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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 11, 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
9th
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
214
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), API Management (6th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (3rd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (1st), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (3rd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (1st), AI Data Analysis (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 3.1%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 16.0%, down from 24.2% 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)16.0%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog3.1%
Other80.9%
Metadata Management
 

Featured Reviews

KM
Member Of Technical Staff at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A solution that allows for custom assets and data lineages but experiences performance issues when scaling up
The solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC. It is an Open IGC issue and does not allow a large volume of records to upload in one pass. We have experienced this issue with multiple versions of the solution including 11.3, 11.5 and 11.7 and have escalated the concern to IBM who is trying to resolve it. It would be a benefit to allow more customizations on the UI. Internally, we have identified a number of solutions to the look and feel of the product that we would like to be able to customize.
Divya-Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant cum Assistant Manager & Offshore Lead at Deloitte
Handles large data volumes effectively and offers competitive pricing
There is a lot of improvement required, as we still face some cache issues most of the time, which is a challenge that we expect to see resolved in the future. Additionally, there is some limitation when we are working with a tool, especially regarding In and Out parameters, and I feel that this aspect should be improved going ahead. We face issues with the API side, as Cloud Application Integration cannot handle large volumes; according to the API page, there is a limitation of 500 records or 500 MB. The AI integrated into the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services solution is called Application Integration, where we still face challenges when dealing with huge volumes, as previously explained.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It is easy to use."
"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 tool's most valuable feature is bulk upload. We upload files in CSV or Excel format."
"I like that Informatica MDM has robust matching technology. Informatica MDM is also porting the external Java applications for validations. I can consider that a must-have. It is also exposed to Rest API calls, and we can engage in real-time integrations with any third-party systems."
"There isn't any human touch involved. It's just an automated business process to build different applications and talking to various APIs using the client's ecosystems. We then build new functionalities out of it."
"The process of using the tool's scalability option is well documented."
"The valuable features include ease of use and quick response time with Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services; the performance and response time are notably faster."
"The profiling feature in Informatica Data Quality is incredibly effective for data governance."
"The metadata management of Informatica is great."
"The solution is straightforward."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"They need to improve asset management."
"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."
"The tool is quite good overall, but sometimes the number of modules can be overwhelming. If the development interface could be optimized to have fewer modules, it would be greatly beneficial."
"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."
"Pre-sales technical support is much better than post-sales technical support."
"The cost of Informatica MDM is expensive and has room for improvement."
"Informatica's issue is the licensing. Right now, there are a lot of new gen MDMs that are offering a lot in a single licensing model."
"In terms of cost effectiveness, Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is more than 20% costly compared to the industry."
"It would be helpful if there was a GenAI feature integrated into the system, especially regarding the data quality."
"The product interface could be improved to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It's an expensive solution."
"Licensing is difficult to understand, but the team is always available to explain anything. They are very helpful."
"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."
"We switched to Informatica PIM because it was cheaper than the Oracle solution. It is cheaper initially, but they will bundle it later. This is what happens in the industry."
"I rate Informatica MDM's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The pricing model is something that can be improved."
"It's a costly solution"
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
35%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
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 Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise153
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

IBM Information Governance Catalog
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
 

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: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.