair tool."

"The core replication and its performance. Performance is crucial, and SharePlex is by far the fastest. The way it handles replication to multiple targets along with basic filtering, as well as from multiple sources to a single target, is very efficient."

"The core features of the solution we like are the reliability of the data transfer and the accuracy of data read and write. The stability of the solution is also excellent."

Cons

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"So, there are some features that are missing. If I compare DataStage to Talend, Talend allows you to write custom code in Java or use these tools in your applications as well if you are building a job application. But in DataStage, it does not allow you to write custom code for any component."

"The solution can be a bit more user-friendly, similar to Informatica."

"Reduced cost would allow more customers to choose the product. It's quite expensive in relation to the cost of other similar solutions."

"The documentation and in-application help for this solution need to be improved, especially for new features."

"The interface needs improvement."

"DataStage is quite expensive. It is too hard to find a consultant using DataStage in Turkey."

"We would be happy to see in next versions the ability to return several parameters from jobs. Now, jobs can return just one parameter. If they could return several parameters, that would be great."

More IBM InfoSphere DataStage cons

"The reporting features need improvement. It would be very good for users to have a clear understanding of the status of replication."

"For its function in relation to replication (i.e. filtering), I'd give it a six or seven out of 10. GoldenGate has much more functionality by comparison."

"I would like the solution to have some kind of machine learning and AI capabilities. Often, if we want to improve the performance of posting, we have to bump up a parameter. That means we need to stop the process, come up with a figure that we want to bump the parameter up to, and then start SharePlex. Machine learning and AI capabilities for these kinds of improvement would tremendously help boost productivity for us."

"I would like more ability to automate installation and configuration in line with some of the DevOps processes that are more mature in the market. That would be a considerable improvement."

"I don't know how easy it would be to change the architecture in an already implemented replication. For example, if we have a certain way of architecting for a particular database migration and want to change that during a period of time, is that an easy or difficult change? There was a need for us to change the architecture in-between the migration, but we didn't do it. We thought, "This is possibly complicated. Let's not change it in the middle because we were approaching our cutover date." That was one thing that we should have checked with support about for training."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is competitive but on the higher side of the pricing scale."

"Small and medium-sized companies cannot afford to pay for this solution."

"I have no information on the exact pricing for IBM InfoSphere DataStage because the solution is usually procured by the clients my company works with, though the pricing is higher compared to other solutions, so many clients choose to go with a different solution rather than IBM InfoSphere DataStage."

"Our internal team takes care of group licensing and cost. We don't have individual licenses. We have group licensing at the company level. Usually, IBM doesn't charge anything separately on the licensing side. For storage and everything else, we are paying around $6,000 per month, which is not very high. It includes Linux data storage, execution, and licensing. They're charging $40 for one-hour execution. Based on that, we are spending around $2,000 on the production environment and $1,000 on the lower environment for testing and development-side executions. For the mainframe, we are using the Db2 mainframe database, and we are spending around $1,000 on the Db2 mainframe database as well. All this comes out to be around $6,000. We, however, would like to have some cost reduction."

"The solution is cheap."

"It's quite expensive."

"The price is expensive but there are no licensing fees."

"It is quite expensive."

More IBM InfoSphere DataStage pricing and cost advice

"It is not as expensive as Oracle GoldenGate and has worked really well within our budgets."

"It's really good value for the money. There are some things they could improve on, but in terms of the pricing, features, and support, as a holistic package, we are not thinking of anything else at this point in time."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Would you upgrade to more premium versions of IBM InfoSphere DataStage?

My company currently uses the free version of the product, and we are definitely switching to a paid one. We needed a tool that can help us not only integrate our data but use it effectively. For ...

See all answers

Is IBM InfoSphere DataStage more difficult to use compared to other tools in the field?

I think the tool may cause some difficulties if you have not used other data integration solutions before. I have worked at companies that used different tools for data integration, and they work ...

See all answers

Do you rely on IBM Cloud Paks for your data? Have you utilized this product, or do you use IBM InfoSphere DataStage without it?

IBM Cloud Paks makes a big difference in your data integration. My company has been using it alongside IBM InfoSphere DataStage and while the main product is good on its own, this one truly expands...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Compared 14% of the time

SSIS vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Compared 11% of the time

Talend Open Studio vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Compared 10% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Compared 7% of the time

IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs IBM InfoSphere DataStage

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM InfoSphere DataStage Competitors

Oracle GoldenGate vs Quest SharePlex

Compared 61% of the time

Qlik Replicate vs Quest SharePlex

Compared 15% of the time

AWS Database Migration Service vs Quest SharePlex

Compared 10% of the time

Fivetran vs Quest SharePlex

Compared 8% of the time

IBM App Connect vs Quest SharePlex

Compared 7% of the time

More Quest SharePlex Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere DataStage

April 2025

Download IBM InfoSphere DataStage product report

Buyer's Guide

Quest SharePlex

June 2025

Download Quest SharePlex product report

Also Known As

No data available

Dell SharePlex, SharePlex

Overview

IBM InfoSphere DataStage is a high-quality data integration tool that aims to design, develop, and run jobs that move and transform data for organizations of different sizes. The product works by integrating data across multiple systems through a high-performance parallel framework. It supports extended metadata management, enterprise connectivity, and integration of all types of data.

The solution is the data integration component of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, providing a graphical framework for moving data from source systems to target systems. IBM InfoSphere DataStage can deliver data to data warehouses, data marts, operational data sources, and other enterprise applications. The tool works with various types of patterns - extract, transform and load (ETL), and extract, load, and transform (ELT). The scalability of the platform is achieved by using parallel processing and enterprise connectivity.

The solution has various versions, catering to different types of companies, which include the Server Edition, the Enterprise Edition, and the MVS Edition. Depending on which version a company has bought, different goals can be achieved. They include the following:

Designing data flows to extract information from multiple sources, transform the data, and deliver it to target databases or applications.
Delivery of relevant and accurate data through direct connections to enterprise applications.
Reduction of development time and improvement of consistency through prebuilt functions.
Utilization of InfoSphere Information Server tools for accelerating the project delivery cycle.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage can be deployed in various ways, including:

As a service: The tool can be accessed from a subscription model, where its capabilities are a part of IBM DataStage on IBM Cloud Park for Data as a Service. This option offers full management on IBM Cloud.
On premises or in any cloud: The two editions - IBM DataStage Enterprise and IBM DataStage Enterprise Plus - can run workloads on premises or in any cloud when added to IBM DataStage on IBM Cloud Pak for Data as a Service.
On premises: The basic jobs of the tool can be run on premises using IBM DataStage.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage Features

The tool has various features through which users can integrate and utilize their data effectively. The components of IBM InfoSphere DataStage include:

AI services: The tool offers services such as data science, event messaging, data warehousing, and data virtualization. It accelerates processes through artificial intelligence (AI) and offers a connection with IBM Cloud Paks - the cloud-native insight platform of the solution.
Parallel engine: Through this feature, ETL performance can be optimized to process data at scale. This is achieved through parallel engine and load balancing, which maximizes throughput.
Metadata support: This feature of the product uses the IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog to protect companies' sensitive data and monitor who can access it and at what levels.
Automated delivery pipelines: IBM InfoSphere DataStage reduces costs by automating continuous integration and delivery of pipelines.
Prebuilt connectors: The feature for prebuilt connectivity and stages allows users to move data between multiple cloud sources and data warehouses, including IBM native products.
IBM DataStage Flow Designer: This feature offers assistance through machine learning design. The product offers its clients a user-friendly interface which facilitates the work process.
IBM InfoSphere QualityStage: The tool provides a feature that automatically resolves data quality issues and increases the reliability of the delivered data.
Automated failure detection: Through this feature, companies can reduce infrastructure management efforts, relying on the automated detection that the tool offers.
Distributed data processing: Cloud runtimes can be executed remotely through this feature while maintaining its sovereignty and decreasing costs.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage Benefits

This solution offers many benefits for the companies that utilize it for data integration. Some of these benefits include:

Increased speed of workload execution due to better balancing and a parallel engine.
Reduction of data movement costs through integrations and seamless design of jobs.
Modernization of data integration by extending the capabilities of companies' data.
Delivery of reliable data through IBM Cloud Pak for Data.
Utilization of a drag-and-drop interface which assists in the delivery of data without the need for code.
Effective data manipulation allows data to be merged before being mapped and transformed.
Creating easier access of users to their data by providing visual maps of the process and the delivered data.

Reviews from Real Users

A data/solution architect at a computer software company says the product is robust, easy to use, has a simple error logging mechanism, and works very well for huge volumes of data.

Tirthankar Roy Chowdhury, team leader at Tata Consultancy Services, feels the tool is user-friendly with a lot of functionalities, and doesn't require much coding because of its drag-and-drop features.

IBM

SharePlex database replication empowers your organization to achieve its database goals now and into the future. Make use of built-in monitoring, conflict resolution, data comparison and synchronization capabilities backed by award-winning support.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Dubai Statistics Center, Etisalat Egypt

Bodybuilding.com, Priceline.com, Ameco Beijing, Viasat, SK Broadband

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex

July 2025

Free Report: IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs. Quest SharePlex report.

See our list of best Data Integration vendors.

We monitor all Data Integration reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.