MercuryGate (Infios) vs Descartes for TMS Buyers

If you shortlisted MercuryGate two years ago and you're refreshing that RFP now, half your notes are already wrong. The vendor renamed itself, its new owner folded it into a much larger portfolio, and the company you're comparing it against just spent $115 million buying a third TMS brand. This is a straight MercuryGate vs Descartes comparison rebuilt for where both companies actually stand in 2026, aimed at European enterprise shippers weighing broker-grade carrier reach against built-in trade compliance depth.

Why this comparison needs a 2026 update

The short version: Infios TMS is what MercuryGate is called now, and Descartes isn't the single product it used to be either.

Körber Supply Chain Software, a joint venture between Körber AG and KKR, signed a binding agreement in August 2024 to acquire MercuryGate International Inc. The combined business introduced its new company brand, Infios in early 2025. If you search G2 today, though, you'll still find the product indexed under its old name. Reviewers felt that MercuryGate TMS meets the needs of their business better than Descartes 3G TMS on the platform's current comparison page, which still uses the pre-rebrand label throughout. That matters for procurement teams doing vendor research by name: if your RFP distribution list or your analyst's shortlist search only looks for "Infios," you'll miss review history, and if it only looks for "MercuryGate," you might disqualify the vendor for looking outdated. Ask for both names in your due diligence.

Descartes has its own naming problem, self-inflicted. Descartes Systems Group announced its acquisition of 3GTMS, a leading provider of cloud-based transportation management solutions, in a deal valued at approximately $115 million in March 2025. That's on top of the existing Descartes Global Logistics Network and, per G2's own comparison tooling, a separate entity called Descartes Shipper TMS. So "Descartes" in an RFP response today could mean three different underlying platforms with different architectures, different pricing logic, and different implementation teams. Don't let a vendor's sales rep gloss over which one you're actually being quoted.

The criteria that matter for this use case

This comparison is scoped to European enterprise and multinational shippers running multi-modal freight (FTL, LTL, parcel, ocean, air) who also carry cross-border customs and sanctions-screening obligations. Five criteria decide the outcome for that buyer profile:

• Pricing transparency - can your finance team build a first-pass budget without a discovery call, or is everything quote-gated?
• Modal and carrier breadth - does the platform natively execute across the transport modes your freight mix actually uses?
• Trade compliance depth - denied-party screening, sanctions list coverage, and customs documentation, relevant if your shipment volume crosses EU and non-EU borders regularly.
• Ownership and integration stability - both vendors have absorbed acquisitions inside the past 18 months; integration risk is a live procurement concern, not a footnote.
• Independent user satisfaction - ease of use and support quality, sourced from G2 rather than vendor marketing.

Infios (MercuryGate) vs Descartes, compared

The table below fills every cell with what's actually published. Where a vendor doesn't disclose a number, it says so rather than guessing.

The G2 figures come straight from the platform's side-by-side comparison, which still runs under the MercuryGate name. MercuryGate TMS scores 7.6 on Ease of Use against 6.3 for 3G Transportation Management, and MercuryGate leads on Quality of Support at 7.8 versus 7.2. Neither vendor publishes list pricing anywhere I could find, which is standard for enterprise TMS but still worth flagging in your RFP: make published pricing tiers, or at minimum a per-shipment or per-user pricing framework, a scored requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

Where each platform actually wins

Infios wins on raw execution flexibility. Through its global network of integration partners, 100,000+ carriers, and presence in 126 countries, MercuryGate makes shipping intelligent, simple, sustainable, and transformative for its customers, and that scale, combined with better reported ease of use and support scores, makes it the stronger pick when the primary buying driver is multi-modal execution across a large, varied carrier base rather than customs depth.

Descartes wins on compliance, unambiguously. Descartes' denied party screening solutions help organizations comply with global trade and financial regulations by identifying denied, restricted, and sanctioned parties, covering more than 180 countries, and the underlying list catalog draws from a comprehensive database of hundreds of denied and restricted party screening lists from around the world. For a shipper moving freight across EU and non-EU borders with sanctions exposure, that's not a feature checkbox, it's the reason to sign.

Worth noting: the 3GTMS deal specifically targets the segment that used to compete head-on with MercuryGate. Shippers, third-party logistics providers and freight brokers leverage 3G's platform to optimize domestic over-the-road shipments with tools for planning, rating, consolidation, and routing that cover the entire shipment lifecycle. That means Descartes now has an answer to Infios in the exact use case Infios used to own by default. Ask explicitly, in writing, which product line you're being scoped against.

Where narrower platforms fit instead

Not every European shipper needs broker-grade carrier reach or a global customs suite. If your operation is mid-sized, mostly intra-European, and your real pain point is getting reliable multi-carrier connectivity live fast without a six-figure implementation, platforms built specifically for that segment, such as Cargoson, Alpega, and Transporeon, are worth shortlisting alongside the two enterprise players rather than instead of researching them at all. They typically trade some execution depth and compliance breadth for faster go-live and clearer per-shipment pricing logic, which for a lean transport team can be the better trade-off. For a broader list of alternatives worth screening, G2's own MercuryGate alternatives page is a reasonable starting point, even with the naming lag.

The verdict

Infios, unless your shipment mix regularly crosses EU and non-EU borders and requires built-in denied-party screening or multi-country customs documentation, in which case Descartes' compliance depth outweighs Infios' broader carrier network and better UX scores. If you're a multimodal shipper whose main friction is carrier onboarding and execution scale, Infios' 100,000-plus carrier network and stronger G2 ease-of-use numbers make it the more comfortable operational fit. If sanctions exposure or customs documentation sits on your compliance team's risk register, Descartes' Visual Compliance suite is not something you'll want to bolt on later through a third-party integration.

One practical note for your RFP document: name the exact Descartes product line, 3G TMS, Global Logistics Network, or Shipper TMS, rather than writing "Descartes" as a single line item. Post-acquisition, that ambiguity is exactly where vendors quietly scope you into the wrong product, and it's the kind of detail that only surfaces in week three of implementation if you don't catch it in procurement.