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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
6th
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 (1st), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 6.2%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 20.0%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)20.0%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog6.2%
Other73.8%
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.
SaurabhGaonshindhe - PeerSpot reviewer
Modular structure and AI features stream new reporting processes
One of my clients has a requirement; they want to integrate metadata into the process, which means, for example, if I just want to implement a new field into my database, that field needs to be reflected throughout, let's say, 200 mappings. This highlights the need for a data-driven approach. My experience with technical support from Informatica is quite interesting; I would rate it as nine out of ten for Informatica PowerCenter kind of products or the Informatica integration products, because my team can do some hands-on using their free licenses or one-month kind of products. However, for products Master Data Management or related to MDM or Data Governance, there is no way by which we can directly practice, and my team struggles at that point.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is easy to use."
"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"The ability to create special rules inside the solution using Portuguese is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"The feature I found most valuable in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is the lineage as it's very powerful and it provides data analytics in terms of where the data lives and where it goes. The interface is also clear, though it could still be sorted out, but the lineage is the most powerful thing in the solution."
"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 most valuable features of the solution are pushdown, optimization, and partitioning, which can be used for frequent data loading, especially when we have a huge data volume in our company."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica Axon is features, interfaces, and data mapping. It represents clusters nicely."
"​The tool manually checks on applying business rules and helps to implement them."
"Informatica is user-friendly, stable, and scalable. These three aspects are the most valuable for us. If we can make it work well with the CRM, we can continue or try again this year to complete that part of the project. I am confident that this kind of solution is what we need because we have a third-party resource that works in the development."
"The most valuable feature is data discovery. This is the most exciting feature for all of the banks."
"It allows the creation of identical tasks that can be applied across multiple tables, ranging from 100 to even 1,000 tables."
"This is where I think MDM shines - with its strong fuzzy matching algorithm. This is the essence of Informatica MDM. Based on these results, I can write our match conditions and then perform the corresponding data management activities."
"It has flexibility in extending the data model."
 

Cons

"A complex solution that requires a lot of coding."
"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."
"Sometimes, if the product is new, getting support is difficult and the team was facing some challenges."
"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."
"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 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."
"It needs to be a little more intuitive but it’s really not bad."
"I would like to have the solution in one product and technical support needs to be better."
"The on-prem solution is harder to learn than the cloud-based versions."
"I would like to see better visuals for business users, such as a dashboard where they can precisely track where problems are."
"Informatica Enterprise Data Catalog could improve by having a much better user interface. It is not user-friendly."
"Enhancements on the UI front, such as multiple templates and improved grid views, would be beneficial."
"Its cloud-based version has a few limitations compared to the on-premise version."
"A general improvement in icons and the virtual interface would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
"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 Axon is expensive."
"Informatica Axon is a costly solution. I rate Informatica Axon a four out of ten for its pricing."
"Informatica MDM is very expensive. Apart from licensing fees, they have broken down their products into multiple products, and they charge for each and every product. If the data is huge, they charge for the data. At times, we have to use third party services for data cleaning, and they charge for that as well."
"Our customers sometimes are able to negotiate a much better price for Informatica Cloud Data Integration based on their relationship with the vendor."
"Informatica MDM's pricing is not cheap but comparable to other vendors."
"The pricing structure is good, but having to pay for extra drivers to be used in an ICS environment makes me a little nervous."
"Licensing is difficult to understand, but the team is always available to explain anything. They are very helpful."
"Informatica MDM's price could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
45%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
5%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise134
 

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: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.