Best Of
10 Best Data Cleaning Tools (June 2024)
It’s no doubt that data is today’s gold. There is no resource more valuable. With that said, not just any data can be leveraged by organizations. Dirty data can wreck a business's analytics, and nearly every organization has had to deal with some level of unreliable numbers. This bad data can lead to poor insights, and it can cause inconsistent assessments that lead to failure, increased operational cost, and customer dissatisfaction.
The rise of available data has also caused a surge in data cleaning tools, which use artificial intelligence (AI) to save organizations massive amounts of time and resources. Data cleaning is the last process of data entry, and it revolves around specific rules.
But what exactly is data cleaning?
How Does Data Cleaning Work?
There can be many errors in data coming from things like bad data entry, the source of data, mismatch of source and destination, and invalid calculation. When this occurs, the data must be cleaned, or in other words, it must undergo the deletion of wrong, corrupted, duplicated, or incomplete information from a dataset.
By cleaning bad data, organizations can eliminate poor-quality results. This is why it is crucial to carry out data cleaning before modeling and analysis. It can also ensure that you only have the most recent files and important documents, or that you don’t have too much personal information that can pose a security risk.
Given the many reasons for carrying out data cleaning, it’s important to choose one of the top available tools on the market.
Here are the 10 best data cleaning tools:
1. OpenRefine
Topping our list is OpenRefine, which is a highly-popular open-source data utility. The data cleaning tool helps your organization convert data between different formats while maintaining its structure. By letting you transform data, you can easily work with big data sets to match, clean, and explore data. It also enables you to parse data from the internet and work with data directly on your machine.
Here are some of the advantages of OpenRefine:
- Free and open source
- Supports over 15 languages
- Work with dta on your machine
- Parse data from the internet
2. Trifacta Wrangler
Trifacta Wrangler is another one of the top data cleaning tools on the market. This interactive and transformational tool enables data analysts to clean and prepare data very quickly compared to other tools. Because of its concentration on data analysis, less time is required for formatting. Trifacta Wrangler also relies on machine learning (ML) algorithms to recommend common data transformations and aggregations.
Here are some of the advantages of Trifacta Wrangler:
- Less formatting time
- Focus on data analysis
- Quick and accurate
- Machine learning algorithm suggestions
3. WinPure
One of the more cost-effective data cleaning tools, WinPure is another one of the top options. It works to clean massive data sets by correcting, standardizing, and removing duplicates. WinPure can be used to clean more than just databases. You can use it on CRMs, spreadsheets, and various other sources. Specific databases that can be cleaned with WinPure include SQL Server, Access, Dbase, and Txt files. One of the major advantages of the tool is that it is locally installed, which results in a high level of security.
Here are some of the advantages of WinPure:
- Cleans enormous amounts of data
- Locally installed
- Free version with features
- Four languages
4. Drake
One of the simple data cleaning tools is Drake, which is an extensible, text-based data workflow with data processing steps. It can automatically resolve dependencies and calculate the command to execute and the necessary order of execution. Drake was specifically designed for data workflow and management, and it can organize command execution around data and its dependencies.
Here are some of the advantages of Drake:
- Organized command execution around data and dependencies
- Many inputs and outputs
- Built-in HDFS support
- Simple cleaning tool
5. TIBCO Clarity
TIBCO Clarity is a data cleaning tool that provides on demand software services from the web. It enables you to validate data while cleaning it to identify trends that lead to better decision-making processes. TIBO Clarity can standardize raw data that is collected from disparate sources, resulting in quality data that can be used for accurate analysis.
Here are some of the advantages of TIBCO Clarity:
- Provides SaaS via the web
- Standardizes raw data
- Helps with accurate analysis
- Leads to better decisions
6. Melissa Clean Suite
One more top data cleaning tool on the market is Melissa Clean Suite, which is a data cleaning solution that works to enhance data quality in CRM and ERP platforms like Oracle CRM, Salesforce, Oracle ERP, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It provides a wide range of capabilities like data deduplication, data verification, contact autocompletion, data enrichment, and real-time and batch processing.
Here are some of the advantages of Melissa Clean Suite:
- Enhances data quality in CRM and ERP platforms
- Data deduplication
- Data verification
- Real-time and batch processing
7. Data Ladder
Data Ladder is a platform that offers various products, such as DataMatch, which is a cleaning and data quality tool. It also offers DataMatch Enterprise, which includes advanced fuzzy matching algorithms for up to 100 million records. DataMatch Enterprise is also one of the fastests on the market while achieving one of the highest matching accuracies.
Here are some of the advantages of Data Ladder:
- User friendly tools
- Useful for every size business
- Easy data cleaning processes
- High matching accuracies
8. IBM Infosphere Quality Stage
Coming from one of the biggest names in the industry, IBM Infosphere Quality Stage is aimed at supporting data quality. It is one of the most popular data cleaning tools available for supporting full data quality. It enables the easy cleansing and management of databases while also helping build consistent views of a company’s most important units, such as customers, vendors, products, and locations. The data cleansing tool is especially useful for big data, business intelligence, master data management, and data warehousing.
Here are some of the advantages of IBM Infosphere Quality Stage:
- Supports full data quality
- Easy cleansing and database management
- Useful for big data and business intelligence
- Information governance
9. Cloudingo
Clouding is yet another great option when it comes to data cleaning tools. The tool automatically handles keeping Salesforce data clean and manageable. It is a simple tool that also enables you to delete outdated entries, automate on a schedule, and update records in bulk. Cloudingo can be used by companies of all sizes.
Here are some of the advantages of Cloudingo:
- Automated
- Simple to use
- Deletes outdated and unwanted entries
- Useful for companies of all sizes
10. Quadient Data Cleaner
The last tool on our list is Quadient Data Cleaner, which is a powerful data profiling engine. It analyses data quality to improve businesses’ decision-making processes. The tool can rely on fuzzy logic to detect duplication and build a single version, and it also enables the discovery of patterns, missing values, character sets, and many other properties in a dataset.
Here are some of the advantages of Quadient Data Cleaner:
- Powerful data profile engine
- Analyses data quality
- Use of fuzzy logic
- Discovers many properties in dataset
Summary
In summary, the importance of data in today’s business landscape cannot be overstated. However, the value of data lies in its accuracy and cleanliness. Dirty data can lead to poor insights, inconsistent assessments, and ultimately, detrimental business decisions. As the volume of data increases, so does the need for effective data cleaning tools. These tools leverage artificial intelligence to streamline the data cleaning process, saving organizations significant time and resources.
Data cleaning involves removing errors, duplicates, and incomplete information from datasets, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the data used for analysis and decision-making. By implementing data cleaning tools, businesses can ensure they are working with the highest quality data, leading to better insights and outcomes. The tools discussed provide a range of capabilities, from transforming data formats and validating raw data to handling massive datasets and improving data quality in CRM and ERP systems.
Choosing the right data cleaning tool is essential for maintaining data integrity and making informed business decisions. The tools listed offer various features and advantages that can cater to different business needs, making them indispensable assets in any data-driven organization.
