IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server comparison

IBM Cloud Pak for Data and IBM InfoSphere Information Server are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM Cloud Pak for Data is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM InfoSphere Information Server is ranked #29 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM Cloud Pak for Data holds a 1.3% mindshare in DI, compared to IBM InfoSphere Information Server’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM Cloud Pak for Data users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM InfoSphere Information Server users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Read 15 IBM Cloud Pak for Data reviews

2,163 Views
2,033 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Read 8 IBM InfoSphere Information Server reviews

1,528 Views
1,161 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

IBM InfoSphere Information Server and IBM Cloud Pak for Data compete in the data management and analytics category. IBM Cloud Pak for Data appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and data processing capabilities.

Features: IBM InfoSphere Information Server focuses on data integration, governance, and quality management, ensuring high-quality data management. Its suite is comprehensive for these tasks. IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI, supporting a unified data platform for complete data processing and insight solutions. It emphasizes a scalable analytics approach.

Room for Improvement: IBM InfoSphere Information Server could enhance its analytics capabilities and offer more flexibility in AI integration. It might also improve cloud-native adaptability. IBM Cloud Pak for Data could lower its initial costs, optimize its integration with existing systems, and simplify its feature set for ease of use. Improvements in these areas could enhance user experience and accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM InfoSphere Information Server is valued for its easy deployment and reliable customer service, integrating smoothly with current systems. IBM Cloud Pak for Data supports hybrid cloud deployment, offering scalability across environments and fast service response, which highlights its strength in adaptability.

Pricing and ROI: IBM InfoSphere Information Server provides competitive pricing and a strong ROI, thanks to its efficient data management enhancements. Conversely, IBM Cloud Pak for Data may have a higher initial cost, but it offers significant ROI due to its extensive analytics and AI features, justifying the expense with its technological advancements.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server

December 2025

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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 Cloud Pak for Data

Ranking in Data Integration

23rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Virtualization (3rd)

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Ranking in Data Integration

29th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Data is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Server is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cloud Pak for Data	1.3%
IBM InfoSphere Information Server	1.0%
Other	97.7%

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Starts strong with data management capabilities but needs a demo database

What I would love to see is an end-to-end, almost a training demo database of some sort, where one of the biggest problems with data management is demonstrated. There are so many components to data management, and more often than not, people understand one thing really well. They may understand DataStage and how to move data around, but they do not see the impact of moving data incorrectly. They also do not see the impact of everyone understanding a piece of data in the same way. I would love Cloud Pak to come with a demo database that illustrates the different components of data management in a logical way, so I can see the whole picture instead of just the area I'm specializing in. It would be great if Cloud Pak, from a data modeling point of view, allowed us to import our PDMs, for example. It would be ideal to import and create business terms in Cloud Pak. The PEA would be great to create the technical data. The association between the business and the technical metadata could then be automated by pulling it through from your ACE models. The data modeling component is available in Cloud Pak. Additionally, when it comes to Cloud Pak, even though it has the NextGen DataStage built into it, there is Cloud Pak for data integration as well. Currently, I do not think we have a full enough understanding of how CP4D and CP4I can enhance each other.

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MOHAMMAD-IQBAL

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love the way that I can start at a very basic level with my data management journey by capturing my policies, justifying my data, and putting them into different categories to say this is data relating to individuals, for example, or data relating to geography."

"It is a scalable solution, and we have had no issues with its scalability in our company. I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten."

"Cloud Pak's most valuable features are IBM MQ, IBM App Connect, IBM API Connect, and ISPF."

"DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources."

"Its data preparation capabilities are highly valuable."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features are data virtualization and reporting."

"I would advise others looking into using IBM Cloud Pak for Data that it is a very great tool that is an all-in-one, real-time data analytics solution that provides a phenomenal user experience."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data pros

"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."

"The integration with different technologies is the most valuable feature."

"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

Cons

"The setup for IBM Cloud Pak for Data is very complex, and our teams responsible for standing up the environment struggled a lot."

"The two main challenges that I face are setup complexity and customer support responsiveness."

"The solution could have more connectors."

"Cloud Pak would be improved with integration with cloud service providers like Cloudera."

"What I would love to see is an end-to-end, almost a training demo database of some sort, where one of the biggest problems with data management is demonstrated."

"One thing that bugs me is how much infrastructure Cloud Pak requires for the initial deployment. It doesn't allow you to start small. The smallest permitted deployment is too big. It's a huge problem that prevents us from implementing the solution in many scenarios."

"The tool depends on the control plane, an OpenShift container platform utilized as an orchestration layer...So, we have communicated this issue to IBM and asked if it is feasible to adapt the solution to work on a Kubernetes platform that we support."

"The technical support could be a little better."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data cons

"Their technical support needs improvement."

"Unlike other tools, IBM tools do not provide much help from the internet, so additional support should be available."

"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."

"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."

"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think that this product is too expensive for smaller companies."

"Cloud Pak's cost is a little high."

"For the licensing of the solution, there is a yearly payment that needs to be made. Also, since it is expensive, cost-wise, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"It's quite expensive."

"IBM Cloud Pak for Data is expensive. If we include the training time and the machine learning, it's expensive. The cost of the execution is more reasonable."

"The solution's pricing is competitive with that of other vendors."

"I don't have the exact licensing cost for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, as my company is still finalizing requirements, including monthly, yearly, and three-year licensing fees. Still, on a scale of one to five, I'd rate it a three because, compared to other vendors, it's more complicated."

"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

26%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

18%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Insurance Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The pricing and setup cost are handled by a different procurement team. Our IT procurement team is centralized, so licensing and the actual cost of the software are taken care of by a different tea...

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What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

I do not know if Cognos has all the features that users are looking for since we provide it as our standard and do not maintain infrastructure for other tools.

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What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The main use case for IBM Cognos is for business intelligence and reporting.

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What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere Information Server?

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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.

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What advice do you have for others considering IBM InfoSphere Information Server?

Currently, IBM InfoSphere Information Server is deployed on-premises in my organization. Mostly it is on-premises only, but slowly things are changing towards pro-cloud. It will not be a public clo...

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Comparisons

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 39% of the time

Denodo vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 12% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 7% of the time

Teradata vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data Competitors

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 19% of the time

Oracle GoldenGate vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 13% of the time

StreamSets vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM InfoSphere Information Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

January 2026

Download IBM Cloud Pak for Data product report

Buyer's Guide

Data Integration

January 2026

IBM InfoSphere Information Server report

Download IBM InfoSphere Information Server product report

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data

InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server

Overview

IBM Cloud Pak® for Data is a fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data to infuse AI throughout their organizations. Cloud-native by design, the platform unifies market-leading services spanning the entire analytics lifecycle. From data management, DataOps, governance, business analytics and automated AI, IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps eliminate the need for costly, and often competing, point solutions while providing the information architecture you need to implement AI successfully.

Building on the streamlined hybrid-cloud foundation of Red Hat® OpenShift®, IBM Cloud Pak for Data takes advantage of the underlying resource and infrastructure optimization and management. The solution fully supports multicloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud™ and private cloud deployments. Find out how IBM Cloud Pak for Data can lower your total cost of ownership and accelerate innovation.

IBM

IBM InfoSphere Information Server is a market-leading data integration platform which includes a family of products that enable you to understand, cleanse, monitor, transform, and deliver data, as well as to collaborate to bridge the gap between business and IT. InfoSphere Information Server provides massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities to deliver a highly scalable and flexible integration platform that handles a variety of data volumes (big, small, and everything in between).

IBM

Sample Customers

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival

Canadian National Railway Company, Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce, Swedish Armed Forces, BG RCI, Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd., University of Arizona, Biogrid Australia

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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