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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
12
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
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.9%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Collibra Governance is 9.8%, down from 12.6% 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

"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."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"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."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"The beauty of the solution is that you can customize it quite a bit."
"The solution's most valuable features are its scalability and how it can be integrated to any other intakes."
"One of the most valuable features of Collibra Governance is its scanning feature, which allows us to onboard multiple applications and their underlying databases."
"It enables a linear view of the data assets across different levels, providing a comprehensive understanding."
"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."
"From the perspective of a data user, the solution has a great search capability."
"Workflows is the most valuable feature of Collibra because we will typically use an interface for it and we can customize it as per our needs."
"I rate the technical support from Collibra as nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"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."
"Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization."
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"I rate scalability a six out of ten. There is some room for improvement in terms of scalability."
"There's a lot of things available in their Data Intelligence Cloud that are not available on-premise."
"Collibra is not very user-friendly in terms of lineage generation. The lineage generation process is quite tough, and it takes lots of time to understand it. Business staff are also struggling to generate lineages and to understand them. So, it is not very user-friendly."
"The connectors for metadata ingestion need to be improved."
"Collibra gives a lot of facilities in the cloud, but achieving those facilities on-prem becomes a big challenge"
"The solution's search functionality can be improved"
"I'm fairly new to the product, however, what I generally hear from my clients is that the requirement around having ways to ingest more metadata."
"No easy way to connect to different data sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"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."
"There are different levels of licenses. For example, some users can only do read-only licenses, and others have the stewardship license where they can give access to users."
"Collibra Governance is an expensive solution."
"Generally, it is a rather expensive solution compared to some other tools in the market, but I found it to be fair-priced for its capabilities."
"Many of our customers I spoke to felt that the solution is a bit highly-priced."
"I would say it's probably in line with what other vendors charge for licensing."
"I think it is on a yearly basis, but I'm not involved with the pricing session, so I have no idea. There are several licenses for different models. You get one license per product, but a lot of features are controlled separately through different licenses. So, as and when you want to use a feature, you have to procure the license for that feature."
"Collibra Governance is expensive - I would rate its pricing as one out of five."
"Collibra Governance is extremely expensive"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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?
The price difference between Alation Data Catalog and Collibra was not significant. Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that li...
What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?
Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization. In a fast-paced world, we need to grasp information ...
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 pricing of Collibra Governance is moderate. It is neither extremely costly nor very cheap, as it depends on the use case and specific requirements.
What needs improvement with Collibra Governance?
There is room for improvement in the Collibra Data Catalog regarding data classification and categorization. It struggles to catalog all categories of data, particularly sensitive data on-prem, whi...
 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Collibra Governance and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.