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Alation Data Catalog vs Collibra Governance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog
Ranking in Data Governance
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (2nd)
Collibra Governance
Ranking in Data Governance
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.9%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Collibra Governance is 10.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam - PeerSpot reviewer
Has metadata cataloging features but needs changes in domain model
The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature.  The tool's domain model needs to be changed.  Alation Data Catalog is stable.  The solution is scalable.  Alation Data Catalog's deployment is easy. I rate it a nine out of ten. Deployment takes only two to three hours to complete.…
DeepakArora - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing data management with user-friendly features but needs better documentation
We are a customer of Collibra. Collibra Governance is applied in our data management workflows by creating all the business functions separately, maintaining the data sources of those KPIs and everything separately on those businesses Collibra Governance provides ease of use. The portal is…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."
"The most valuable features of Alation Data Catalog are the simplicity in onboarding data sources, the security in securing the data sources, and the way the various users of Alation Data Catalog communicate with each other through a messenger."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"We had some of our data science engineers, who had built out some cloud-based data and data products for users. They were spending a lot of their time, up to 30 to 35% of their time, answering questions about the data and helping people understand how to use it. Once they were able to document that information within Alation, they were only focusing on around 5% of the high-value questions that really couldn't be solved through the catalog itself. It freed them up to be more productive, it made their end-users more productive, and it made the adoption rate of their data products rise more quickly because people were able to get to using them."
"The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"The automation process is very strong."
"Collibra is very good at talking to modern database systems like a normal RDBMS, a DB2, or a SQL server or an Oracle."
"As far as the functionality of the tool is concerned, it's pretty slick."
"Workflow is very helpful and assessment are good features. I really like the structure of this solution and how it is compartmentalized."
"The most important feature is the ease of use."
"Collibra's lineage is a very powerful feature. We have integrated Collibra with Azure and ADLS storage and we create lineage diagrams using the two tools."
"The end-to-end solution itself is great. The most valuable is the workload feature that Collibra offers. There is a vast amount of flexibility in terms of how much we can customize. It gives us a lot of options to implement for a lot of purposes."
"The data quality module has improved significantly, and the data lineage feature is beneficial for understanding where data is coming from and identifying data duplications."
 

Cons

"Alation Data Catalog needs to develop a lot in terms of data governance and would be improved with a built-in interactive data quality solution."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"I know that this has been on their roadmap and they're working on it, but as a whole, there's an untapped reservoir of capabilities within their article features that could be used and built upon."
"They could simplify the platform's setup and design process. It requires significant IT involvement and expertise, which can be a barrier for smaller organizations."
"From a usability perspective, customers usually find some areas of the solution a bit complex. It takes a long time for the customers to get used to the UI and the interface."
"The solution's search functionality can be improved"
"There should be more detailed documentation on the selectors and certain information, and a reduction in cost as compared to other tools."
"While connecting with the data source, it's not very easy. If there's a firewall, it is difficult to connect with the database. It's not easy when you are configuring on the database."
"One problem is the data lineage, especially extracting the ETL transformation from different ETL tools and identifying how the data is getting changed from one layer to different layers and how the transformation is applied. It doesn't support all the ETL tools for extracting the transformation logic. It supports some of the tools, but there are still some tools that need to be supported. There is also a small pain point in terms of integration. There is a little bit of change in their strategy from Collibra's end. Earlier, they used to offer two solutions. One was out of the box, and one was a custom-built solution for which they used to provide a dual connector. Now the focus from the Collibra side is more on using the out of the box connector. They are discouraging doing the custom integration. That leaves us with two problems. The first problem is that the out-of-the-box connecter is not yet enabled for a lot of systems, and the second problem is that the out-of-the-box connecter has certain limitations. If we want to tweak those as per our needs, it is not possible. However, the custom-built is still supported, and you can still build a custom integration by using the API, but it is not very encouraged by Collibra. Its dashboard also needs to be improved. There are options to use the HTML code to customize your dashboard, but it has a lot of limitations."
"When you have a huge amount of hierarchical data to manage, the solution's performance tends to decrease."
"Data discovery needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a little expensive."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"A three-year agreement is better than a one-year rolling 12-month agreement from a price point of view. I'd recommend looking at a three-year deal because you can't stand up a catalog and produce value in 12 months."
"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"The product's pricing is high, which its comprehensive features and capabilities may justify."
"Collibra is a bit expensive."
"Collibra Governance is extremely expensive"
"Many of our customers I spoke to felt that the solution is a bit highly-priced."
"It is substantial, and we do pay yearly."
"I think they have a trust issue. I did not like the way they recently went through the process. They were like, "Finish this SOW first, only then will we sign the other SOW." Or, "Finish this code." I didn't like that much."
"I am not so much aware of price details. Initially, there was an add-on NuSoft license to use the DVC connector that NuSoft gives to create integrations, but Collibra is now phasing out of it slowly. Collibra is cutting ties with them is what we have been led to believe, and we have started developing on Spring Boot, which is open source."
"We purchase its annual license. There is an extra cost for additional users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Alation Data Catalog?
The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alation Data Catalog?
I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solut...
What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?
When issues arise, two key concerns arise. First, how can we perform root cause analysis faster? Second, how can we optimize resource allocation, considering the associated costs? Every customer is...
What do you like most about Collibra Governance?
We use the solution's Data Stewardship part.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Collibra Governance?
The price is average, and it provides good value for the money.
What needs improvement with Collibra Governance?
Collibra lacks the capability to read Python or R scripts, which is essential for data transformations in our pipeline ecosystems. This is an area where improvement is needed, as currently, it only...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Collibra
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Ministry of Economy Science and Innovation, Aspen Insurance, Barry Callebaut, Colt
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