Informatica vs Data Ladder: Data quality solutions comparison

One of the goals of monitoring, maintaining and improving data quality is to ensure the consistency of critical data assets across the enterprise. Many organizations, especially large enterprises, have hundreds of systems and applications that generate and use data. The vast quantity of data can create issues such as data duplication across applications and systems, fragmentation, missing values and other errors.

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A data quality software solution can help organizations minimize and prevent these issues and derive maximum value from data by keeping it accessible and accurate. Two leading providers in the data quality market are Informatica and Data Ladder. This guide offers a detailed comparison of these two industry leaders.

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What is Informatica MDM?

Informatica MDM is an end-to-end master data management solution that provides users easy access to master data assets. MDM is one of several solutions offered by Informatica, a software development company based in California.

Informatica MDM is used for strategic decision-making, improving operational efficiency, reducing risk, increasing revenue and achieving other business objectives. The 360-degree view of data offered by Informatica MDM is made possible through its data integration, data governance, process management and data quality tools.

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With Informatica MDM, users can work with any type of data and any data source. It also works with third-party supplemental data and IoT data. The dashboard and reporting features of Informatica MDM use graphical technologies for a quick and intuitive understanding of the data.

What is Data Ladder?

Data Ladder offers a variety of data quality solutions, including data cleansing and data matching. The reliability and speed of Data Ladder software are widely recognized in the industry. Data Ladder solutions can handle large data sets, making them ideal for enterprise-level organizations. The company has its headquarters in Connecticut.

While Data Ladder offers a full suite of data quality solutions, the primary focus of the software company is on data cleansing, record linkage and data matching. The company’s flagship product is DataMatch Enterprise, an industry-leading solution with immaculate speed, accuracy and reliability in processing data.

Informatica MDM vs. Data Ladder: Head-to-head comparison

Informatica and Data Ladder offer similar data quality tools, including data cleansing, data import, cloud deployment, data matching, data profiling and data deduplication. However, a key difference between their features is that Data Ladder offers specialization in data cleansing, so users who primarily need this functionality may prefer Data Ladder solutions. Let’s take a closer look at some other features and benefits that Informatica and Data Ladder offer their customers:

Ease of use and deployment

According to several user reviews, the ease of deployment, quality of end-user training and ease of integration offered by Data Ladder are superior to Informatica. Many reviewers have explained that Informatica users will likely need additional training to get used to the workflows and layout of the application.

Keep in mind that the advanced features of Data Ladder still have a steep learning curve. There is also a lack of documentation for using some of these advanced features, such as creating customer profiling and creating survivorship rules.

Service and support

Informatica and Data Ladder both offer excellent service and support, including timely vendor response and high-quality technical support. However, Informatica pulls ahead in this category due to its extensive peer user community. This community can benefit users who are looking to troubleshoot or learn how to use the application from similar users.

Prebuilt rules and accelerators

Informatica and Data Ladder are fairly evenly matched when it comes to prebuilt rule and accelerator libraries, though Informatica may have a slight advantage when it comes to AI use cases. Informatica comes loaded with prebuilt rules and accelerators to automate data quality processes, while also offering inbuilt business intelligence and AI-driven insights to maximize operational efficiency.

Integrations

Both these applications support integration with various enterprise software, big data applications, file formats and social media. This includes integration with Microsoft Dynamics, Office 365, SAP, Amazon Athena, Azure, Salesforce and more. For many users and use cases, a specialized connector may be needed for integration. For example, Informatica offers a specialized SAP connector for integration.

Choosing between Informatica and Data Ladder

Informatica and Data Ladder offer outstanding data quality solutions, which is evident in the excellent ratings they each have received from users. Both applications are quick, integrate with several third-party applications and offer a similar lineup of features.

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Users or organizations that need advanced data cleansing features are likely to find Data Ladder more useful than Informatica. On the other hand, users that are looking for an extensive customer support and peer community network may prefer Informatica.

Ultimately, either tool could be a good fit for your business and your data quality management needs. Start by determining what your data quality goals are beforehand, looking at reviews from similar business types and spending some time speaking with both vendors before you decide which product will work best for you and your data science team.

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