Why Semarchy is the top Informatica alternative for master data management (MDM)

Salesforce’s recent acquisition of Informatica marked a turning point in how data and analytics (D&A) leaders think about data management. Rising licensing costs, rushed cloud migration timelines, and concerns about vendor lock-in are pushing many IT executives to explore Informatica alternatives.

The acquisition prompted Gartner to caution Informatica users against possible platform changes, roadmap shifts, deployment restrictions, and pricing adjustments, creating both budget and operational risks for organizations that aren’t cloud-ready.

Pricing models often change after major acquisitions, and Salesforce tends to incentivize full-stack adoption through bundled pricing tiers. If Informatica adopts this model, the total cost of ownership (TCO) could rise significantly. Based on trends seen in similar past acquisitions, organizations may encounter licensing costs potentially as high as 40–50%. These changes affect not just your infrastructure, but also your agility, budgeting, and strategic decision-making.

At Semarchy, we believe organizations deserve complete clarity and control over their data management. You should have access to flexible deployment choices, straightforward pricing, and a reliable roadmap you can count on. That’s why the Semarchy Data Platform is purpose-built to empower your teams with freedom rather than limitations when it comes to data strategy.

In this blog, we’ll explore how Salesforce’s post-acquisition direction could affect your organization, and how Semarchy provides a flexible, modern, and lower-risk Informatica alternative.

What’s changing with Informatica under Salesforce?

Mergers and acquisitions are a core strategy for Salesforce. It acquires platforms, integrates them into its ecosystem, and gradually moves them toward a cloud-first and customer-centric model. And while Informatica’s enterprise master data management (MDM) and data integration capabilities are a natural fit for Salesforce’s generative and agentic AI ambitions, it’s less certain that it’ll remain a flexible fit for everyone else.

With Informatica’s acquisition now in full swing, current and prospective Informatica users face three key risks:

1. Forced cloud migration

Support for on-premises Informatica deployments reportedly ends from early 2026 onward, placing urgent pressure on customers with regulated environments, private infrastructure mandates, or hybrid architectures to plan and invest in re-platforming.

2. Uncertain roadmap

With Informatica’s integration into Salesforce, the platform’s future is uncertain, driven by Salesforce’s priorities rather than Informatica’s original long-term strategy. Hence, multi-domain or interoperable use cases that don’t fit Salesforce’s direction may lose support.

3. Increased vendor lock-in

As Informatica becomes more embedded within the Salesforce ecosystem, integration with third-party tools and cloud platforms may diminish, especially as Salesforce migrates toward proprietary technologies, tighter software bundles, and single-vendor solutions.

Why Semarchy is a frontrunner among Informatica alternatives

Salesforce’s platforms have built a reputation for excellent client relationship management (CRM). Consequently, many of its acquisitions naturally evolve to strengthen customer-focused use cases. If Salesforce deprioritizes Informatica’s multi-domain capabilities in favor of customer data models, users may lose visibility, insight, and control over other critical areas.

Yet, most successful organizations today require a consistent view of their master data across all mission-critical domains, including:

• Product
• Supplier
• Locations and Assets
• Employee/HR
• Customer

In line with this, the Semarchy Data Platform is designed to reduce complexity, eliminate lock-in, support multiple data domains, and make sure your data stays agile, trustworthy, and aligned to your business goals. It’s also a lower-TCO alternative to legacy data management platforms.

However, we understand that transitioning from an incumbent platform can seem risky. That’s why effective migration strategies focus as much on thorough planning and continuity as they do on technology. To support this, Semarchy recently partnered with Fresh Gravity for the webinar How to Ditch Legacy MDM and Migrate Smarter with Semarchy. Fresh Gravity has developed a migration tool for legacy MDM systems that can automate up to 60% of the effort, helping organizations reduce risk, accelerate timelines, and realize value faster.

In parallel, Semarchy ensures your migration journey is supported end-to-end by a platform built to integrate seamlessly with your current systems, allowing you to advance toward your target architecture without compromising data quality or causing disruption. Semarchy also lowers the learning curve, making it faster to onboard new users and bring teams into data stewardship and governance workflows.

Semarchy vs. Informatica: a head-to-head comparison

Here’s what an independent head-to-head comparison by Software Reviews between Semarchy and Informatica found with input from real users.  

Data modeling: flexibility that grows with you

Data modeling is essential to any MDM strategy. By visually mapping your data, you gain clarity on both data types and the relationships between assets in your system. Since your business needs will inform your data model, it’s essential to choose an MDM platform flexible enough to adapt as your organization’s needs change.

Semarchy

The Semarchy Data Platform features adaptive data modeling capabilities, utilizing a ‘whiteboard-style’ approach. This means you can design and iterate data models quickly in response to changing requirements. Semarchy’s data modeling tools help you make sense of complex data landscapes. Visualization tools also help non-technical stakeholders understand the relationships between data.

Informatica

Informatica employs a data catalog to streamline data discovery, curation, and lineage. AI-driven curation enriches data by automatically classifying, associating, and recommending context for your assets. Automated, end-to-end data lineage further clarifies how your data assets are connected.

The verdict

Here, real-world users gave Semarchy’s data modeling capability the edge, with Gartner rating it at 4.5/5 and Informatica slightly lower at 4.4/5 (July 2024).

Data governance: transparency builds trust

Good data governance is crucial for secure and compliant data management, especially as privacy standards tighten. To meet business goals while ensuring data safety and security, you need an MDM platform built with strong data governance tools.

Semarchy

The Semarchy Data Platform supports robust data governance, ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and security of your critical data:

•   Data stewardship: Easily define data roles, quality standards, and access to maintain data integrity and security.
•   Lineage & auditing: Full visibility into your data’s history and lineage visualization tools to track modifications, with automated reporting for easy compliance.
•   Custom governance policies: Adapt information governance policies to your organization’s needs and industry standard requirements.
•   Quality & consistency: Semarchy focuses heavily on data quality, with user-friendly tools for profiling, cleansing, and validating.

Informatica

Informatica also aims to improve data quality and security with its governance tools, leveraging its CLAIRE AI engine to strengthen these capabilities. However, Gartner cautions that support for on-premises data governance tools may fade, while Salesforce’s cloud-first approach could further deprioritize standalone governance workflows.

The verdict

Both Semarchy and Informatica earned strong ratings for enterprise-ready governance, scoring 4.2/5 each for data governance support (2025).

Deployment and integration: fast, agile, and future-ready

Fast deployment and seamless integration of your MDM platform are essential for getting maximum value from your data in the shortest possible time.

Semarchy

Delivering rapid time-to-value is a proven attribute of Semarchy’s Data Platform:

• With Semarchy’s Rapid Delivery Blueprint, 100% of Semarchy users have successfully met their implementation goals since its introduction.
• 80% of Semarchy users measure ROI with a fully deployed solution in less than 12 weeks.
• Semarchy’s PTO and Technical Services Team brings over 140 years of combined experience, ensuring a smooth rollout.   

Semarchy has a range of pre-built connectors that ensure seamless interoperability with third-party systems. It’s also the only MDM platform natively built to run within a Snowflake data warehousing environment, while its iterative implementation approach gives you control over your project’s cost and scope.

A recent Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester found that customers who migrated to Semarchy achieved reduced platform operating costs and increased full-time employee (FTE) productivity with fewer resources needed for support and administration.

Informatica

Informatica also claims a low TCO and flexible implementation. Like Semarchy’s iterative process, Informatica uses volume-based, pay-for-what-you-need pricing so you can scale your MDM strategy to new use cases. Its AI engine helps optimize costs and operations, and a wide array of APIs supports integration with third-party applications.

However, Gartner points out that Informatica’s aggressive shift to IDMC cloud products away from PowerCenter and other on-prem options is cause for concern. With upcoming end-of-support dates, such as PowerCenter 10.5 ending in March 2026, many customers face rushed migrations or expensive extended support.

The verdict

Both platforms promise easy, cost-effective implementation, but Semarchy’s exceptional customer service and rapid time-to-value make it an excellent Informatica alternative. Semarchy’s higher ratings for deployment and integration as of 2025 are proof of this:

• Semarchy scores 4.5/5 for ease of deployment compared to Informatica’s 4.2/5 (Gartner).
• Semarchy gets a 4.7/5 rating for integration, while Informatica gets 4.2/5 (Gartner).
• Semarchy achieves 83% for ease of implementation, with Informatica getting 76% (Software Reviews).

A platform and loyal partner

What truly sets Semarchy apart isn’t just the product, but the people and dedicated partnership we provide. From day one, we invest in your success through high-touch support, proven implementation services, and continuous collaboration well beyond go-live. We don’t just hand off the software and walk away. Our experts work closely with your team to ensure seamless onboarding and long-term performance.

Our ongoing support is just as robust. Customers get named contacts, fast SLAs, and direct access to expert engineers—no tiered escalation. For critical issues, we respond within an hour and resolve them within five business days. Our support portal offers a comprehensive knowledge base, tutorials, and community forums for self-service.

The results speak for themselves: Semarchy customers report a 60% drop in maintenance costs, 80% reach time-to-value in under three months, and our satisfaction scores are among the best in the industry. Whether your deployment is SaaS, on-premises, in the cloud, or native to Snowflake, Semarchy delivers unmatched support for both your platform and your people.

Semarchy in action

Over 400 global retail, manufacturing, financial services, and education companies use Semarchy to manage over 1 trillion master records. For example, Brown-Forman, which owns premium labels like Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve, needed to master vast quantities of product data from multiple locations.

The company used Semarchy to match and centralize data from over 170 markets, leading to faster workflows and better business intelligence. With data-driven insights into each brand, the company could improve decision-making and develop more effective pricing strategies.

Take a look at Semarchy’s success stories library to discover how other organizations drive growth with better data management.

Ready to consider an Informatica alternative?

If your organization focuses on cost containment, platform rationalization, or predictable return on investment, now is the time to evaluate Informatica alternatives such as Semarchy.

Semarchy understands what’s at stake in a platform transition — and we’re here to help you move forward with clarity. Standout features of our user-friendly MDM platform include flexible data modeling, robust data governance, easy deployment, rapid time-to-value, and outstanding support.

And you don’t have to wait long to get results. You can deploy Semarchy in weeks, not months, allowing you to drive ROI with data-driven insights quickly.

Get in touch for a proof-of-value discussion. You can also request a personalized Semarchy demo. You’ll see the platform in action and get a walkthrough of how you can use it to drive growth.