10 Best Master Data Management (MDM) Tools for 2023

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Master data management (MDM) is concerned with how an organization manages its most critical and valuable strategic resources—its “master data,” or data that describes the core business objects and main data assets shared across the organization. MDM combines the tools, processes, and governance mechanisms to ensure that master data is properly governed and coordinated across the enterprise, with high accuracy and integrity.

The software market is filled with tools to help businesses with critical master data processes and governance efforts. To help them sort through the options, we scored them on pricing, core and enterprise features, and how well they integrate with other systems, as well as on their vendors’ reputation and profile and the amount of support they offer customers.

Here are our top picks for best MDM solutions in 2023:

• Syniti MDM: Best for Core Features
• Pimco MDM: Best for Pricing
• SAP Master Data Governance: Best for Enterprise Features
• Pimco MDM, Dell Boomi: Best for Integrations
• Dell Boomi: Best for Support

Top Master Data Management Tools: How They Compare

The MDM space is relatively mature and consists primarily of enterprise customers, and our ratings focus on how well each system meets the needs of that specific market. Here’s how they compared.

Jump to:

• Top MDM Software Comparisons
• Key Features of MDM Software
• How we Evaluated MDM Software
• How to Choose the Right MDM Software for Your Business
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Dell Boomi

Best for Support and Integrations

Since being acquired by Dell Technologies in 2010, Boomi has continued to grow as a leader in the MDM market. Billed as an “integration platform as a service,” Boomi’s Master Data Hub offers a low-code, cloud-native platform for connecting and synchronizing an enterprise’s data sources for data quality, consistency, and visibility. The platform is known for its easy-to-use interface and relatively low learning curve.

Pricing

• From $2,000 per month (Professional) to $8,000 per month (Enterprise Advanced)
• Free trial available

Features

• Low code, visual interface
• Boomi Suggest Wizard for quickly adding fields to data models
• Real-time, bidirectional data flows between master/connected systems
• Automatic, real-time alerts

Pros

• Easy-to-use and get up and running
• Powerful integrations with other applications
• Strong reporting and intuitive visual elements

Cons

• Lacks more advanced features
• Documentation lacks some level of detail

Ataccama ONE

Best for Ease-of-Use

Canadian enterprise software developer Ataccama has been focused on MDM and business metadata management since its inception back in 2007. These days, its leading platform Ataccama ONE has over 55,000 users globally and is one of the more popular MDM solutions on the market. The platform is known for being easy-to-use while offering quite a bit of power through its intelligently-designed interface.

Pricing

• $90,000 (as a managed service)
• $10,000 per upgrade unit
• Free trial available

Features

• “One-click Profiling” quickly analyzes data sets
• AI-powered functionality works across hybrid and cloud environments

Pros

• Unified data governance, data quality, and MDM capabilities
• Integrates with other tools for complete end-to-end MDM workflows
• AI-powered platform functionality

Cons

• Can be difficult to fine-tune and use advanced features
• Community support is lacking

Informatica Multidomain MDM

Best for Data Modeling and Workflows

Informatica’s Multidomain MDM enables organizations to create authoritative views of their mission-critical data from disparate, duplicate, or conflicting sources. The solution offers artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools that augment its data quality, data integration, and business process management capabilities. Additionally, data security and privacy features allow for the safe, easy enrichment of master data records with data from external sources.

Pricing

• $699,000 per year (up to 3 million unconsolidated records)
• No free trial

Features

• Supports a broad range of data/application landscapes
• Metadata browsing and analysis across disparate metadata repositories
• Powerful data algorithms out-of-the-box

Pros

• Offers a full range of customizations
• Strong data modeling and workflow features

Cons

• Lackluster/outdated user interface
• Expensive compared to competing solutions
• Reported scaling issues handling large datasets

Profisee MDM Platform

Best for Data Stewardship Features

Profisee MDM Platform is a cloud-native solution that provides users with an intuitive data stewardship interface and visual relationship management tools, workflow management, data quality rule enforcement, and more. The solution integrates natively with Microsoft Azure services and offers a REST application programming interface (API) for connecting to any external service, database, or applications.

Pricing

• Actual pricing not available
• Licensed on a perpetual/subscription/consumption basis
• No free trial

Features

• Real-time, bi-directional data integration
• Comes with a host of data stewardship applications
• Easy development and embedding of MDM applications
• Continuous change monitoring

Pros

• Streamlined data management features targeting data stewards
• Strong data cleaning and verification features
• Metadata management and modeling capabilities

Cons

• Difficult to integrate with other tools
• Mediocre customer service/support

Semarchy xDM

Best for Automations

Semarchy’s xDM focuses heavily on ML-powered automations—algorithms that enable data stewardship and advanced matching, survivorship, curation, and classification. The solution also provides a native data model for supporting transparent lineage, audibility, and governance. xDM can also integrate with any data source via real-time and batch APIs.

Pricing

• Actual pricing not available
• Pricing is on a per-license basis— estimated AWS cloud infrastructure cost is $0.046 compute instance per hour
• Free trial

Features

• Data quality and enrichment tools
• Collaboration tools for accessing, managing, organizing, validating, and publishing data
• Powerful, business-focused data governance tools

Pros

• Vast feature set and range of options
• AI/ML for powering advanced stewardship functionality
• Strong customer support

Cons

• Steep learning curve
• User interface hides many powerful options
• Can be difficult to set up and configure

Syniti MDM

Best for Core Features

Syniti MDM allows users to create a single point of reference to master and application data from multiple domains, with connectivity to over 200 systems and applications. The solution is capable of intelligently notifying users regarding work to be performed, as well as monitoring processes against defined service level agreements (SLAs).

Pricing

• Actual pricing not available
• No free trial

Features

• Built in data quality and statistics dashboard
• Advanced MDM governance hierarchy and security elements
• Data cataloging and compliance monitoring and tracking

Pros

• Offers transparent lineage reporting
• Comes with extensive data source connectors

Cons

• Not as intuitive or easy-to-use as other competing MDM tools

SAP Master Data Governance

Best for Enterprise Features

Make no mistake—the SAP Master Data Governance platform is an enterprise offering through and through. The solution offers robust capabilities for consolidating and centrally governing enterprise master data, and includes support for all master data domains and implementation styles, as well as pre-built data models, business rules, workflow, and user interfaces.

Pricing

• Actual pricing not available
• No free trial

Features

• Complete end-to-end data governance solution
• Integrations with SAP applications and other leading enterprise software suites
• Powerful auditing and compliance tools

Pros

• Comprehensive, centralized data management capabilities
• Strong master data versioning functionality
• Built-in data analytics and reporting

Cons

• Difficult to customize
• Complex user interface
• Users report intermittent glitches and errors

Insight Software/Magnitude Kalido MDM

Best for Data Modeling

Kalido MDM, now part of insightsoftware, is a multi-domain MDM solution that offers advanced data modeling and policy-driven data governance. The solution complements the Kalido Dynamic Information Warehouse (DIW) solution as an all-in-one toolset for modeling, defining, and managing business data.

Pricing

•  $11,952 per year (for 300 users)
• No free trial

Features

• Domain-agnostic modeling via a single visual interface
• Automated data stewardship capabilities
• Collaboration and activity tracking

Pros

• Provides elaborate workflow management and model-driven API
• Seamless audit, validation, and security capabilities
• Strong change management features for tracking master data lifecycles

Cons

• Limited support options
• Lackluster user interface

Stibo Systems Multidomain MDM

Best for Use Case Diversity

Danish software developer Stibo Systems offers an integrated suite of MDM tools that allows users to connect, govern, enrich, and syndicate data to their specific business requirements. The solution is capable of consolidating multi-domain master data and other enterprise application and system data into a single source of truth for data accuracy and visibility.

Pricing

• Actual pricing not available
• No free trial

Features

• Zone (intersections of multiple domains) creation, management, and insights
• Unified data governance
• Workflow management, API connectivity, and automation options

Pros

• Strong integration capabilities for various data sources
• Highly configurable platform
• Intuitive, hierarchical organization of datasets

Cons

• Limited documentation
• Difficult user interface
• Search functionality lacks power and scope

Pimcore MDM

Best for Pricing

Pimcore MDM is the only open source offering in this list, making it extremely low-cost—but there are hidden costs and drawbacks in the form of lack of enterprise support and quality documentation. That said, the solution provides some powerful core MDM features, such as the ability to consolidate master data across disparate system landscapes using its open source tools, as well as features like data quality monitoring, hierarchy management, rich content integrations, audit trails, and workflow management.

Pricing

• Starts at $750 per month
• Starter, Professional, and Ultimate tiers available
• Free trial

Features

• Powerful data standardization, editing, and batch processing tools
• Rule-based data validation for a myriad of data types
• Extensive publishing and versioning options for enterprise data

Pros

• Highly configurable, customizable open source solution
• Comes with advanced security features like role-based access control (RBAC) and access control lists (ACLs)
• Provides a REST API for easy integration with other applications

Cons

• Geared more toward developers
• Difficult to deploy and set up
• Missing advanced analytics and reporting

Key Features of MDM Software

When it comes to MDM software, key features should be centralized around the management and maintenance of master data. Core features should be focused on data governance and stewardship. Enterprise features and support options are also crucial for servicing larger organizations. Expect pricing to fall on the high end, with the exception of Pimco’s open source MDM solution.

How We Evaluated MDM Software

To rate these 10 top master data management tools, we assigned them weighted scores from zero to five based on how well they met enterprise needs in the six key areas detailed below, and then aggregated the results.

Core Features | 20 percent

At the heart of all MDM software are its data governance and data stewardship capabilities. Along with these functionalities, other core feature considerations include collaboration tools, built-in analytics, and customizable user interfaces (UIs).

Support | 15 percent

MDM software vendors should offer multiple channels for support, including live chat, phone, email, and other forms of self-service support (e.g., knowledgebase, support forums). Given the prominence of enterprise buyers in this space, MDM vendors should offer options for paid custom support to customers willing to pay a premium for it.

Integrations | 20 percent

Integration concerns in this software category primarily revolve around data integrations and API connectivity—ideally, an MDM solution should offer extensive plugins and connectors to support a vast array of data types, as well as a REST API for integrating with other software packages and applications.

Enterprise Features | 15 percent

Enterprise concerns trump all others in the MDM space. A key requirement for most enterprises is compatibility with existing back office systems—for example, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and financial platforms—as well as flexible deployment modes (on-premises and in the cloud) and advanced AI/ML functionality.

Pricing | 10 percent

Pricing is somewhat of a secondary concern in this tool category, as organizations evaluating MDM solutions tend to be less price-conscious when it comes to managing their master data. Relevant sub-criteria used in calculating this metric include the overall cost of the solution, availability of a free trial or demo, number of pricing tiers, and upgrades or discounts, if any.

Vendor Profile | 20 percent

As is the case with enterprise features, vendor profile metrics are more critical to large organizations—especially when it comes to MDM. Sub-criteria used in evaluating vendor profiles include the breadth of the vendor’s solution suite, vendor business type ( startup or enterprise software vendor, for example), customer base size, and length of time in business.

How to Choose the Right MDM Software for Your Business

The ideal MDM software for your business is the solution that addresses your specific data requirements, use cases, and environments. For example, organizations operating in highly regulated industries may be relegated to on-premises only solutions—a predicament that significantly narrows the range of options.

Similarly, firms wishing to retain full control of their data infrastructure may opt for a completely open source, self-hosted solution like Pimco MDM, assuming they have the necessary expertise/resources to support it. Your MDM software evaluation process should start with these types of non-negotiable requirements, followed by analysis of the candidate solution’s master data management and maintenance capabilities.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are Master Data Management (MDM) tools?

MDM tools are essential software applications for centralizing and harmonizing an organization’s critical data, such as customer information, product details, and supplier data.

Why are MDM tools critical for bolstering enterprise resilience?

As vital tools that enable better strategic decision-making, MDM platforms play a pivotal role in ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and cross-enterprise reliability by eliminating duplicates, standardizing formats, and providing a single source of truth for all of the organization’s data users.

What features should be a priority when evaluating MDM tools?

Due to the sensitive nature of master data and overarching concerns related to data security/privacy and sovereignty, organizations should first evaluate an MDM solution in this context, followed by a careful consideration of the solution’s data governance and data stewardship features.

Is data security a concern when using MDM tools?

Data security is also a concern when dealing with data; however, when it comes to MDM tools, data security is a heightened concern, since it deals with an organization’s master data.

Should I select an on-premises or cloud-based MDM solution?

This depends on your organization’s specific requirements, IT environments, as well as the availability of staff with the requisite expertise to deploy and manage an on-premises MDM solution.

Bottom Line: Master Data Management Software

MDM solutions provide enterprises with an accurate, comprehensive way of linking and harmonizing critical data across the organization. Not all solutions are created equal—but these guidelines and considerations will better equip businesses to select the right solution for their unique requirements and use cases.

Read Data Management: Types and Challenges to learn more about how MDM fits into the bigger picture of enterprise data management.