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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
7th
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 (2nd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 5.3%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is 23.5%, down from 27.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Saikat Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Match and merge functionality is still the best but cloud version needs more functionality
There are various areas for improvement in IDMC. Enhancements on basic data management functionality and the UI front, such as multiple templates and improved grid views, would be beneficial. Bulk data management features could be improved from the UI perspective to get to the level of the on prem versions of Informatica MDM. The tool needs to mature but missing small but important features, like restricted dynamic attributes functionality, data inheritance rules in master hierachies, identifiers not being passed in jobs is a drawback.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to use."
"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."
"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 ability to create special rules inside the solution using Portuguese is the most valuable feature."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"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."
"A great product enrichment tool."
"It's got a reputation in the industry as one of the best solutions for master data management. So, it's what we see in the Gartner top right quadrant as the best product in that space."
"Their new licensing is very flexible. With Informatica Cloud, you have plenty of items under the same umbrella, such as services, offerings, data quality, and data masking. You have also got master data management and API management. What I really like about them is that you don't need to go to Informatica and say that you need a data integration module. You would say that you need iPaaS or Informatica Cloud. They'll then try to understand your needs and give you IPUs, which are the processing units. If I purchased a hundred IPUs from Informatica as a customer, I can use 70 IPUs for data integration. I would also need data quality, so I can use 10 IPUs for data quality. I can use the remaining 20 IPUs for API management. Down the line, if I see that my initial data integration needs for the development phase are met, then out of the 70 IPUs assigned for data integration, I can use 30 IPUs for data masking. I can shuffle these numbers in any way within the Informatica Cloud umbrella for the tenure for which I have subscribed to these IPUs. I can use all services the way I want. This flexibility is what I really love about Informatica. It also has got good connectors."
"The mass ingestion functionality and the elasticity of the solution are great."
"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."
"Axon has something called Overlay, which can be used to extend the technical lineage."
"Its data cleansing capabilities are very valuable. The match and merge and the audit trail functionalities are very good."
"The most valuable features of Informatica Cloud Data Integration for our clients are the AI capabilities within Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services."
 

Cons

"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 simplicity of usage could improve. Perhaps the simplicity of use for end users, not for system integrators, but for the user, the end users."
"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."
"A complex solution that requires a lot of coding."
"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."
"They need to improve asset management."
"The solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC."
"I have encountered some issues using the substitution, which is one of the techniques of data masking."
"We'd like to see the microservices, which don't run yet because the solution is not yet fully cloud-based."
"There is room for improvement at the highest level in terms of useability and connectors for various types of new applications. The row processing performance could be better because you experience some latency dealing with high volumes of data. Most organizations will be dealing with multiple cloud applications, so you could see performance issues moving from one system to another."
"The current features are a bit complicated, and we need to write big scripts and test."
"Its pricing model can be improved. The response time from technical support can also be improved."
"Interoperability is one area where EDC has room for improvement. It was challenging when the faculty took over the data world and had specific vendors they wanted to use, and some were not particularly open platforms."
"One area where Informatica Cloud Data Integration could improve is in providing more accelerators for certain functionalities."
"The UI is extremely complex"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The price is neither too high nor too low."
"The pricing structure is good, but having to pay for extra drivers to be used in an ICS environment makes me a little nervous."
"The platform has a premium cost. I rate the pricing as seven out of ten."
"The product has a high price point."
"I have no idea what the price actually is. It is probably not going to be the cheapest, but it is a pretty stable and robust platform from the backend standpoint."
"We have licenses, and we are provided with certain particular services in the solution."
"It is an expensive solution. I would say it is the most expensive solution in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
40%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Non Tech Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.