Are you looking for an effective solution for master data management as Microsoft Master Data Services approaches its end of life? We’ll walk you through these top alternatives as MDS replacements that offer robust features tailored to your organization’s unique data management needs – and show you how SQL Spreads not only makes the transition easy, but leaves you with a leaner tech stack and better value for money. If you only need the Excel-based part of MDS, see how SQL Spreads works as an MDS replacement.
SQL Spreads starts at $39 per Designer seat per month, billed annually, with additional Editor seats at $19 per month.
Microsoft has removed MDS from SQL Server 2025
Microsoft is clear about the status of MDS:
“Master Data Services (MDS) is removed in SQL Server 2025 (17.x). We continue to support MDS in SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and earlier versions.”
That is from Microsoft’s list of discontinued database engine features. SQL Server 2025 became generally available on November 18, 2025, so this is not a future risk to plan around. It is already true for anyone running the current version.
If you have been searching for whether MDS is deprecated, discontinued, end of life or past end of support, the answer is blunter than any of those words. It is removed. The feature is not in the product.
We are SQL Spreads. We make an Excel add-in that lets business users update data in SQL Server directly from a spreadsheet, and more than 1,000 customers in over 50 countries use it. We sell a product in this category, so we are not neutral. What follows sets out what matters when you replace MDS, says how we meet each point, and names the cases where a bigger platform or a free tool is the better answer.
Microsoft named a replacement for everything except MDS
MDS was not the only removal in SQL Server 2025. Data Quality Services went at the same time, Synapse Link was discontinued, and so were Purview access policies.
Microsoft named a replacement for each of those. Synapse Link users are pointed to Mirroring in Fabric. Purview access policy users are pointed to fixed server-level roles.
For MDS, Microsoft named nothing. No successor product, and no migration path. Before you start evaluating, that is the thing to know: there is no official answer, so none of the tools below is the designated replacement.
How long you have depends on your version
The rule that governs all of this: MDS is supported for as long as the SQL Server version hosting it is supported. There is no separate MDS end-of-support date. Find your SQL Server version and you have your answer.
Planning to move to SQL Server 2025. MDS is no longer included, so you cannot bring your existing MDS implementation with you. You will need to replace MDS before, or as part of, the upgrade.
On SQL Server 2022. MDS keeps working, and you have longer than you might think. Microsoft’s lifecycle page gives SQL Server 2022 mainstream support to January 2028 and extended support, meaning security updates only, to January 2033. Security patches continue through the extended window, so MDS does not become unpatched in 2028. What arrives instead is a decision attached to your next upgrade project, and no commitment from Microsoft to new MDS features or fixes in the meantime.
On SQL Server 2019 or earlier, which is where a great many MDS installs still sit. SQL Server 2019 left mainstream support in 2025 and runs on security updates to 2030. SQL Server 2017 has security updates to 2027. SQL Server 2016 support ended in 2026. If you are on one of these, your MDS instance already sits on a version Microsoft no longer improves, and the upgrade that forces this decision is closer than 2028.
What teams complain about in MDS
These are the objections we hear most from teams who have run it:
- Dated interface. The Master Data Manager web application feels old and is slow to work in.
- Heavy setup. Many steps and repeated actions for straightforward changes, with more functionality than most teams use.
- Performance on large datasets. Slow on bulk loads, and scaling it means adding server resources.
- A server and a web application to keep running. This is the complaint that comes up most. MDS is not just a database schema. It is a dedicated server, an IIS application pool and a URL, which means installing it, migrating it when servers move, patching it, and managing change control when models move between environments.
- The Excel add-in was a separate thing to deploy. The Master Data Services Add-in for Excel had to be installed and version-matched to the server alongside the web application.
“We needed a tool with audit capabilities and initially tried Microsoft Master Data Services. It worked, but added significant technical overhead — servers, migrations, patching, performance issues and change control. SQL Spreads gave us a much simpler approach.”
Who needs an MDS alternative
You have data in SQL Server that business users regularly need to change. Customer and vendor master lists. Product and cost-center hierarchies. Employee and location records. Chart-of-accounts mappings. Budget inputs and KPI targets.
Business users know what the values should be. They ask you to change them. Every change is a small job for someone technical, and there are more requests than people to handle them. Meanwhile the workarounds pile up: CSV imports, an SSIS job somebody wrote years ago, spreadsheets emailed back and forth, and a developer running UPDATE statements from a list.
The cost is not only the time spent by the BI team. A change that takes five minutes to make may sit in an internal ticket queue for two days before someone gets to it. Giving business users a controlled way to make those changes themselves can turn that two-day cycle into five minutes. It also makes testing and simulation much easier: users can make a change, see the result, adjust the data and test again without waiting for the BI team between each step.
This is not a question of company size. A two-person BI team inside a 10,000-person business hits the same wall as one at a 50-person company. What matters is whether you have a dedicated data governance function and the capacity to run platform infrastructure. With those, the enterprise platforms below are built for you. Without them, the strongest MDM platform on paper still leaves you running a platform nobody has time to run.
What to look for when you replace MDS
Does it need a server? MDS did, and that is the single largest source of the overhead people complain about. Some replacements need one. Some do not.
Can the people who need to edit the data use it themselves? If the answer involves training your finance team on a new application, the requests come back to you anyway.
What stops someone breaking the data? This is the question that decides most evaluations, and it needs a specific answer, not the word “governance”. Ask who controls which columns and rows can be changed, whether the database’s own validation rules still apply, whether there is a record of who changed what, and what happens when someone makes a mistake.
What level of approval workflow and record matching do you need? Not every data change needs a formal approval workflow. For critical changes, a simpler approach may be enough—for example, allowing only a designated approver to mark records as Approved before the data is used downstream. If you need automatic matching and merging of duplicate records across source systems, you will typically need a full MDM platform.
How is it priced, not just what does it cost? Per seat, per server, per record and perpetual license behave very differently as you grow. See the pricing section below.
What is the total cost including the work? License, setup, consultants, and whoever maintains it in year two.
SQL Spreads, editing SQL Server tables from inside Excel
Ours first, then the alternatives.
“Microsoft Master Data Services was very complex and very difficult to use, compared to SQL Spreads.”
What stops a business user from breaking the data?
One of the main concerns when giving business users direct access to update data is how you prevent them from breaking the data in the database. Here is how SQL Spreads handles that.
Designer and Data Editor are separate roles with separate licenses. A Designer on the BI or IT team creates an Excel template for each database table that business users need to work with. The Designer controls which rows and columns are shown, which can be updated, and whether users can insert or delete records. A Data Editor uses the templates created by the Designer and can only view and edit the data the Designer has allowed. No technical or database knowledge is needed—only basic Excel skills.
Your existing SQL Server data integrity rules do the work. SQL Spreads automatically applies SQL Server data types and validation rules in Excel, so invalid values are caught as users edit. Database constraints are also enforced when changes are saved.
Changes are tracked. Change Tracking records who changed what and when. It is included in Pro ($39 per Data Editor per month) and above.
Lookups replace key values with drop-down lists in Excel. Users select a readable value, such as a customer or cost center name, while SQL Spreads writes the corresponding key value to the database.
What if someone makes a mistake? SQL Spreads has full support for SQL Server temporal tables, so you can keep a complete history of changes and restore previous values when needed.
Two people editing at once. Conflict Detection is a Premium feature ($99 per Data Editor per month). If two Editors change the same row, the second user is warned instead of silently overwriting the other user’s changes.
What editing actually looks like
An Editor opens the spreadsheet, filters or sorts to find the rows they need, edits the cells they are allowed to change, and clicks Save. The changes go to SQL Server. There is no import step, no CSV, and nothing to hand back to IT.
Updating, inserting and deleting data is controlled. Editors can only make the changes the Designer allows, and all changes must be explicitly confirmed before they are saved to the database. This helps prevent accidental updates, inserts, or deletes.
Support for SQL Server Views. SQL Spreads can connect to SQL Server Views as well as tables. This lets a Designer combine data from multiple tables and control exactly which columns users can see and update. Available in Pro and above.
Hierarchical data is easier to work with. Premium includes hierarchical tree filters, allowing users to work with parent and child records together instead of as a flat list.
What it runs on
SQL Spreads works with Microsoft SQL Server, all editions, and with Azure SQL.
There is no server component. It is an Excel add-in installed on the machines of the people using it, connecting to the database you already run. Nothing to provision, patch or migrate, and no web application to keep alive.
Setup and deployment
A Designer installs the add-in, connects to the database, picks a table, sets which columns are editable, and saves the sheet. That is minutes of work, not a professional services engagement, and it needs no consultant.
SQL Spreads supports Windows Authentication across all editions, allowing users to connect using their existing Windows credentials. It also supports Microsoft Entra ID authentication.
For larger deployments, SQL Spreads supports packaged MSI deployment, allowing IT teams to deploy the add-in using their standard software deployment tools and processes.
“SQL Spreads, only requiring the Excel plugin, was a doddle to set up and provided the right level of user control with separate Designer and Editor roles. Users with Designer rights can create their own input spreadsheets without further IT involvement, significantly easing IT support requirements. It hits the sweet spot I was looking for perfectly.”
Pricing
SQL Spreads is priced per user, with separate Designer and Data Editor licenses. Both monthly and annual billing are available, with lower monthly prices when billed annually. Full detail is on our pricing page.
The two prices exist because the two roles are different jobs. One technical person builds and controls the sheets. Their colleagues in finance or operations edit data in them.
| Tier | Designer | Editor | Includes |
| Basic | $39/month | $19/month | Update, insert, delete; data validation; hidden and read-only columns; filter and sort; SQL Server On-Prem and Azure SQL |
| Pro | $79/month | $39/month | Everything in Basic, key lookups, change tracking, SQL Server Views, Microsoft Entra ID authentication, pay by invoice, priority support |
| Premium | $199/month | $99/month | Everything in Pro, plus conflict detection, hierarchical tree filters, pivot data, VBA integration |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | 100+ users, flexible billing, unlimited switching between Designer and Editor roles |
Volume discounts. Discounts range from 8% at 5 users to 35% at 100 users.
Money-back guarantee. Purchases come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Try SQL Spreads free for 14 days
You can try SQL Spreads free for 14 days, with no credit card required.
Where data lives
SQL Spreads does not store any of your data. The add-in connects directly from the user’s machine to your SQL Server, and your data remains within your own environment. No database data is copied to or passes through SQL Spreads servers.
What it does not do
No advanced workflow engine. SQL Spreads can support simple approval processes, but it does not provide advanced multi-step workflows for complex approval processes.
No automated deduplication, matching or merging. If you need to automatically reconcile duplicate records across multiple source systems into a golden record, you will need a full MDM platform.
Windows desktop only. No Mac version. SQL Spreads runs in the Windows desktop version of Excel, where many finance, operations and data users already work.
When SQL Spreads may not be the right fit
SQL Spreads is designed for BI and data teams that want business users to safely manage data in SQL Server using Excel.
If your organization has a dedicated master data management team and needs advanced workflows, automated matching and merging, data governance across many systems, or other enterprise MDM capabilities, a full MDM platform may be a better fit.
“We first started looking at large MDM solutions, which are really just big software products calling themselves MDM solutions. These offer a lot of functionality – way too much for us. So, we wanted to look at a simpler solution, and that’s why we chose SQL Spreads. Yes, it doesn’t do some of the things that MDS can do. But I am not missing it, because I didn’t use it.”
The tools our customers tell us they also looked at
These come up in our own sales conversations and customer interviews. We have not run trials of the enterprise platforms, so what follows is drawn from their published material, and we say where something is not publicly stated rather than guessing.
Profisee
The full MDM platform that comes up most often against us in this category. Multi-domain master data with match and merge, data quality rules and workflow, running as SaaS hosted by Profisee or as PaaS in your own cloud.
They are also the strongest option specifically on migration, and it would be misleading to leave that out. Profisee publishes a named MDS Migration Utility, free with every subscription, which converts entities, attributes, hierarchies, relationships, users and data automatically, though not data quality rules. Their own stated timeline is 4 to 12 weeks depending on domains, stewardship requirements and workflow complexity. They also have a genuine lineage claim on this topic: Profisee traces back to Stratature, the company Microsoft acquired in 2007 to build MDS, and one of the original MDS creators works there.
Pricing is volume based, in their words “only pay for the records you need”, with unlimited data domains and attributes included. Prices are not published and you request a quote. For a rough public anchor, competitor Primentra estimates Profisee at “around €30,000/year and rises significantly with usage”, which is their figure and not ours.
If you have a real customer or supplier data quality problem across multiple systems, this class of tool exists for that and we do not compete with it.
The other enterprise platforms
CluedIn, Semarchy xDM and Informatica MDM are multi-domain master data platforms in the same tier: a platform to run, a governance function assumed, and pricing you get by asking. None publishes pricing publicly, and none has come up in our own customer interviews, so we will not characterize their setup times from marketing copy we cannot verify. If you are evaluating at that tier, go to them directly.
Microsoft Purview
The natural question after Microsoft removes a data tool, so it is worth answering. Purview is Microsoft’s data governance, cataloging and lineage platform. It tells you what data you have, where it came from, and who can see it.
It is not a tool for letting business users edit reference tables. Microsoft does not present it as an MDS replacement, and as covered above, Microsoft names no MDS replacement at all. If you arrived at Purview looking for somewhere to move your MDS models, it is not the destination.
Power Apps
Power Apps is a natural alternative for organizations already using the Microsoft Power Platform. It provides much more flexibility than SQL Spreads for building custom forms, workflows and business applications.
The main difference is the amount of development required. With SQL Spreads, a Designer can connect Excel to an existing SQL Server table, choose which columns users can view and edit, and have a working solution ready in around five minutes. With Power Apps, you are building an application: screens and controls need to be designed, data connections configured, and the application tested and maintained.
The user experience is also different. SQL Spreads lets users work directly in Excel, with familiar filtering, sorting, formulas, copy and paste, and bulk editing. Power Apps can support grids and bulk editing, but Excel is naturally suited to reviewing and updating many rows and columns at once. If you need a custom application and workflow, Power Apps may be the better choice. If you primarily need business users to safely update SQL Server data, SQL Spreads is much quicker to set up and keeps users in Excel.
The cheaper Excel add-ins
Devart Excel Add-in and CData both connect Excel to SQL Server and write data back, and both cost less. Devart’s is published from $176.35 as a perpetual license with a year of updates, via reseller ComponentSource, so for a single technical user it is materially cheaper than any subscription.
The difference for this use case is that neither separates a Designer role from an Editor role. Whoever has the add-in has the connection and everything it reaches. When we have gone head to head with CData, the customer’s stated reason for choosing us was that CData’s interface suits a developer who knows SQL but would confuse people who are not comfortable in Excel.
For one technical person bulk-editing their own tables, the cheaper tool may be all you need.
Manual and built-in alternatives
Ask IT or the BI team to make the change. This is probably the simplest alternative: a business user raises a ticket, someone with database access makes the change, and then gets back to the user. It requires no additional software, but a change that takes five minutes to make can easily take a day or two to get through the queue.
Use SSMS or SQL scripts. Someone with database access makes the changes directly. This works well for technical users, but does not give business users a safe way to manage the data themselves.
SSIS. Business users update an Excel file, and an SSIS package imports the data into SQL Server. But there is little control over the Excel file—a user can add a column, change a data type, or enter invalid data, causing the SSIS package to fail when it runs.
None of these is wrong for a small enough problem. They stop working when a non-technical colleague needs to make the changes and you need to say exactly what they can and cannot touch.
Comparison
| Needs a server | Setup time | Business users edit in Excel | Separate Designer and Editor roles | Pricing | |
| SQL Spreads | No | Minutes | Yes | Yes | Per seat, published, Designer from $39; Editor from $19 |
| Microsoft MDS | Yes | Days to weeks | Via a separate Excel add-in | Yes | Removed from SQL Server 2025 |
| Profisee | Yes, SaaS or your cloud | 4 to 12 weeks, their figure | No | Yes | Volume based, quote only |
| Primentra | Yes, per server | Not published | No | Not published | Flat, €7,500 per year, unlimited users |
| Power Apps | No | Hours to days | No, its own forms | Via Power Platform roles | Often already licensed |
| Devart, CData | No | Minutes | Yes | No | Devart from $176.35, perpetual |
| SSMS/SSIS | No | Minutes | No | No | Free |
“Needs a server” means a dedicated server or hosted platform separate from the SQL Server you already run. Profisee’s setup time is their own published figure. CluedIn, Semarchy xDM and Informatica MDM are not in this table because we could not verify their pricing or setup times from their own material.
Or could you just build it yourself?
The third option that never appears in vendor comparisons, and the most common real alternative we encounter: somebody on the team builds a small internal web app instead of buying anything.
It is a reasonable instinct. The need feels too small to justify a platform and too real to keep ignoring.
The costs that decide it arrive later. Developer time to build. Maintenance as requirements shift. No clear owner once the person who built it changes team or leaves.
But cost is not the argument that actually settles this, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest about what we see. The pattern in our own customer interviews is an adoption problem, not a budget one: teams build the internal tool, and their business users go back to Excel anyway. A tool that hits the middle ground has to beat MDS and Profisee on features, beat “we’ll build it ourselves” on total cost, and beat Excel on whether people will actually use it. The third one is where bespoke builds usually lose.
Which one is right for you
You manage data in SQL Server and want business users to make changes themselves. An Excel-based tool with role separation can work for anything from a few tables to hundreds of tables without requiring a dedicated MDM platform. That is what we built SQL Spreads for.
You need enterprise master data management across multiple systems. If you need automated matching and merging, golden records, advanced approval workflows and a dedicated data governance function, look at a full MDM platform such as Profisee.
You need to build custom forms, workflows or a business application. Power Apps may be the better choice, particularly if your organization already uses Microsoft Power Platform.
You are a technical user who just needs to bulk-edit SQL Server data. SSMS, SQL scripts or a cheaper Excel add-in may be all you need.
You only have occasional changes and business users do not need direct access. Asking IT or the BI team to make the changes may still be the simplest solution.
Frequently asked questions
Has Microsoft removed MDS in SQL Server 2025?
Yes. Microsoft’s documentation states that “Master Data Services (MDS) is removed in SQL Server 2025 (17.x)” and that MDS continues to be supported in SQL Server 2022 and earlier versions. SQL Server 2025 became generally available on November 18, 2025.
Is MDS deprecated, or is it end of life?
Neither word is quite right. MDS is removed from SQL Server 2025, meaning the feature is not in the product. On SQL Server 2022 and earlier it is still supported, so it is not end of life there either. The practical rule is that MDS is supported for as long as your version of SQL Server is supported.
Can I still use MDS on SQL Server 2022?
Yes. MDS works on SQL Server 2022 and earlier, and it is supported for as long as that version of SQL Server is. SQL Server 2022 has mainstream support to January 2028 and extended support, meaning security updates only, to January 2033. Security patches continue through the extended window. Earlier versions have less time: SQL Server 2019 left mainstream support in 2025, and SQL Server 2016 support ended in 2026. Check your own version.
What does Microsoft recommend instead of MDS?
Nothing. Microsoft published replacements for the other features it removed in SQL Server 2025, but named no successor to MDS and no migration path. Microsoft Purview is a data governance and cataloging platform rather than a tool for editing reference data, so it is not a like-for-like replacement.
What can I use instead of MDS?
The options run from Excel-based tools with role separation, such as SQL Spreads, through Power Apps and cheaper Excel add-ins, to full MDM platforms such as Profisee, Informatica MDM, Semarchy xDM and CluedIn. Which fits depends mostly on whether you need enterprise MDM capabilities and have a dedicated data governance function, or want business users to manage SQL Server data without running a dedicated MDM platform.
Can business users break the database if I let them edit it in Excel?
SQL Spreads separates who designs the spreadsheet from who edits the data. A Designer controls which rows and columns users can see and update, and whether they can insert or delete records. SQL Server’s own validation rules and constraints still apply, and Change Tracking can record who changed what and when. Data Editors do not get general access to other tables or database objects outside the configured templates. For critical data, simple approval processes can also be implemented, while more complex multi-step approval workflows require a full MDM or workflow platform.
Can I undo a change if someone makes a mistake?
There is no single button that rolls back a committed change. Change Tracking records who changed what and when, making it easy to identify and correct a mistake. SQL Spreads also has full support for SQL Server temporal tables, which maintain a complete history of the data and can be used as a full audit log. Previous values can then be retrieved and restored when needed.
How do I migrate off MDS?
What has to move is usually four things: your entities and their attributes, your hierarchies, your business rules, and the data itself. The first and last are mechanical. Hierarchies and business rules are where the work is, because their equivalents differ from tool to tool, and MDS business rules in particular often have no direct counterpart. Some things have no equivalent at all in a lighter tool, notably MDS approval workflows and versioning, so decide early whether you actually used those or just had them switched on.
If you are moving to a platform, Profisee publishes a free migration utility that converts entities, attributes, hierarchies, relationships and users automatically, and states 4 to 12 weeks for a typical migration. If you are moving to a spreadsheet-based tool the shape is different: you point at the tables your models already write to, and the work is deciding what should stay editable and by whom rather than porting a model.
Do I need a dedicated data team to use an MDM tool?
Not for all of them. Enterprise MDM platforms are typically built for organizations with a dedicated data governance function. Lighter tools such as SQL Spreads are designed for BI and data teams that want to manage master and reference data without running a dedicated MDM platform or team.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Profisee?
Profisee does not publish prices; their model is volume based and you request a quote. Competitor Primentra estimates Profisee at around €30,000 per year, which is Primentra’s figure rather than a Profisee one. SQL Spreads publishes its pricing, starting at $39 per Designer per month.
So if you’re ready to leave the burden of Microsoft Master Data Services behind before it fades into the past, weigh your needs for a lean stack against a smart budget to find the solution for you. And if that solution is SQL Spreads, you can get started within the hour with our free 14-day trial.
Want more info before reaching out? Explore testimonials from real SQL Spreads users or see everything SQL Spreads has to offer on our features page.
