The primary use case of this solution is to extract technical metadata, tag the data dictionary, and profiling. We also use it for lineage and relationship aspects.
Lead Data Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Excellent for extracting technical metadata, but tricky to scale
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is its ability to extract metadata from various sources- be it an old SaaS application or the latest cloud application."
- "The scalability is tough."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I recommend Informatica to my clients based in the finance and banking sectors. It has been very helpful.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is its ability to extract metadata from various sources- be it an old SaaS application or the latest cloud application. They have a custom resource that allows us to customize no matter which source system we have, and we can customize it to extract the technical metadata.
What needs improvement?
They are moving from on-premises to the cloud. I expect all the on-premises features in the cloud version as well.
Buyer's Guide
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product since 2019.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a perfectly stable solution and a leader in data governance tools in the current market.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is tough. For example, if you want to increase the scalability in the middle of the project, it would be a challenging process, but it is doable. As consultants, we analyze the requirements from the client end and, based on that, suggest the infrastructure for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
Customer service is a piece of cake if you are a premium member. You need to raise a ticket, and they will immediately respond. For example, they will let you know if it is a limitation; if it is a bug, they will provide you with emergency bug fixes.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. If we compare version 10.4 and version 10.5, they had a major architectural change in terms of infrastructure. The setup for version 10.5 became easier.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment was straightforward, and it took 10-15 minutes to deploy the solution, including migrating technical metadata (importing and exporting).
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend that rather than implementing it on a complete whole enterprise project, start with some small system or a small project first. And from there on, you can move on one step at a time.
I would rate the product an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner and consultant
Lead Data Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Stable, scalable, and easy initial setup
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the rule specification."
- "The integration with older technology and cloud quality needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We are working with our clients to help them build a data governance product for their enterprise data warehouse. By using Informatic EDC, Informatica Axon, and Informatica Data Quality, they can ensure the quality of their data governance.
Here, we are sharing the data with the consumers. We are using automated tools via Axon to ensure that the quality of data is good and that it is trustworthy. The average threshold for good-quality data is above 85 percent, so we have set a conformance threshold. Data quality is important when scanning data in Axon. We can determine the quality of the data and, if necessary, reach out to the data storage to correct it. Cloud data quality is important in this process because it can correct or reference data.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the rule specification. This is where we can define the rules and have our clients verify our transformation. The rule specification is a major transformation used in cloud data quality and especially in rule specification, we can create the business logic. If our business case or our use case deals with any kind of address verification, then we can go with address verification transformation as well.
What needs improvement?
With the on-premises version, we had many abilities to connect with any kind of server. But when it comes to cloud data quality, there are certain limitations to connecting. For example, we may be using an AS400. There are scenarios where some clients are still using old technology, such as the mainframe. However, for data quality, they mainly deal with the latest tools, such as Snowflake, the cloud database, Azure, Google, and AWS. Informatica has not considered the old version of the software for SaaS applications. The integration with older technology and cloud quality needs improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. We just need to add more licenses.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How was the initial setup?
Informatica Cloud Data Quality is a cloud service. All we need is to have a secured agent installed in our local machine or in the VM. Once that is done we get a license and when we have a run time, everything is easy. Since this is a cloud service, we don't need to worry about maintenance. But there are some hurdles in data quality, such as if any one of the services goes down due to reports of our database being full, and there are multiple conditions. So there are pros and cons when compared to on-premises and cloud, And for maintenance, the cloud data quality is the best fit when compared to on-premises. The initial setup is simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay for a yearly subscription.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution a nine out of ten. I've been working with Informatica solutions for the last decade. I have worked on other ETL tools as well. But always, Informatica stays close to my heart.
I've been closely working with Informatica's salespeople across the Asia Pacific. Right now, Informatica is pushing all the cloud products to the customers, not the on-premises. Informatica has everything in the cloud except data privacy management. They have canceled or they have stopped the data privacy management of on-premises itself. Right now, Informatica has end-to-end solutions in the cloud. They have all the services starting from data integration, and they have application integration. If it is a web-based application integration, We have CAI cloud application integration. Informatica has a data catalog, data quality, and master data management. They have everything in the cloud. Right now, all the clients are pushing only cloud products to their customers.
Depending on an organization's business requirements and budget, I can recommend Informatica Cloud Data Quality.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Buyer's Guide
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Lead Data Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Good electronic data capture, Easy to set up, and great technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The best thing about Informatica Axon is that it integrates with the Electronic Data Capture and the Axon system."
- "The stability and the integration of the solution have room for improvement."
What is our primary use case?
Informatica Axon is based on the needs of business people. A business analyst or salesperson would be able to make the most of its features. It is important to have three tools for a successful data governance project. These are Informatica Axon, a data catalog, and data quality. They need to be integrated, whether it is an on-premise or cloud project. The purpose of Informatica Axon is to help us manage our technical metadata and business metadata. Technical metadata is information about our source systems, such as what type of system they are, for example, Oracle, SQL, Snowflake, Cloud; and what data is being extracted from them such as table columns or source systems. Business metadata is information about our data, such as its meaning or purpose. When it comes to business metadata, we can mention that starting from the roles, responsibilities, policies, processes, and whatever the complete organization follows. We can bring all these business metadata, and we can map or tag each technical metadata and business metadata using glossaries. Informatica Axon could be a one-stop shop where we can understand the data. If we want to understand the data, we need to know where it comes from, whether this data can be trusted, whether the data quality is good, and whether this data has access to everyone or whether we are restricting the user privileges. These are the things we'll be considering when using Informatica Axon.
What is most valuable?
The best thing about Informatica Axon is that it integrates with the Electronic Data Capture and the Axon system. We have policies and processes in place to ensure that everything runs smoothly. However, it's important to work closely with the business person to ensure that all their needs are met. We need to coordinate with the business team as well because the inputs have to be communicated from both the end IT and the business team as well.
What needs improvement?
The AC integration between EDC and Informatica Axon has room for improvement for the on-premises version, but that has been taken care of with the cloud.
The stability and the integration of the solution have room for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is not stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can only achieve scalability on the cloud. However, if we want scalability on-premises, this can be a tricky process that takes time because we need to increase the number of code, and CPU.
How are customer service and support?
The tech support team is very good. They have a brilliant team knowledgeable on whatever solution we need help with. The technical support team always tries to find a solution or workaround themselves before asking for help from others. If the solution is on the cloud, the support is quicker, but on-premises, it may get delayed because the technical support team needs to apply the emergency bug fix.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup on-premises is straightforward. Setup for EDC is a little difficult when compared to versions 10.4 and 10.5. The major architecture change in the enterprise data catalog made it easy to set up.
We only have to run the installer and follow the instructions. There is no deployment process. Whether we will have the solution in dev, UAT, and SAP. There will be only two types, non-prod, and prod. There is no manual setup. We need to do whatever we are doing in non-prod and prod as well. There is no migration with the EDC tool or data quality.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution an eight out of ten.
There are three types of users, super admin, admin, and web users. The number of total users depends upon the license. Informatica Axon provides a license based on the number of users we have.
The best data governance tool on the market is Informatica Axon. Axon EDC, Axon Data Catalog, and the data quality are the very best combination for cloud for data governance.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Data Integration Architect at InfoCepts
Great solution for Salesforce data integration, multi-cloud approaches and processing bottlenecks
Pros and Cons
- "The serverless capability and the packaging application of the solution are valuable."
- "It could be improved by including a buffer that saves data when there is a connectivity issue."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for Salesforce data integration, multi-cloud approaches and processing bottlenecks. We deploy the solution in a hybrid format.
What is most valuable?
The serverless capability and the packaging application of the solution are valuable, as all tools come with the solution and do not require additional license purchases.
What needs improvement?
Although the solution seems complete currently, it could be improved by including a buffer that saves data when there is a connectivity issue.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for a year and a half and are currently using the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It takes a couple of days, but for migration, if you have to move over the code from one tool to another, it takes a lot of time.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good but can be improved by a buffer that saves data when there is a connectivity issue. I recommend the solution because it has existed for a long time, and a lot of people already understand the tool. Additionally, the learning curve is effortless compared to the other tools.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
Technology Innovation Leader at Netrix S.A.
Reliable, has good support and offers a wide coverage of technologies
Pros and Cons
- "The solution scales well."
- "So far, we have been pleased with its capabilities."
- "The solution is quite expensive."
- "The initial setup is very, very difficult."
What is our primary use case?
The product is used for data governance. It's a tool for data governance, a technical metadata dictionary, and a data lineage repository.
What is most valuable?
So far, we have been pleased with its capabilities.
It has a wide coverage of technologies.
The solution scales well.
It is stable and reliable.
The technical support has been helpful.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup is very, very difficult.
The solution is quite expensive.
I would like them to extend the coverage to other technologies like web services and programming languages.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable, and it is reliable. The performance is good. We haven't dealt with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We can scale the product.
We have about 50 users on the solution right now. It's not used too extensively just yet. It will be in the future, however. We do also have plans to increase usage.
How are customer service and support?
We've used technical support previously and found them to be quite good. We are satisfied with the level of support we can get.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not straightforward. We found it to be quite difficult. It took us about two weeks to deploy it.
We have ten people that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks, including a team leader and project manager.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation can be done in-house with a lot of effort.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not sure of the exact cost, however, the range is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's very expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I'm not an experienced user of it. I used it in workshops, and I use other Informatica products, so I have some relevant knowledge.
I deal with the latest version of the solution.
I'd rate the product nine out of ten and can recommend it to others to use.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Architect at Unilever Inc.
The solution offers good data governance and they provide helpful documentation and training
Pros and Cons
- "The solution offers good data governance."
- "Some functionalities can be a challenge in the cloud."
- "I've found that whatever functionalities are available on-prem, can become a bit of a challenge sometimes in the cloud."
What is our primary use case?
I'm a senior architect and we are partners with Informatica.
What is most valuable?
The solution offers good data governance.
What needs improvement?
I've found that whatever functionalities are available on-prem, can become a bit of a challenge sometimes in the cloud. There are no simple rules for customization so they need to be applied which is a challenge on the cloud side.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Informatica stability is great. Even now, Purview has evolved a lot, but we haven't used it to the same extent.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We are partnered with Informatica, so we don't have an issue with technical support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Our preference is Purview when we're asked for a cloud solution because it's a cloud native and the same applies when taking cost into account. Deployment is easier with Purview. If an organization is going for a hybrid solution and there's a lot of governance and complex rules involved, my first choice is Informatica. If that's not the case then I go for Purview.
How was the initial setup?
Without experience, it may be somewhat difficult but I don't find it particularly complex because there's a lot of training and documentation available. We've already had a lot of experience so it's a piece of cake for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing costs are not fixed and I know that Informatica offers discounted prices to certain customers. Microsoft is cheaper.
What other advice do I have?
The solution is suitable for enterprise or mid-size organizations. But if there are customer-related or different domain issues and it has some kind of regulatory impact and a lot of external agencies come into the picture, then it's always good to go with the Informatica Axon.
I rate this solution eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Product Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Mapping is easy and requires no coding; easier validation and transformation compared to other solutions
Pros and Cons
- "The feature I found most valuable in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is the mapping. You just drag, and it maps the data. Mapping is very easy, and it's no code. When you migrate data or when the data interaction happens at the source and destination, the challenge is that you'll get different formats. The validation has to be done in the middleware, and the transformation should happen. In Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, it's very easy to do data validation and transformation compared to any other tool."
- "The feature I found most valuable in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is the mapping; you just drag and it maps the data, so mapping is very easy and it's no code."
- "Synchronicity is an area for improvement in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. For example, when you want real-time or immediate response from the solution when multiple technologies are involved, the integration with Informatica Intelligent Cloud isn't seamless, whether it's the MQ, JMS, or BES service, so the connectivity should be improved a bit. The data governance is good, but what's lacking is a demo. For example, if there's a new feature in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, the documentation for that new feature is limited, so if Informatica could give a more complete documentation and more demos, that would be better for the users. Right now, there isn't any issue with any of the features of the solution. It's the new feature awareness or user training, and improved connectivity that I'd like to see in the next version of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services."
- "If you have to build an entire architecture, or when you compare from end-to-end, and multiple systems will be involved, then the performance of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services needs improvement because connectivity issues in a complex system affect the performance."
What is our primary use case?
The company I work for has a huge supplier database with a billion records, so Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is a data integration tool used for migrating the legacy data to Informatica MDM (master data management), then moving to the cloud. It's GCP and PCF (Pivotal Cloud Foundry).
I've also used Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for moving data to SAP Ariba and SAP S/4HANA.
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is used for multiple technology in legacy mainframes, Oracle, some PeopleSoft, some Java-based applications, some in-house, QAD to MDM, or to SAP S/4HANA, or SAP Ariba, so it has various use cases, from legacy to cloud, legacy to MDM, and MDM to S/4HANA, etc.
What is most valuable?
The feature I found most valuable in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is the mapping. You just drag, and it maps the data. Mapping is very easy, and it's no code.
When you migrate data or when the data interaction happens at the source and destination, the challenge is that you'll get different formats. The validation has to be done in the middleware, and the transformation should happen. In Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, it's very easy to do data validation and transformation compared to any other tool.
What needs improvement?
Synchronicity is an area for improvement in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. For example, when you want real-time or immediate response from the solution when multiple technologies are involved, the integration with Informatica Intelligent Cloud isn't seamless, whether it's the MQ, JMS, or BES service, so the connectivity should be improved a bit.
The data governance is good, but what's lacking is a demo. For example, if there's a new feature in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, the documentation for that new feature is limited, so if Informatica could give a more complete documentation and more demos, that would be better for the users.
Right now, there isn't any issue with any of the features of the solution. It's the new feature awareness or user training, and improved connectivity that I'd like to see in the next version of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services has good stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is easy to scale.
How are customer service and support?
We contacted the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services technical support team for some configurations which we needed that weren't available in the product, so we had to create a ticket. We talked to the product team biweekly and asked if they can get it done.
When the incident is high-priority because of the impact, the support has an SLA of twenty-four hours, especially if it's about configurations that aren't available in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services. Otherwise, if the issue is about a feature already in production that we are already using and we need technical support, there's a four-hour SLA. That's the agreement we have with Informatica.
I would rate the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services technical support team as four out of five.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've used the CIG (Cloud Integration Gateway), and we switched to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services because CIG only works in an SAP environment. Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, on the other hand, integrates with various environments, even non-SAP environments.
Compared to other solutions, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is also good with data governance, scalability, and it's no code.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services was straightforward. The first time the solution was set up, the deployment took three weeks. My company had a center for excellence team that worked with the Informatica product team. The team from Informatica served as a guide throughout the deployment process.
The next deployments only took one to two hours of work. Once you get the approval for the SOWs and the contract, you'll have access to Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services then you can use it. It's usually a one-hour job.
On a scale of one to five, I'm rating my experience with setting up Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services as four.
What about the implementation team?
The first time we implemented Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, we did it with the guidance of the Informatica product team, but during the next deployments, for example, when adding a new service, we did it ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In terms of the licensing for Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, we had the option of paying based on the number of users and paying based on the volume of data, and we went with the data volume licensing option.
Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services isn't as expensive as CIG. The pricing for it is okay, so I'm rating it a four out of five in terms of pricing.
We did use the email verification and address validation services which weren't part of the contract, so we had to pay additional fees for those services.
What other advice do I have?
I'm using data integration and app integration tools from Informatica, in particular, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services and Informatica Data Quality.
I'm working with the latest update of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.
The solution doesn't require any maintenance after it's deployed.
In my company, across all departments, between five hundred to six hundred people use Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.
On a scale of one to five, in terms of performance, I'd give Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services a four when it's used in a complex environment. If it's just at the source and destination without multiple technologies, then it's fine. If you have to build an entire architecture, or when you compare from end-to-end, and multiple systems will be involved, then the performance of Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services needs improvement because connectivity issues in a complex system affect the performance.
The advice I would give to anyone looking into implementing Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is to get a POC done for the complex use cases for your organization. If the data hasn't been used for years and you have to move that to another source, be it the cloud or any other new technologies, take the data and do a POC for profiling, cleansing, and transformation for the different sets of data. For example, chunk the data, get the categories, then see how it is. Once that's done, look further and check if it's real-time, or it's a batch. If it's real-time, check how much time it's taking, and if it's aligned with your use case.
If you're using Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for so many applications, do an end-to-end as a POC and check the time to see if it gives the time performance index, how the performance is, and how is it landing at the destination.
My rating for Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is eight out of ten.
My company is a customer of Informatica.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Informatica Developer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
One of the leading ETLs with good in-built functionalities and helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is stable."
- "It's probably one of the leading lights in ETL."
- "Managing the licenses with the on-premises version was difficult."
- "The company that I moved out of was going to be switching off Informatica at some point due to licensing, et cetera, and they just chose to go to StreamSets with Snowflake for storage."
What is our primary use case?
We don't use profiling as much, however, we do use it, in certain cases, for profiling. We use the Analyst tool to do out-of-box, high-level profiling of data to see high-level quality of completeness, and uniqueness, et cetera. Mainly, we use the Developer tool to connect to the sources and to write data quality rules.
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved our organization.
We started from just pretty much having flat files, and then doing some basic transformations, then writing back to Excel or QFD files.
We gradually moved to more analytical tasks. You don't just do statistical data quality you also do analytical. You do lots of joins with other sources and do the consistency checks, and to do more complex logic, and build metrics.
We use Tableau on the back of it to present the data and data quality, and then monitor it. We use it more like a batch process to build pipelines, and then, using Tableau, monitor the results of it and those metrics. Now, we work more with live updates and do that more than the batch.
What is most valuable?
It's probably one of the leading lights in ETL. They have really good built-in functionalities, or algorithms, that you can use to transform or process data and validate and standardize.
The solution is stable.
It's not too had to set up the cloud version.
Support is helpful and responsive.
What needs improvement?
We are in this transition mode, where we haven't yet got IDMC, the cloud version, so we don't actually have hands-on experience and have not actually seen the features. All we rely on, at the moment, is just the available documentation. What I don't like on the IDQ side is just the fact that in the on-premises version, you have all these applications, with separate configurations. In the cloud solution, it is fixed so that you have everything on one platform.
The performance isn't as good on-premises. For example, when you install clients, it's slow compared to the cloud. Still, we need to see. We haven't experienced it ourselves.
The upgrades are a downside. On-premises you manage all the changes in the software. You have to do that yourself, and if there's some problem with compatibility, it makes things that much harder. With the cloud, everything is managed by Informatica on the servers.
Managing the licenses with the on-premises version was difficult. However, with the cloud, it will be much simpler.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for the last six or seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Once you set everything up, it is pretty stable. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is way more stable than Hadoop and other applications.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scaling, we used the clusters, and the processing was on Hadoop side. If we needed any extra space or any service, it was just managed there, so it was outside of Informatica.
Originally, we had 20 people using the solution, and then it was reduced to less than ten.
We do use it as much as we can for its purposes. In the past, we used that for the whole ETL process with data loads, and then we moved to Hadoop storage. At the moment, we are only going to be using Cloud Data Quality and others for cleansing, standardization, and deduplication, and then using some other Azure capabilities.
How are customer service and support?
I've dealt with support in the past. There were issues, and we had to deal directly with Informatica for some hotfixes. They were good. They just got straight to the point and were helpful overall.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
It is way more complex to install on-premises than in the cloud.
With the cloud, the installation will be way easier since you only install these secure agents. They have many different connectors, so it is definitely less hustle to install all these machines, and all these applications. On-premises, it was more user-based. Now, it's service-based, and you just pay for what you use and the licenses as well.
We had myself, an architect, and a developer as well as help from Informatica while handling the setup.
We have about two or three people that can deploy and maintain the solution. They also cover other applications, not just Informatica.
What about the implementation team?
We had Informatica support, and we had an internal group of people with Informatica knowledge who handled the solution. For some parts, we were involved as well, and we handled them ourselves.
What was our ROI?
We're still in the early stages of moving toward the cloud. We have not seen an ROI yet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When you are using the on-premises version, managing the licenses is quite difficult. However, on the cloud, you just pay for what you use, and it's a lot easier. With the cloud, if you want MDM, you pay for it, and if you want PowerCenter, you pay for it; however, if you don't want it or don't use it, you don't pay. We'll just pay for Data Quality, as it has all of the features we need inside it.
I'm not involved in the conversations around licensing and agreements. That said, my understanding is that Informatica is pretty expensive. I'd likely rate it two to two and a half out of five in terms of affordability.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We definitely considered others and had StreamSets used for some other purposes. The company that I moved out of was going to be switching off Informatica at some point due to licensing, et cetera, and they just chose to go to StreamSets with Snowflake for storage.
I haven't researched enough about other products in relation to Informatica.
What other advice do I have?
We are moving to the cloud version. On-premises, we were on version 10.4.2, and that moved to 10.5. Soon, we will be on the cloud.
We're using IDMC, which is not just Data Quality. It has governance, Axon, and other applications in it.
We're just a customer.
I'd advise people to research use cases before beginning. Companies need to understand what they are trying to achieve, figure out their requirements, and then appraise the solution.
While Informatica is good in terms of Data Quality and is probably the leading option, you need to be clear about budget, et cetera.
I would rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Principal Applications System Analyst at a university with 10,001+ employees
Quick on profiling and scales very well, but needs better UI and more reporting capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "There are a couple of valuable features. One is that it is very quick on the profiling. So, you get a very fast snapshot of the type of data that you're looking at from the profiling perspective. It can highlight anomalies in the data."
- "Their UI needs improvement. Their scorecards and reporting also need improvement. Their data quality reporting, especially their dashboards and scorecards, is lackluster at best. Its reporting capabilities are limited. If you want to do anything beyond its limited reporting capabilities, then you're going to have to use an external reporting tool such as Power BI or something like that."
- "Their data quality reporting, especially their dashboards and scorecards, is lackluster at best."
What is our primary use case?
A lot of times, we use it for basic profiling. That's its most common use case. Currently, we are also in the process of establishing a set of ongoing processes around Data Quality that would feed into and augment our current metadata. So, from that standpoint, our usage is primarily around some of the basic dimensions of data quality, such as completeness, conformity, consistency, timeliness, accuracy, etc. We measure each of those or at least create quality rules that measure each of those aspects. We're in the process of doing this for all of the data that's currently feeding into our analytics engine. These are some use cases that we're currently doing on a daily basis.
What is most valuable?
There are a couple of valuable features. One is that it is very quick on the profiling. So, you get a very fast snapshot of the type of data that you're looking at from the profiling perspective. It can highlight anomalies in the data.
The other valuable feature of the Data Quality tool is the flexibility of using their Analyst tool to create a mapping specification, which allows you to join multiple sources of information. You can then create rules within that data set. You can apply aggregations and all other types of functions, and then you can feed that into the profiling tool. From the profiling tool, you can then create your scorecards. It can be two-step where you're using that mapping engine to integrate multiple sources. If you don't have a need for that, you can do a lot more sophisticated mappings inside their Developer tool, and then maybe do an analyst type of mapping engine. So, you can do straightforward data quality within the Analyst tool, or you can do more sophisticated data quality within the Developer tool, at least as far as the rules are concerned.
What needs improvement?
Their UI needs improvement. Their scorecards and reporting also need improvement. Their data quality reporting, especially their dashboards and scorecards, is lackluster at best. Its reporting capabilities are limited. If you want to do anything beyond its limited reporting capabilities, then you're going to have to use an external reporting tool such as Power BI or something like that.
It has a few glitches that they haven't fixed. For example, while creating a new scorecard, when you get up to a point, you have to stop and save what you've done. You have to exit and then go back into the tool to finish up your work. From the development aspect, using their scorecard tool has a couple of glitches in it. This might be a tool that they're going to eventually phase out. So, they're just not doing a lot of work on it. I've been living with it for a few years now. I've learned that I got to save my work, and then I got to get back into it to finish up what I was doing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for at least five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is pretty stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As far as I know, it scales pretty well. The part of the problem that we have is with the way it saves the results. When it saves the result, it creates a physical copy of some of the data results and stores it. So, when we're processing, for example, 500 million rows of data, depending on the type of rules that we have and how we're doing it, it can quickly use up a lot of space. We've had some issues with some of the space and storage. It scales, but you still have to be careful how you configure it so that you don't use up all your resources. We've added a lot of disk space, and we still occasionally have problems.
Currently, we have maybe half a dozen heavy users, but we're probably going to scale that up to 20 to 25.
How was the initial setup?
It is straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a six out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Provides good deduplication capabilities but the UI is outdated and not user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "The product provides all the typical MDM capabilities like deduplication, machine survivorship, and other things."
- "The downside of this solution is that the UI is terrible and not user-friendly."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for MDM in the commercial sector. I'm a lead software engineer for EPAM Systems.
What is most valuable?
The product provides all the typical MDM capabilities like deduplication, machine survivorship, and other things.
What needs improvement?
The downside of this solution is that the UI is terrible and not user-friendly. The solution was developed a long time ago and it no longer provides a lot of value. Our organization is considering decommissioning the solution or reducing usage. The problems seem to be more about the design and not the tool. The UI and general user experience need to be improved. Making changes on Informatica takes a lot of time compared to making changes on other MDM tools.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't heard any complaints about stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before my time, the company used a legacy MDM solution for dealing with customers. It was created for reporting purposes, to create some compliance reporting, but its functionality didn't allow the addition of more MDM features, so they decided to build a new solution based on Informatica MDM, and from there they basically merged two solutions, the legacy one and this one into Informatica MDM.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was carried out prior to my joining the company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
A lot of the solutions on the market are expensive and Informatica is at the top end in terms of licensing costs. They use a bundle model so you choose what you want to include in your bundle and that's what you pay for.
What other advice do I have?
Informatica MDM is a typical MDM tool. I've worked with others and they are all more or less the same. It requires more work than some other tools in terms of development and adding additional features. It has lots of features and is rated highly by Gartner.
I rate this solution seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Updated: October 2026
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