Alation Data Catalog vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comparison

The compared Alation and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Alation is ranked #4 in DG , with an average rating of 7.4, and holds a 8.0% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #3 in eD , with an average rating of 7.0, and holds a 25.3% mindshare. Additionally, 76% of Alation users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Alation Data Catalog

Read 11 Alation Data Catalog reviews

7,491 Views
4,613 Comparison Views

76% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Read 3 Microsoft Purview eDiscovery reviews

1,178 Views
969 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

Alation Data Catalog

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Alation Data Catalog and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance.

To learn more, read our detailed Data Governance Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Data Governance

November 2024

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Helped 815,854 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Governance (4th), Metadata Management (2nd)

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Average Rating

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

eDiscovery (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (26th)

Mindshare comparison

Alation Data Catalog and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Alation Data Catalog is designed for Data Governance and holds a mindshare of 8.0%, down 12.5% compared to last year.
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, on the other hand, focuses on eDiscovery, holds 25.3% mindshare, up 7.0% since last year.

Data Governance

eDiscovery

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam

Developer at CVS Health

Sep 7, 2023

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.…

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Mike McBride

Writer/Blogger at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Apr 25, 2023

It has improved visibility and simplified data review, but it lacks many features found in specialized tools

I see two significant challenges with many of my clients. One is that there are some functionality gaps compared to specialized tools in the legal industry, like a legal hold tool or a document review tool. They have features that Purview eDiscovery lacks. Those gaps create a situation where I almost have to do things twice. I need to collect all my data in eDiscovery and ship it to another platform to complete the review. For example, you can't date stamp documents. I have to put them in another tool to do that. It has legal hold notifications and various decent features, but other tools have more functionality. Those are some minor challenges and gaps, but I wouldn't want to solve the larger issues myself. The other problem is that it's changing all the time. Microsoft has an excellent platform, and they're constantly updating 365. It creates an issue for eDiscovery users when Microsoft makes those changes behind the scenes, and you're unaware. I've experienced this. We were getting ready to have a training session with a customer, and the interface differed when we logged in the next day. It's a general issue with SaaS and cloud-native products, not just Microsoft. With an on-prem solution, I can see that I'm at version 10.0.1, and here are all the new features in the release notes. However, in 365, I'm wherever Microsoft tells me I am, and I never know when new features will hit. I can't stop them from being implemented. I wake up one day to see that everything has changed, and now I need to figure out how it will impact my workflow. It might not even be a change to an eDiscovery feature. You'd be talking about something like loops or any new product. How do I collect this? How does it work with eDiscovery? It's almost a full-time job keeping track of these changes.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."

"We can customize templates based on our use cases."

"Given the relatively low level of maturity, Alation's most relevant feature at the moment is a user interface that's easy to navigate, which helps us find and understand the data. So while Alation has a lot more functionality, our pain point right now is being able to easily find, understand, and trust the information to use it."

"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."

"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."

"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."

"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."

More Alation Data Catalog pros

"The machine learning wasn't half bad. I really like that part. I thought it was novel. It pretty much automated it, once you trained the model."

"I think eDiscovery Premium has made dealing with data from Teams much more accessible than any other platform."

"The tool has been beneficial. Some of our previous users left the organization without sharing the information they had at a personal level. This information was related to the organization, and they didn't disclose it. Thanks to the product, it's easy for me to search and find out what communication a specific user has done, whether it's from SharePoint or any other platform. With Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, we can easily retrieve and restore this data."

Cons

"The interface is not user-friendly."

"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."

"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."

"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."

"The product's data governance features need improvement."

"Alation Data Catalog doesn't support end-to-end lineage. By that, I mean the ability to trace the movement of data from when it first comes into our organization to where it's consumed."

"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."

"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."

More Alation Data Catalog cons

"Purview eDiscovery works, but it's not entirely perfect. There were times when search results would get hung up or error codes would be presented and we'd have to contact Microsoft to get that sorted out."

"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper."

"I see two significant challenges with many of my clients. One is that there are some functionality gaps compared to specialized tools in the legal industry, like a legal hold tool or a document review tool. They have features that Purview eDiscovery lacks. Those gaps create a situation where I almost have to do things twice. I need to collect all my data in eDiscovery and ship it to another platform to complete the review."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is a little expensive."

"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."

"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses."

"In the positions that I've had through contracting over the years, I've heard talk of it being overpriced and underperforming compared to its competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

The tool has been beneficial. Some of our previous users left the organization without sharing the information they had at a personal level. This information was related to the organization, and th...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 31% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 20% of the time

Collibra Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 16% of the time

Atlan vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 4% of the time

erwin Data Intelligence by Quest vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 3% of the time

More Alation Data Catalog Competitors

Google Vault vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 54% of the time

Veritas Enterprise Vault.cloud vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 7% of the time

Exterro vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 5% of the time

kCura Relativity vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alation Data Catalog

November 2024

Download Alation Data Catalog product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

November 2024

Download Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product report

Also Known As

Alation

No data available

Learn More

Alation

Microsoft

Overview

Alation pioneered the data catalog market and is now leading its evolution into a platform for a broad range of data intelligence solutions including data search & discovery, data governance, lineage, stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation.

Thanks to its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight to successfully tackle even the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management. With Alation, analysts are empowered to search, query and collaborate on their data to achieve faster, more accurate insights.

Trusted by 400+ enterprises worldwide like Salesforce, Nasdaq, LinkedIn, Finnair, and Cisco.

Efficiently respond to legal matters or internal investigations with intelligent capabilities that reduce data to only what’s relevant. Discover data where it lives. Discover and collect data in place, within your Microsoft Purview boundary. Manage workflows efficiently. Streamline your eDiscovery process with an end-to-end workflow from one platform. Accelerate your process. Get insights quickly with built-in capabilities, reducing review time and costs.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.

Information Not Available

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Informatica, Collibra and others in Data Governance. Updated: November 2024.

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We monitor all Data Governance reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.