Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Data Fabric Platforms, Q4 2025

How does Forrester define the Data Fabric Platforms market in 2025?

As enterprise data ecosystems grow in scale and complexity, traditional data management approaches for AI are no longer sufficient. Agentic AI introduces autonomous, goal-driven behavior, while advanced data intelligence adds contextual awareness and adaptive decision-making. Together, they are redefining data fabric, making it more intelligent, responsive, automated, and self-optimizing by default. This evaluation of 14 data fabric platform providers helps organizations select vendors capable of supporting both short- and long-term data strategies with AI-driven automation, agentic AI capabilities, and built-in data intelligence.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Data Fabric Platforms, Q4 2025 in 2025

How did the Data Fabric Platforms market evolve in 2025?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Data Fabric Platforms space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research evaluates 14 data fabric platform providers across three categories: Leaders (Microsoft, Oracle, Cloudera, Teradata, Snowflake), Strong Performers (Denodo, Qlik, Informatica, Google, InterSystems), and Contenders (IBM, Reltio, Amazon Web Services, SAP). The evaluation focuses on current offering capabilities, strategic vision, and customer feedback, with emphasis on AI-driven automation, agentic AI, and built-in data intelligence capabilities.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: This research should be used by data fabric customers making purchasing decisions who need to prioritize vendors that support AI-driven automation for smarter operations, leverage agentic AI and genAI to accelerate use cases, and harness built-in data intelligence to drive quicker contextual insights. It's particularly valuable for enterprises managing diverse data sources, navigating hybrid/multicloud environments, or undergoing AI transformation initiatives.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: Vendors must provide broad, enterprise-level support for data fabric functionality with native core functions and demonstrated track record. Solutions must be available as standalone products with separate SKU and pricing (not just bundled features). Vendors must have at least $10 million in annual data fabric revenue and significant mindshare among Forrester enterprise clients through frequent mentions in inquiries, advisories, and consulting engagements.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Annual data fabric revenue below $10 million threshold
  • Solution only available as bundled feature without standalone SKU
  • Lack of native core data fabric functions requiring third-party components
  • No demonstrated track record supporting large enterprise deployments
  • Insufficient mindshare among Forrester's enterprise client base
  • Limited mentions by clients or competitors in market discussions

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Support for AI-driven automation for smarter data fabric operations including data cleansing, transformation, security, governance, and integration
  • Leverage agentic AI and genAI to accelerate use cases through proactive decision-making, adaptive learning, and autonomous workflow execution
  • Harness built-in data intelligence to drive quicker contextual insights with semantic enrichment, metadata extraction, and dynamic contextualization
  • Hybrid and multicloud architecture capabilities for flexible deployment
  • Real-time data integration, transformation, and quality management
  • Unified data governance and security across distributed environments
  • Self-service capabilities for both technical and business users
  • Scalability and performance for mission-critical workloads
  • Vendor's vision, innovation roadmap, and partner ecosystem strength
  • Total cost of ownership and pricing transparency

Q: How has the Data Fabric Platforms market evolved in 2025?

A:

  • Agentic AI and advanced data intelligence are redefining data fabric platforms
  • AI-driven automation is transforming data fabric operations through orchestration of data cleansing, transformation, security, governance, and integration
  • Integration of agentic AI and genAI enables proactive decision-making, adaptive learning, and autonomous workflow execution
  • Built-in data intelligence automatically surfaces patterns, relationships, anomalies, and trends across massive datasets
  • Natural language interfaces democratize access to data insights for non-technical users
  • Shift toward cloud-native, multicloud, and hybrid data fabric architectures
  • Growing emphasis on real-time data processing, quality, and integration
  • Increasing focus on unified governance, security, and metadata management across distributed environments

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Strength of Offering measures current product capabilities across 20 technical criteria with equal 5% weighting each, focusing on functional completeness including integration, AI, governance, and real-time processing. Strength of Strategy evaluates future direction and market positioning, heavily weighted toward Vision (30%), Innovation (25%), and Roadmap (25%), with additional consideration for Partner ecosystem (10%), Adoption (5%), and Pricing (5%).

Reference

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