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IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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 Information ...
Ranking in Metadata Management
7th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Metadata Management
1st
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), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 5.3%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 23.5%, down from 27.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tirthankar Roy Chowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and has a lot of automation, with just a little bit of manual intervention required
An area for improvement in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it's missing a lot of connectors. Clients complain about not being able to connect some data sources because there's no available connector, so my company raised that issue with IBM. In some cases, third-party connectors are available, but not for all data sources. Another area that needs improvement in the solution is stability because it also has some stability issues. This is the same issue with the other IBM products bundled with IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog. The solution is connected with IBM Infosphere Information Analyzer and IBM InfoSphere DataStage in my company, so if one has issues with stability, the rest of the products are affected as well.
Saikat Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It is easy to use."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"What I liked about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it seemed to have most of the options that you would want from a government catalog. The features of the product are very rich and comprehensive."
"Ability to connect with multiple types of sources."
"The best feature of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog for me is that it's easy to use and only requires a little bit of manual intervention. Once you discover the data sources, everything flows into the tool automatically, so you do not have to map it manually. There's been a lot of automation in the solution which I like best."
"The ability to create special rules inside the solution using Portuguese is the most valuable feature."
"The solution allows us to leverage a concept called Open IGC to create custom assets and data lineages that are not technologies typically supported by IBM via connectors."
"The advanced features like task flow and conditional integration are particularly useful."
"The data mapping capability is a valuable feature."
"The solution has multiple valuable features for metadata collection"
"It is easy to create REST-based interfaces of the master data objects."
"The feature of auto-onboarding of the assets, enterprise assets via EDC is good."
"What I like best about Informatica MDM is its structured, table-based approach. Unlike Reltio, where data is only visible through the UI and cloud-based, the solution allows access to normalized tables. This means I can directly query and see data in each table. For instance, I can easily get all customer details from the customer table. However, for more complex queries, like seeing all customer interactions with the organization, some SQL knowledge is needed to join different tables and retrieve the details."
"The solution is stable."
"The support is very good."
 

Cons

"The solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC."
"What I would tell IBM in terms of what needs to change or improve is that the product is too complicated. IBM purchased various components from different vendors over time and certainly in the UK, IBM did not have anybody that had the expertise to be able to get IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog to run properly."
"Sometimes, if the product is new, getting support is difficult and the team was facing some challenges."
"The simplicity of usage could improve. Perhaps the simplicity of use for end users, not for system integrators, but for the user, the end users."
"They need to improve asset management."
"A complex solution that requires a lot of coding."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"What could be improved in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is its query tool, including its terms, labels, and reports because the query tool isn't user-friendly. This would also be an additional feature or enhancement in the solution that would make it more attractive to users and would make IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog a really good solution."
"The model is somewhat flexible. There are certain aspects of the model that are not as flexible as we would like. It doesn't do certain things to a great level of depth. So, in situations where we want to drill in to do something specific, we have to essentially copy that data into our own structures in order to add that additional layer of flexibility."
"The advertising makes promises about data analytics that it does not keep."
"If I want to scan the metadata from the data lineage or the Python code, such areas can get tedious in the tool."
"The biggest challenge I see is the IDE's for the cloud and automization are different."
"Performance also needs to be significantly improved, especially when connecting to SFDC for read and write operations."
"Informatica Axon does not provide complete transparency about the level of detailing you need and the logic used in ETL."
"The solution still is a bit manual in its functionality. We want t to be more automation-driven."
"Informatica MDM's UI is not intuitive enough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"In terms of pricing, I find IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog excessive. It's at the top end of the price range in terms of what you get for your money. It's an expensive product, and contractually, IBM is difficult to deal with. I can't remember the exact cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog, but it could be in the region of three hundred thousand pounds."
"Informatica MDM's price could be lower."
"It's pretty high for us. It's more on the higher side, like low to middle high."
"We are quite happy with the licensing model."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"Informatica Axon is expensive."
"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."
"I rate the licensing cost of Informatica MDM a five out of ten."
"It's an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
41%
Computer Software Company
8%
Non Tech Company
5%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

IBM Information Governance Catalog
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

 

Sample Customers

Rabobank, QuadReal Property Group, Jakarta Smart City
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.