IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs Quest Data Intelligence comparison

Why PeerSpot?

IBM and Quest Software are both solutions in the Metadata Management category. IBM is ranked #10, while Quest Software is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 2.9% mindshare in MM, compared to Quest Software’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 72% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Read 9 IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog reviews

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1,028 Comparison Views

72% willing to recommend

Quest Data Intelligence

Read 22 Quest Data Intelligence reviews

5,399 Views
2,322 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Quest Data Intelligence

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 16, 2026

In the realm of data intelligence and information governance, erwin Data Intelligence and IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog compete fiercely. While erwin is favored for automation and flexibility, IBM is preferred for handling complex data scenarios through superior integration.

Features: Erwin Data Intelligence includes smart data connectors, business glossaries, and data mapping capabilities. Automated reverse engineering and strong metadata management make it valuable for simplifying collaboration and standardizing data. IBM InfoSphere offers lineage and data analytics, interfacing with diverse sources, making it ideal for complex data management.

Room for Improvement: Erwin faces issues with its user interface, customization, and integration complexities. Its automation scripts need enhancement. IBM has a complex interface with limited connectors and scalability concerns. Simplifying user experience and expanding connector support would benefit IBM.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Erwin offers hybrid cloud deployment and generally responsive support, though some report slow responses. IBM is primarily on-premises, experiencing deployment and integration difficulties. Erwin is noted for outstanding support, whereas IBM is seen as adept but occasionally inflexible.

Pricing and ROI: Erwin is more cost-effective with reasonable feature-based pricing, offering strong ROI through process efficiency. However, it incurs costs for additional connectors and licenses. IBM is regarded as costly, with pricing based on record numbers leading to high expenses. Erwin is perceived to provide better value for money.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Quest Data Intelligence Report (Updated: July 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Quest Data Intelligence

July 2026

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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 InfoSphere Information ...

Ranking in Metadata Management

10th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Quest Data Intelligence

Ranking in Metadata Management

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Governance (18th), AI Governance (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 2.9%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Data Intelligence is 6.7%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Quest Data Intelligence	6.7%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog	2.9%
Other	90.4%

Metadata Management

Featured Reviews

Data Architect Insurance Co.

Data Architect at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Provides good catalog integration but requires too much coding

This is a complex solution and quite expensive. The technology has changed and I think IBM needs to be more flexible with their licensing model. We've been with them for over 10 years and they were unable to provide decent options for us. As the consumer, they weren't offering much flexibility and certainly not the support we were looking for given our long-standing relationship with them. There is also too much coding required compared with other solutions where you can do a lot directly in the environment and see how the policies apply.

Read full review

Jog Raj

Senior Consultant at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Automated lineage and business glossaries have improved data understanding and collaboration

I am open to answering a few questions about erwin Data Intelligence and sharing my opinion about the product. Regarding the analytic part of the product, I find it very interesting that erwin Data Intelligence has its own inbuilt reporting toolset, with a new version coming out in January that will be AI-powered. This means you will be able to write analytical reports and questions based on the metadata and data lineage, making it more powerful than the current version, as AI will assist in creating those reports and performing analysis on the metadata. I find that the time taken to realize value from erwin Data Intelligence can be quite long. Creating a data catalog and developing data lineage takes significant time, and I expect that AI will help accelerate the process of creating data products by streamlining the steps involved. I can recommend erwin Data Intelligence to other users. I would rate this review as an eight out of ten overall.

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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

"Anyone looking into using IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog should go for it because it's a leading governance provider, and IBM is known across the globe."

"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is a stable product."

"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."

"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."

"IBM tools always get inherent trust from companies."

"The valuable feature is that you can connect with multiple types of sources."

More IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog pros

"The main benefits erwin Data Intelligence provides to me include better decision-making, saving money and time by applying governance policies and procedures on the actual technical data, ensuring decisions are based on KPIs that are governed from source to end, and providing functionality for data classification to prevent unauthorized access through integration with the infrastructure team using DLP methodology."

"Data Intelligence creates a single source of truth for all of our metadata. This solution is better for data warehousing, but the metadata features speed up our development work. It's easy to create and manage mappings because we can export them to Informatica and pick up the work where we left off."

"Overall, DI's data cataloging, data literacy, and automation have helped our decision-makers because when a source wants to change something, we immediately know what the impact is going to be downstream."

"The biggest benefit with erwin DI is that I have a single source of truth that I can send anybody to. If anybody doesn't know the answer we can go back to it. Just having a central location of business rules is good."

"Erwin DI checked all the boxes for us."

"I can estimate that we lowered our time to market by 70 percent right now using these automation scripts, which is a really big thing."

"This type of solution was key to moving our entire company in the right direction by getting everyone to think about data governance."

"There is a wide range of widgets that enables the user to find the proper information quickly. The presentation of information is something very valuable."

More Quest Data Intelligence pros

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 solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC."

"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."

"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."

"They need to improve asset management."

"A few years ago, I would have rated the solution an eight or nine. With competition in the market and other products available, IBM needs to focus on fixing existing issues and adding more customizable features that provide the end user with a better product."

"We are currently evaluating other products because we want to move more quickly than we can with InfoSphere and we're held back because of all the coding."

"There were two failed installations and IBM could never actually get the product to work."

More IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog cons

"There is room for improvement in automation, no question."

"In my opinion, the analytics part of erwin Data Intelligence is not satisfactory."

"We still need another layer of data quality assessments on the source to see if it is sending us the wrong data or if there are some issues with the source data. For those things, we need a rule-based data quality assessment or scoring where we can assess tools or other technology stacks. We need to be able to leverage where the business comes in, defining some business rules and have the ability to execute those rules, then score the data quality of all those attributes. Data quality is definitely not what we are leveraging from this tool, as of today."

"There may be some opportunities for improvement in terms of the user interface to make it a little bit more intuitive. They have made some good progress. Originally, when we started, we were on version 9 or 10. Over the last couple of releases, I've seen some improvements that they have made, but there might be a few other additional areas in UI where they can make some enhancements."

"I find that the time taken to realize value from erwin Data Intelligence can be quite long."

"There is room for improvement with the data cataloging capability. Right now, there is a list of a lot of sources that they can catalog, or they can create metadata upon, but if they can add more then that would be a good plus for this tool."

"Scalability has room for improvement. It tends to slow down when we have large volumes of data, and it takes more time."

"There were some issues when drawing the data models. If you have more than 500 or 600 tables, it takes a long time to display those in the right position on the screen."

More Quest Data Intelligence cons

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."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."

"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."

"I am not very familiar with its pricing. I know it is not cheap, but it is also not super expensive. It depends on the company size. For a company making $1 million, it is very expensive. For a company making 10 million and above, it might be okay."

"The solution is aggressively priced."

"erwin is cheaper than other solutions and this should appeal to other buyers. It has a good price tag."

"We operate on a yearly subscription and because it is an enterprise license we only have one. It is not dependent on the number of users."

"erwin was at a good price. The federal government wouldn't buy something if the pricing wasn't good."

"The licensing cost is around $7,000 for user. This is an estimation."

"erwin's pricing was cheaper than its competitors."

"The price is reasonable and competitive. When you get into forward and reverse-engineering, the cost could go up. However, if you are a large organization, you would probably be able to access different packages. If, however, you don't need forward and reverse-engineering, then the price is relatively cheap."

More Quest Data Intelligence pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

In my opinion, the analytics part of erwin Data Intelligence is not satisfactory. The name 'Intelligence' is not related specifically to analytics; it is focused on data governance with no advanced...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

My main use case for erwin Data Intelligence is applying it and the DQ Labs in a financial institution.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The integration of business glossaries has significantly helped improve collaboration in our organization. We define the business glossaries first during meetings with the business, and then we bul...

See all answers

Comparisons

erwin Data Literacy vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

Compared 18% of the time

Alation Data Catalog vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

Compared 17% of the time

Collibra Platform vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

Compared 16% of the time

IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

Compared 11% of the time

More IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog Competitors

Collibra Platform vs Quest Data Intelligence

Compared 18% of the time

Alation Data Catalog vs Quest Data Intelligence

Compared 10% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Quest Data Intelligence

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Quest Data Intelligence

Compared 5% of the time

Securiti vs Quest Data Intelligence

Compared 2% of the time

More Quest Data Intelligence Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog

August 2026

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog report

Download IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog product report

Buyer's Guide

Quest Data Intelligence

August 2026

Download Quest Data Intelligence product report

Also Known As

IBM Information Governance Catalog

erwin DG, erwin Data Governance, erwin Data Catalog

Overview

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog delivers a user-friendly, automated, and scalable data governance solution that enhances data management through features like role management, metadata asset management, and data lineage capabilities.

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog revolutionizes data management by offering comprehensive features designed to simplify and enhance data governance. While it integrates seamlessly with modern data sources and supports data lineage, the platform faces challenges with legacy systems and licensing flexibility. Its user-friendly interface and automation features make it a valuable tool in data analytics and governance, enabling organizations to streamline operations and improve decision-making.

What are the key features of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog?

User-friendly interface: Simplifies navigation and access to data management tools.
Automation: Streamlines workflows and reduces manual effort in data governance.
Scalability: Adapts to growing data needs and expands with organizational growth.
Role management: Efficiently manages user roles and permissions.
Metadata asset manager: Organizes and categorizes data for easy access and management.
Data lineage: Tracks data flow across systems for enhanced analytics and compliance.
Multiple data source connectors: Integrates with various data inputs for seamless data management.

What benefits and ROI should be considered when evaluating IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog?

Enhanced decision-making: Provides structured data insights to drive strategic decisions.
Improved data consistency: Ensures uniformity in data naming conventions and source monitoring.
Business term association: Links business jargon with data assets for better understanding.
End-to-end data workflows: Facilitates comprehensive data management from source to analytics.

In industries such as automotive, insurance, and healthcare, IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog aids by addressing data inconsistencies and supporting the creation of business glossaries. It supports end-to-end data workflows, significantly impacting these sectors by enhancing metadata management and glossary maintenance. Through integration with existing tools, it helps enhance data-driven decision-making by defining and enriching critical information.

IBM

erwin Data Intelligence is a comprehensive platform for metadata management, data cataloging, and governance. It enables organizations to gain insights, improve traceability, and streamline compliance through its advanced features.

Focusing on data lineage, metadata repositories, and seamless integrations, erwin Data Intelligence provides a unified perspective of enterprise data. Its robust capabilities include Smart Data Connectors for automation, efficient data visualization with mind maps, and adaptable metadata properties. While the platform integrates well into existing systems, areas for improvement include automation, SDK inconsistencies, and the need for better data quality assessments. Use cases highlight its importance in enhancing business data models and regulatory compliance.

What are the key features of erwin Data Intelligence?

Single Source of Truth: Centralizes data for consistent information across the organization.
Smart Data Connectors: Automate connections to data sources, enhancing efficiency.
Data Lineage: Tracks data pathways for better traceability and understanding.
Business Glossaries: Enables clear definitions and shared vocabulary for all users.
Metadata Management: Streamlines metadata organization and retrieval.
Impact Analysis: Assesses implications of data changes rapidly and accurately.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation scripts reduce manual processes and increase productivity.
Improved Data Visualization: Mind maps facilitate an intuitive understanding of complex data.
Customizable Properties: Adapt metadata attributes to fit specific organizational requirements.
Unified View: Offers a comprehensive perspective of data governance practices.

Industries implementing erwin Data Intelligence often focus on mapping data sources and integrating governance with ETL tools. This supports comprehensive data management strategies, enabling business teams to better locate, understand, and utilize data effectively. Its application in metadata management and automated reporting is particularly valuable in sectors requiring stringent regulatory compliance.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

Rabobank, QuadReal Property Group, Jakarta Smart City

Oracle, Infosys, GSK, Toyota Motor Sales, HSBC

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Quest Data Intelligence

July 2026

Free Report: IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Quest Data Intelligence

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog vs. Quest Data Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.

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