IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs SAS Data Management comparison

IBM and SAS are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.7, while SAS is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 1.3% mindshare in DI, compared to SAS’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of SAS 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

SAS Data Management

Read 18 SAS Data Management reviews

2,052 Views
1,108 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

SAS Data Management

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

SAS Data Management and IBM Cloud Pak for Data compete in the data management solutions category. IBM Cloud Pak for Data holds an advantage due to user endorsements for its integration and functionality capabilities.

Features: SAS Data Management excels in ETL processes, data quality, and data governance. It provides a unified view of enterprise data and supports multiple data sources through ODBC drivers. SAS's interface is user-friendly, even for non-technical users. IBM Cloud Pak for Data offers strong containerization and data virtualization. It incorporates Watson Knowledge Catalog, enhancing data governance and AI integration. It also features components for seamless cloud transitions.

Room for Improvement: SAS Data Management faces high licensing costs and requires stronger capabilities beyond ETL and improved database connectivity. IBM Cloud Pak for Data needs enhanced machine learning lifecycle management and a more streamlined installation. Users indicate complexity in cloud transitions and infrastructure needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAS Data Management is primarily on-premises, with mixed feedback on customer support due to accessibility and expertise issues. IBM Cloud Pak for Data fits cloud and hybrid deployments but can be complex to implement at scale. It offers dependable customer service to address deployment challenges.

Pricing and ROI: Both solutions are costly, with SAS Data Management yielding high satisfaction in sectors like pharmaceuticals due to compliance needs. IBM Cloud Pak for Data's expenses align with its extensive capabilities, although smaller enterprises may find affordability challenging. Both promise ROI in data reliability and efficiency gains.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAS Data Management

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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.5

IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps large enterprises improve data quality, boosting AI processes and enhancing decision-making productivity.

Sentiment score

5.8

SAS Data Management boosts data accuracy, reduces storage costs, and is vital in banking, finance, and pharmaceutical sectors.

We have been able to drive responsible, transparent, and explainable AI workflow to operationalize AI and mitigate risk and regulatory compliance easily.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.7

IBM Cloud Pak for Data's support is responsive and available 24/7, despite some delays due to system complexity.

Sentiment score

7.1

Customer service satisfaction with SAS Data Management is high, despite regional differences and limited online resources, thanks to responsive support.

Cloud Pak is a complicated system, and it's often difficult to find the right resource in IBM to help with specific issues.

Michelle Leslie

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

Customer support should be more responsive and reach and respond on time.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

IBM support is very supportive, and I would rate them an eight out of ten based on our long relationship with them.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

The support for SAS in Brazil is not the best one, but the support in Sweden is really good, as they visit the company and work to solve the issues.

Fernanda Knopki

Data Scientist & Scrum Master at Volvo Group

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

IBM Cloud Pak for Data is praised for impressive scalability and compatibility, despite being resource-intensive, with ratings mostly 8-10.

Sentiment score

6.8

SAS Data Management is highly scalable, supporting enterprise tasks with robust servers, comparable to Oracle and Microsoft solutions.

I have not noticed any downtime or lagging, especially when dealing with large data, so it is relatively very scalable.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.5

IBM Cloud Pak for Data is generally stable and well-rated, with users emphasizing scalability despite minor tool integration concerns.

Sentiment score

7.2

SAS Data Management is highly stable, especially on Linux, but might need client-side configurations for optimal performance.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Room For Improvement

IBM Cloud Pak for Data needs better integration, support, features, and pricing to attract small businesses and simplify adoption.

SAS Data Management needs improved usability, licensing, integration, cloud features, scalability, stability, and enhanced automated reporting and documentation.

Setting up the hybrid and multi-cloud environments is a long job and it takes time.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

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.

Michelle Leslie

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

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.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

There is significant room for improvement, especially with regard to using a hybrid approach that involves both CAS and persistent storage.

SantoshTiwari

Associate Director at Woodpecker Analytics & Services

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Setup Cost

IBM Cloud Pak for Data's high pricing and complexity make it more suitable for large enterprises than smaller companies.

SAS Data Management is powerful but costly, with affordability challenges for businesses, though educational trials and market-based pricing options exist.

The setup cost is very expensive.

Michelle Leslie

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

Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, for a small organization, the price might be relatively high, but for huge enterprises such as ours, the price is relatively affordable.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

From my experience, SAS Data Management is an expensive tool.

SantoshTiwari

Associate Director at Woodpecker Analytics & Services

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

Valuable Features

IBM Cloud Pak for Data excels with data virtualization, low-code navigation, robust security, and efficient data integration and collaboration.

SAS Data Management provides user-friendly, comprehensive data handling with strong integration, quality, governance, and flexible connectivity features.

We have been able to save approximately 80 percent of our time. We are not doing data analysis manually, so this relieves our data department of dealing with data.

ArchanaSingh

Senior Data Analyst at Wipro

The benefits of choosing IBM Cognos, in addition to saving on cost, include having institutional knowledge about maintaining this infrastructure and enough people who have developed on Cognos in the past, which creates comfort in its use.

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

From there, I can work my way into a more granular level, applying all of that information on top of my actual data to understand what my data looks like, where it came from, and where it went wrong, managing it throughout the cycle.

Michelle Leslie

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

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Cloud Pak for Data report

Fernanda Knopki

Data Scientist & Scrum Master at Volvo Group

SAS Data Management stands out because of its data standardization, transformation, and verification capabilities.

SantoshTiwari

Associate Director at Woodpecker Analytics & Services

For more quotes and insights, download the SAS Data Management report

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)

SAS Data Management

Ranking in Data Integration

28th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Quality (7th), Data Governance (22nd)

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 SAS Data Management is 1.0%, up from 0.7% 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%
SAS Data Management	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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Fernanda Knopki

Data Scientist & Scrum Master at Volvo Group

Has supported centralized data access and improved governance through unified administration

The best features I appreciate about SAS Data Management tool are that it's easy to create the flows and schedule data, and the tables are not too big, making it easy to control the ETL process, including user access which is also easy to manage in SAS. The data integration tools with SAS Data Management were quite good because they allowed me to do all lineage, to manage and see all the variables, find the libraries where the data is, and understand the data in just one tool. Offering another development environment combining code and predefined objects, where I could just drag and drop to achieve what I needed, although some objects were not too good, but some were effective. The metadata management feature of SAS Data Management helps a lot; creating your data marts or data lake with good naming conventions, library conventions, and so on is very important because it allows easy queries to find the whole structure, though I think metadata governance also depends on first definitions, not only on the tool. SAS Data Management is very good for data governance; for me, it was the best tool I worked with in data management, although I don't have too much experience with others, and it truly helped a lot.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

28%

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	8

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Data Management?

From my experience, SAS Data Management is an expensive tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAS Data Management?

There is significant room for improvement, especially with regard to using a hybrid approach that involves both CAS and persistent storage.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SAS Data Management?

The main idea for using SAS Data Management was to bring all data inside SAS. I brought the finance area and the sales area in the company that I have worked, along with some market planning data, ...

See all answers

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

Oracle GoldenGate vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data Competitors

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs SAS Data Management

Compared 14% of the time

Collibra Platform vs SAS Data Management

Compared 10% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs SAS Data Management

Compared 6% of the time

Qlik Talend Cloud vs SAS Data Management

Compared 6% of the time

Protegrity’s Data Protection Platform vs SAS Data Management

Compared 5% of the time

More SAS Data Management Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

January 2026

Download IBM Cloud Pak for Data product report

Buyer's Guide

SAS Data Management

January 2026

Download SAS Data Management product report

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data

SAS Data Management Platform, Data Management Platform, DataFlux

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

Every decision, every business move, every successful customer interaction - they all come down to high-quality, well-integrated data. If you don't have it, you don't win. SAS Data Management is an industry-leading solution built on a data quality platform that helps you improve, integrate and govern your data.

SAS

Sample Customers

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival

Data Management, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Absa, Aegon, Allianz Global Corporate & SpecialtyAusgrid, Bank of Queensland, Bell, BMC Software, Canada Post, Ceska pojistovna, Chantecler, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Credit Guarantee Corporation, Cr_dito y Cauci‹n, Delaware State Police, Deutsche Lufthansa, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, DSM, Enerjisa, ERGO Insurance Group, Florida Department of Corrections, Generali Hellas, Gitanjali Group, Gloucestershire Constabulary, GS Home Shopping, HealthPartners, IAG New Zealand, iJET, Invacare, Livzon Pharmaceutical Group, Los Angeles County, Miami Herald Media Company, Netherlands Enterprise Agency, New Zealand Ministry of Health, Nippon Paper, North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services, Orlando Magic, OTP Group, PITT OHIO, Plano Independent School District, RWE Poland, Spanish Air Force, Stockholm County Council, Telus, The Travel Corporation, Transitions Optical, Triad Analytic Solutions, UNIQA, US Census Bureau, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, West Midlands Police, XS Inc., Zenith Insurance

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. SAS Data Management

December 2025

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