A comprehensive Comparison of the best master data management tools in 2022 according to company size.

Businesses implement master data management to access complete, reliable, accurate, and original data. Strict GDPR regulations, web tracking prohibitions, and the audience’s intolerance for poor marketing practices have forced organizations to improve their master data management processes. 

The challenge?

Master data management is an expensive process. While large organizations can employ solutions like IBM, Oracle, SAS, smaller organizations are left with no option but to rely on limited resources to implement their data management initiatives. Most smaller to medium size companies end up doing master data management informally. They panic hire data engineers to perform mundane tasks like data cleaning and deduplication instead of focusing on strategic efforts. 

But all does not have to be so bleak.

There are dozens of master management software tools that small and mid-level enterprises can use to quickly ingest, operationalize, and distribute the information by transforming the content and the structure of the data, making it more useful for a variety of different business functions.

Master data management is not an impossible dream when you equip your team with the right tools. With the right MDM solution, you can quickly transform your organization’s data and meet your goals. Common transformations by MDM tools include:

Data cleaning (removing errors, typos, inconsistencies in formatting etc) 

Data normalization (ensuring all fields and formats are consistent) 

Data matching (you’ll need to match multiple data sources to remove duplicates and merge records) 

Data merging (joining multiple data sources to create a consolidated record, for example merging customer billing data with customer complaint data) 

Data deduplication (removing duplicate entries in one or multiple data sources)

What to Look for in a Master Data Management Solution?  

A master data management solution needs to provide a focal point that the company can identify as the correct definition of the customer, product, or whatever subject matter might be. It must enable the business to synchronize data from multiple data sources to operationalize information faster and more accurately.

More importantly, the tool must empower the organization to move from “data as a cost” to a high performance ‘economic asset’

The choice of an MDM solution however is a tricky one. Over the years, the MDM vendor landscape has matured significantly. In fact, the MDM market size is forecast to reach $26.4 billion by 2025, after growing at a CAGR of 18% during 2020 – 2025. 

The plethora of choices often leads to analysis paralysis. When choosing a tool, you must consider factors like budget, time, talent, and C-suite buy-in. Moreover, address aspects like constraints, adoption risks, failure risks, multi-functional requirements, and approach to data transformation when choosing the right tool for your team. 

In this guide, we list 9 of the best MDM solutions in the industry categorized into three business sizes and ten common decision-making factors like: 

  • Product focus 
  • Key features 
  • Pros and cons 
  • Level of expertise 
  • Level of training 
  • Ease of deployment 
  • Ideal for 
  • Notable Clients 
  • User ratings 
  • Why it’s on our list 

Related Reading: Our comprehensive master data management guide, to help you define and implement a master data management strategy while addressing key challenges.

1. Business Size < 50M USD

WINPURE

WinPure is a market leader in data match solutions. It’s the go-to product for professionals who want a single platform to transform and create master records with a true no-code tool. WinPure’s MDM solution is built for businesses of all sizes for easy, accurate, and quick master record management and can easily be used by non-tech savvy professionals.

Product Focus:  Quick and easy data match for businesses of all sizes 

Key Features: 

  • Alacarte features from all of the Clean & Match Enterprise edition repurposed to further simplify the user experience for non-technical staff
  • Facilitates private cloud and on-premise deployments  for evolving, on-demand, elastic enterprise requirements,
  • Features simple browser-based data preparation for in-office and remote and multinational MDM operations
  • Helps create a centralized system for data governance with a simple-to-use technology
  • Complete Data prep, data transformation, data matching, and master data management tools

Pros and Cons: 


Easily clean, match, merge and create master records in a no-code, point-and-click interface
May require some training and learning
One-click deployment on-premise or in your own private cloud environmentUpdates may be required for more advanced functions

One of the most affordable data management tools in the market

Requires external applications and APIs for complete master data management capabilities
Award winning training and support Integrations with other business systems will have some limitations
Can work on large amounts of both structured and less-structured dataNew license keys required for new users/systems

Level of expertise required: Basic

Level of training required: Basic

Ideal for: government institutions, education institutions, marketing, and advertising agencies

G2 User Ratings: 4.7/5.0 from 69 reviews

Why it’s on our list?
Designed for all businesses, from small businesses to large enterprises of all industries, to match, clean, standardize, and consolidate data with a true no-code solution requiring no extra talent, skill, or resource. 

Product Video: 

 

PROFISEE

Profisee has emerged as a user-friendly, cloud-based MDM platform that makes data management easy and efficient. Profisee’s claim to fame is an incredibly easy-to-use UI that allows users to create matching and survivorship rules and strategies in intuitive ways. Profisee is designed for businesses of all sizes, from small to enterprises companies, with a focus on resolving bad data quickly and efficiently. 

Product Focus: No-code solution for quick, easy, and scalable MDM 

Key Features 

  • Simple, easy to use, and designed for the intermediate techie
  • Address verification abilities in addition to matching strategies 
  • Ability to source data with SSIS packages, SSRS backend
  • Empowers multi-domain businesses with a solid MDM foundation 
  • Enables rapid prototyping, development, and deployment cycles

Pros and Cons: 

Advanced matching and merging features with master rules that can be tested and revised as needed Training is complex making it hard for users to find what they need fast
Incorporates data management across multiple departments in an organization

Occasional workflow issues and system glitches
Ability to manage data and configure MDS using the Maestro Client, saving time and money
Cannot handle real-time and batch data insertion at the same time
A highly flexible product with a well-thought-out architecture
Process limitations when the user needs to review a large number of records
Multi-domain support and ability to customize user views
Some integrations may lag with error handling

Level of expertise required: Intermediate 

Level of training required: Intermediate 

Ideal for: Manufacturing, healthcare, retail, financial services, and consumer goods. 

Notable Clients: American Heart Association, Chesterton, Dominos, EY, Gap, Hancock Bank

Gartner User Ratings: 4.7/50 from 85 reviews

Why it’s on our list?
A modern no-code solution that understands the need for quick and scalable MDM.

Product Video: 

PIMCORE

PimCore is an open-source MDM platform that lets you manage master records, set hierarchy structures, validate data, and enrich data attributes among many other abilities. It’s a multi-domain, multi-vector platform geared towards B2B/B2C and digital commerce. It can handle product data, customer data, reference data, third-party data, and location data. 

Product focus:  Open source MDM for digital businesses 

Key Features:

  • Open source can fully be used by corporates for MDM/PIM modeling 
  • Low-code solution
  • Single point of contact for multi-layered and structured datasets
  • Flexible and simple to use 
  • Can handle 1 million lines/SKUs of data

Pros and Cons: 

Responsive and user friendly and easy integration with external services
Updates can cause hiccups and cause delays
Offers flexibility, scalability, and meets exact business needs

Implementation can be complex and tedious
Enterprise grade support and SLA available on subscription

You need to work with a Pimcore partner to navigate the system
Ability to help marketing teams with content management, metadata management, and data enrichment
User management gets complex with advanced features

Practical tool for B2B and B2C businesses

Speed may be a challenge when dealing with multiple processes

Level of expertise required: Basic 

Level of training required: Minimum 

Ideal for: Manufacturing, small businesses, wholesale, retail, B2B/B2C tech, hospitality 

Notable Clients: W.E.G, Aagora, Krombache, Stanley Black & Decker, Ludwig Meister

Gartner User Ratings: 4.6/5.0 from 113 reviews

Why it’s on Our List?
Has a free open source master data management community edition that lets small businesses model and tests their data management processes.

Product Video: 

Business Size  50M – 1B USD

Ataccama One MDM

A multi-domain, cloud MDM solution, Ataccama has a built-in, AI-powered data quality engine that allows for data cleaning, standardizing, and enrichment allowing for golden record and reference data management. The solution is designed for complex enterprise data governance solutions that allow for smart automated processes to make data management easy. 

Product focus: Automated MDM designed for data science professionals 

Key Features 

  • Automated data catalog that allows businesses to build and maintain a knowledge base of their data landscape 
  • Automated data governance with data profiling, business data lineage, anomaly detection 
  • Complete built-in data quality functions 
  • Scheduled system scans without any manual effort 
  • Self-improving AI that suggests business rules, and detects new relationships

Pros and Cons: 

Point and click intelligent matching engine
Performance of data stewards UI may be slow with updates causing delays

Ability to create your own data model
User license model may be limiting for some
Little to no coding required for configuration
Requires external applications and APIs for complete master data management capabilities
Automation of data modeling, analytics and visualization processes
Collecting data from on-premises applications may be a challenge
In-built data governance and stewardship
Occasional bugs that can hamper daily operations

Level of expertise required: Professionals in IT/Data Science

Level of training required: Intermediate 

Ideal for: Financial institutions, enterprise clients, big pharma, asset management, real estate 

Notable clients: Argo Group, Avast, Societe Generale, Kaspi Bank 

Gartner User Ratings: 4.5/5.0 from 93 reviews

Why it’s on our list?
A low-code MDM solution designed exclusively for technical teams to do their jobs better and quicker. 

Product Video 

Stibo MDM

Stibo is a popular solution for enterprises that want to implement MDM for product information or for products. It allows companies to handle market standards like ETIM making it a favorite for wholesale manufacturers and dealers. It’s a powerful multi-domain tool that lets you save operational, technical, historical, and strategic data, providing a solid foundation for data synchronization.

Product Focus: Fully integrated MDM with enhanced capabilities for product data 

Key Features

  • Ability to aggregate product, customer, vendor, and location data in a single cloud-native SaaS
  • Built-in data governance, including AI-backed deduplication automated onboarding and syndication, auto-classification, image recognition and business rules
  • Integrated compliance with industry classifications

Pros and Cons: 

Ability for asset management and data sharing
Complexities can cause delays during setup
Excellent for creating catalogs and direct mails
User interface and front end functionality may not be intuitive enough
Customer service team is prompt and efficient
Lack of clarity or documentation on the complete set of add-ons

Allows modeling of object types and business logics as required
Product upgrades require assistance from vendor

Highly adaptable application and easy to update
Lack of clarity or documentation on the complete set of add-ons

Level of expertise required: Professionals in IT/Data Science

Level of training required: Intermediate 

Ideal for: Retail, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, wholesale distribution 

Notable Clients: Elektra, M&S, Adidas, Fujitsu 

Gartner User Ratings: 4.5/5.0 from 131 reviews

Why it’s on our list?
Delivers a fully integrated experience in a single platform with a focus on data governance 

Product Video 

Boomi

Boomi Master Data Hub is a central data management hub many enterprises use to move their integration strategy in the right direction. Boomi is preferred by IT professionals for its strong integration abilities that take cover the whole Data Journey, starting from discovery of your data to preparing the data, integrating the data, enriching and finally enabling the enterprise’s teams to use the data effectively.

Product Focus: Integrated experience as a middleware to talk between systems

Key Features:

  • Low-code UI for rapid modeling of master data entities
  • A hub repository to hold data models
  • Ability to create business rules to resolve erroneous data
  • Enable real-time governance rules to tackle data silos

Pros and Cons: 

Build custom ETL solutions with little to no coding
Need to purchase additional connectors that may be expensive
Software is easy to use and can quickly create flows for extrapolating data
The effectiveness of data cleaning techniques could be improved
Interface is clean and easy to use with flexible features
Technical support may have slower turn around time
Integration friendly and remains stable even with huge amounts of data
Technical background required to use the tool at its full potential

Monthly updates and fixes to address problems
The tool may require some more maturity to meet enterprise-level demands

Level of expertise required: Professionals in IT/Data Science

Level of training required: Basic

Ideal for: Public sector organizations, higher education, healthcare and lifestyle businesses 

Notable clients: Bioventus, Moderna, Qlik, Quantana 

Gartner User Ratings: 4.3/5.0 from 24 reviews

Why it’s on our list: Offers a complete data journey that caters to both business users and professional teams. 

Product Video: 

Business Size 1B – 10B USD

Semarchy

Semarchy Unified Data Platform is an enterprise-level MDM solution, recognized as a leading multi-vector MDM solution that simplifies data discovery, stewardship, quality, enrichment, workflows, and measurements. Organizations of all sizes and industries benefit from a full set of features to build production-ready operational and analytical applications in a single environment.

Product Focus: Bringing together customer data, vendor data, product data, and business data of enterprise-level businesses in one unified platform.

Key Features:

  • Self-service data preparation with sensitive data identification features
  • Email, policy, and process management using a data governance framework
  • Metadata management abilities
  • Capabilities for document management, formula management and complete product data management

Pros and Cons: 

Implementation speed and simplicity is top notch Learning curve required even for data experts
Highly adaptable with a simple user interface
Additional training is required to use the software at its full potential
Provides an integrated data and UI framework for complete data management in a single configurable application
It could be challenging to setup workflows because of extensive features
Ability to customize the user interface in the application builder
Uses an all-or-nothing matching which can distort actual match rates
Allows for developers to deliver robust applications
Lacks collaboration capabilities

Level of expertise: Advanced 

Level of training: Advanced 

Ideal for: Non-profits, government, enterprise organizations 

Notable Clients: Chantelle Group, Adeo Group, National Student Clearinghouse

Ratings: 4.6/5.0 from 142 reviews

Why it’s on our list: A truly unified data platform designed exclusively for large enterprise organizations. 

Product Video

Reltio

Reltio is a cloud-native SaaS master data management platform that deploys customer, organization, employee, assets, location, and product data masters within the same platform, removing siloes that threaten a unified view of your data. Reltio has the typical benefit of a PaaS solution where there is minimal need for the involvement of on-premises IT teams.

Product Focus: Accelerates real-time operations at the enterprise level 

Key Features:

  • Has data model configurations organized as layers where each layer inherits the features from the layer above
  • Auto-scaling and increased speed of development and deployment cycles
  • Facilitates business users in analytical capabilities and identifies relationships between people, products, places, and activities.

Pros and Cons: 

User interface is highly intuitive and can be learned/used by business users
Product is relatively new and requires refinement
Excellent data security and governance features where user actions are logged
Poor technical support with slow turnaround time
Merging of duplicate data with the ability to create complex match rules
Intermittent errors that cause hiccups in processes
Does not require technical training to use
Alphanumeric and data masking not available in data quality
SaaS solution which does not require hosting the application or maintaining infrastructure
Limitations with integrations and APIs

Level of expertise: Intermediate 

Level of training: Intermediate

Ideal for: High tech, retailer, healthcare, financial services, insurance

Notable Clients: AstraZeneca, L’oreal, Empire Life, Fulton Bank

User ratings: 4.4/5.0 from 78 ratings

Why it’s on our list: The only MDM solution that promises real-time accessibility and operational ease for business users. 

Product Video

Syndigo (Riversand)

Syndigo acquired Riversand in 2021, in a bid to expand product and master data capabilities for a global client base. It’s a cloud-native platform designed for retailers and eCommerce enterprises to manage personalization and customization initiatives efficiently. This is the only MDM tool that facilitates content creation within the platform, where users can create content like images, weight and dimensions, ingredients, packaging information and more. All this content is then verified for completeness, accuracy, and quality.

Product Focus: Omni-channel system to create, connect, manage, and deliver high-quality product content

Key Features:

  • Product description enrichment with as many as 171 million additional attributes
  • Unify and share information, source and review data and assets from multiple suppliers on a single platform
  • Complete validation and verification checks to root out inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and errors
  • Ability to distribute product information across internal and external channels 

Pros and Cons: 

Govern data from multiple domain regions and business departments Product ingestion may not be suitable for all business types
Highly configurable application with the ability to manage business processes in PIM
Limited integration abilities
Data model and hierarchy is greatly improved for scalability
Some feature requests can be denied by the team
Highly effective data quality functions
Glitches in the tool causes teams to doubt taxonomy details
Flexible data modeling and ease of modification as per business needs
Some users report of negative experiences

Level of expertise: Basic

Level of training: Basic

Ideal for: Retailers, wholesale distributors, eCommerce enterprises 

Notable Clients: Carrefour, Epson, Neutrogena, Philips 

User ratings: 4.7 out of 72 ratings 

Why it’s on our list: Content creation, product information distribution and so much more! 

Product Video

And there you have it! These top MDM solutions have been hand-picked for their ability to make MDM easy, quick, scalable, and effective. 

Note: This list doesn’t contain the big three: Informatica, IBM, Oracle, because they provide entire ecosystems for >10B USD enterprise organizations. They require certified talents, specific infrastructure setup, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually. 

How to choose the Right MDM tool? 

The decision to deploy a master data management solution is not an individual one to make. It can take months to build the proper business case, evaluate all of the dependencies, plan, prioritize, test, and come to a decision. 

In our experience, choosing the right MDM tool boils down to five important factors:

1). Team Consensus: Does everyone agree on the tool’s capabilities? Are designated users satisfied with the workflow, the UI, or the features that allow for easier MDM implementation? 

2). Cost & Budgeting: Does the product require additional resources in terms of talent and systems? Sometimes, the cost of the product is just one of the many costs to incur when using an MDM platform; including training costs, talent onboarding costs, storage and capacity costs, and more. 

3). Business Requirements: Sometimes, all your business needs is a simple tool that can clean, transform, match and merge data. Would you really need a whole ecosystem with capabilities that are beyond the immediate scope? The choice of the tool must be made based on a clearly defined scope. Most companies invest in high-end solutions, tempted by AI and automation only to realize they never needed an advanced solution in the first place. 

4). Executive Buy-in: CDOs, CIOs, CEOs are the key decision-makers in implementing a master data management. The choice of a solution is highly subjected to a CDO or CIO’s preference and experience. 

5). Timelines: If the need for an MDM is urgent, you’ll need a quick, do-it-yourself solution like WinPure which lets you quickly match, clean, merge, and purge data in literally minutes. 

To Conclude 

Choosing an MDM solution is not an easy process. We highly recommend narrowing it down to five tools based on your immediate requirements and assessing capabilities via demos and trial downloads. For example, you can download the WinPure free MDM trial that lets you connect all your data sources, and access the complete Data Cleanse suite, the Intelligent Match Engine, and the Deduplication feature all for free. Once you’re satisfied, you opt to buy an upgraded version. 

An MDM solution should be making your job easier, enabling higher operational efficiency. Choosing a tool that doesn’t meet your business size, requirements, and budget will set you way back from where you are now. 

If you’d like to make an informed decision on whether WinPure fits your MDM requirements before making an investment, we’d love to help! Please feel free to contact us via the form below. 

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By Farah Kim | July 29th, 2022 | Posted in Data Management, Master Data Management (MDM)

About Farah Kim

Farah Kim is a human-centric product marketer and specializes in simplifying complex information into actionable insights for the WinPure audience. She holds a BS degree in Computer Science, followed by two post-grad degrees specializing in Linguistics and Media Communications. She works with the WinPure team to create awareness on a no-code solution for solving complex tasks like data matching, data deduplication, and MDM.

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