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IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs erwin Data Catalog comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 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

erwin Data Catalog
Ranking in Metadata Management
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM InfoSphere Information ...
Ranking in Metadata Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of erwin Data Catalog is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Server is 2.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM InfoSphere Information Server2.9%
erwin Data Catalog3.1%
Other94.0%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

Andres-Martinez - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Data Analytics Engineer at Targa Research
Helps with metadata management, saves time, and allows us to do impact analysis on any changes
There are always ways to improve things. For example, we can use AI to be able to find out something. When we are typing something, if we don't know the exact term, Artificial Intelligence would be useful to find terms that are phonetically or syntactically similar. Instead of having to type in the exact name, they can provide those in the list. So, they can provide AI support for the search because when you have thousands and thousands of terms, it is hard to remember all the names. There were some issues when drawing the data models. If you have more than 500 or 600 tables, it takes a long time to display those in the right position on the screen. That can also be improved. They need some caching and some parallel pipelines working on the backend in order to divide it into sections.
MI
Senior Data Engineer at Mohammed Mansour Alrumiah
Faced challenges with customer support and documentation but have benefited from reliable data integration over the years
As for utilizing the platform's metadata management feature, I have not worked on that feature yet, but personally, I have done that. To evaluate the effectiveness of IBM InfoSphere Information Server's data integration capabilities, if IBM is providing all the solutions we are using, then it is definitely a helpful thing. Mostly, the other thing is that it is a big area including data governance, data lineage, data management, and metadata, but every customer is not putting that much effort and money on that. They mostly migrate the data, use it, and forget it, but slowly things are changing. I am working in Saudi Arabia, so here also data governance, data management, and those kinds of things are getting attention. Regarding how scalable IBM InfoSphere Information Server is, I need to learn how to tune performance and scalability on the cloud. I am familiar with localized hardware, but on the cloud, I still have to do the work around it. In the beginning, we estimate the load and based on that, we put the hardware, but if there is continuous increase, I believe IBM also faces problems. Scalability needs to be improved because once the demand comes, you should be able to improve it, but for that, documentation on how to add hardware or resources to the software needs to be proper. I do not have much hands-on experience with that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When you combine it with data lineage, every time you need to make a change, it allows you to do impact analysis on any changes and then connect to the end-users or data stewards so that they can be aware that a change is coming. That's one of the main benefits we use it for."
"The data catalog feature is pretty good."
"The initial IBM InfoSphere Information Server is straightforward and you can choose what type of installation you want, such as a customized installation, with clear-cut documentation that, if followed, works fine and the installation has not given us issues."
"Deploying the solution is straightforward for me."
"Data connections, data partitioning, flexibility, and performance are the most valuable features."
"Over the years of working with IBM InfoSphere Information Server, I see basically the strength of the tool, capability, and load balancing, which I see is really good."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Reduces the loading and development time for Datawarehouse ETL."
"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."
 

Cons

"There are always ways to improve things. For example, we can use AI to be able to find out something. When we are typing something, if we don't know the exact term, Artificial Intelligence would be useful to find terms that are phonetically or syntactically similar. Instead of having to type in the exact name, they can provide those in the list. So, they can provide AI support for the search because when you have thousands and thousands of terms, it is hard to remember all the names."
"There were some issues when drawing the data models. If you have more than 500 or 600 tables, it takes a long time to display those in the right position on the screen."
"There is room for improvement with respect to the connector and how to connect to the structured and unstructured database."
"Customer Service: It's poor."
"We have decided to decrease the usage of metadata management because we did not see any significant advantages."
"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."
"Unlike other tools, IBM tools do not provide much help from the internet, so additional support should be available."
"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."
"Heavy use of scratch disk which sometimes leads to failure."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be more scalable. It should have the option to change the configuration to run on a single, non-multiple node, or multi-threading processing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Erwin Data Catalog is very expensive."
"I am not very familiar with its pricing. I know it is not cheap, but it is also not super expensive. It depends on the company size. For a company making $1 million, it is very expensive. For a company making 10 million and above, it might be okay."
"The licensing cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Server depends on how many users there are."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Which ETL tool would you recommend to populate data from OLTP to OLAP?
There are two products I know about * TimeXtender : Microsoft based, Transformation logic is quiet good and can easily be extended with T-SQL , Has a semantic layer that generates metat data for cu...
What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are using the on-premises version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, but we feel that all new development is mainly for the cloud. We receive corrections of errors, but we do not see new func...
What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
My usual use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server is ETL, where we take data from one source to another data warehouse solution.
What advice do you have for others considering IBM InfoSphere Information Server?
We are about to change our platform from IBM AIX to SUSE Linux, as our whole platform is changing, so everyone should change from IBM to SUSE Linux. It would be very difficult for us to have a diff...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Balfour Beatty Construction, Banco de México, BFSI Canada, CenturyLink, Daktronics
Canadian National Railway Company, Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce, Swedish Armed Forces, BG RCI, Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd., University of Arizona, Biogrid Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. erwin Data Catalog and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,942 professionals have used our research since 2012.