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Alation Data Catalog vs Zaloni Data Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog
Ranking in Data Governance
4th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (2nd)
Zaloni Data Platform
Ranking in Data Governance
35th
Average Rating
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Preparation Tools (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 8.0%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zaloni Data Platform is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam - PeerSpot reviewer
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.…
SL
Dec 21, 2020
Solid multi-ingestion tool but with poor exception handling
The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens (an event is when the job stops in the middle of the process), it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue. Another issue is that sometimes your jobs fail and if you run it a second time, it will go through. A third area it could be improved is the deployment process. When you want to deploy anything, it has a lot of manual processes. For example, you have to create your password in an encrypted format, and then you have to use a lot of manual deployment process. They should actually be building something else, like using Jenkins or automating their process. I have suggested to them that they have to improve their deployment process because they want everyone to run a manual deployment. It takes a lot of time, about half a day, for any single deployment. Then test it, then it might not work, and then reverting back is not easy because of the manual deployment process. I think in recent versions they added a lot of upgrades and additional features including a lot of integrations. Before it was just AWS, later they extended it to Azure. I'm not sure how they have extended it to GCP. It has some built-in features and a lot of improvements now because the UI and the features were not easy to navigate. Regarding showing the metrics, it's okay. I will say it's neither easy nor hard, there is whatever is required. Lastly, on the governance side, it's not very good. We faced some issues with the Ranger version. Ranger was an authentication tool on big data and Zaloni had some compatibility issues with the Ranger at that time. Later they said those are all going to be resolved, but at that time it had some issues. I'm not sure whether it was working with the Sentry or not.

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 tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"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 solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"You can create a lot of ingestions based on the file levels or based on the time."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to map data and write workflows with logic inside them."
 

Cons

"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."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"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."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
"The major pain point with Zaloni is that their exception handling is not good. If any event happens, it doesn't tell you at which point it failed and it doesn't tell the operations team how they should take corrective actions unless you call Zaloni and then identify the issues. That is one issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a little expensive."
"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."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
No data available
 

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.
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...
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Also Known As

Alation
ZDP
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
CDS Global, AIG,
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Zaloni Data Platform and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.