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Alation Data Catalog vs Data Hub comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Alation Data Catalog boosts efficiency by reducing search time, cutting costs, and enhancing user independence in data management.
Sentiment score
5.2
Users prefer Atlan for its speed and efficiency, while Data Hub offers ROI through reduced errors and cost savings.
We have seen a return on investment, having saved close to 10.5% of our costs, with expected ROI growing yearly by about 17%.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself.
Data Engineer at Yum! Brands
Atlan has a better approach compared to Data Hub.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
I see a return on investment because the role-based system reduces the chances of errors and makes them easier to resolve.
AI/ML Developer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Alation's support is generally positive, with fast ticket processing but some issues with time zones and complex problem-solving.
Sentiment score
3.9
Data Hub support is praised for its quick, effective assistance, with reliable service even during the POC phase.
Some of them have dragged on for six months, which is much longer than we would ever want some support issues to go on.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
we have defined several SLAs that have resolved critical issues and incidents with excellent support.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
When I was working with Atlan, and needed support, they were very good at attending to my requests directly.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
We have not gone that far with customer support; as far as the POC is concerned, we received good support from the team and the sales team that helped us evaluate the tool.
Director at a university with 1-10 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Alation Data Catalog excels in scalability for expanding user bases and data size, with some API limitations on free versions.
Sentiment score
5.7
Data Hub's robust scalability allows Acryl Data to efficiently manage growth and accommodate diverse user and data demands.
As data sizes grow, we can also scale categorizations, calibrations, and the types of data we ingest and catalog through this tool.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Alation Data Catalog's scalability has met our needs as our data and user base has grown.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Data Hub can scale fast in its native way.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Alation Data Catalog is praised for stability, reliable performance, excellent maintenance, with minor on-premises outages and DBT load concerns.
Sentiment score
8.9
Data Hub is consistently praised by users for its stability and reliability, with no reported issues or downtime.
It has never gone down when we wanted to access it.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Alation Data Catalog has been stable for me, as I haven't seen much downtime.
Senior ORM Analyst Assistant Vice President at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Since I've been using Data Hub, it has always been very stable; I can say it was one hundred percent stable.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
 

Room For Improvement

Alation Data Catalog needs improved lineage, user interface, automation, security, and integration with Power BI and external APIs.
Data Hub needs built-in analytics, automation, and user-friendly setup to improve accessibility, integration, and governance efficiency.
The platform needs improvement in integrating with BI tools, reducing manual efforts, and facilitating a smooth connection.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Additionally, bringing in AI capabilities to automate tracking and labeling can optimize how we handle data information levels.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Alation Data Catalog can be improved by enhancing their lineage capabilities to make it easier for us as users to search the lineage without having to use the Alation Data Catalog user interface.
Senior Data and Analytics Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
The impact is very positive, and there are many benefits for us using Data Hub because it was easier to make data governance, create centralized metadata management, improve data discoverability, and manage data in general.
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I wonder if it can automate the classification exercise, possibly using AI to auto-classify PII direct and indirect items.
Director at a university with 1-10 employees
When I had my experience with Atlan, for example, I was able to connect different sources in a very user-friendly way. I just needed to set up some configurations and connect to the source without having to be a software developer or develop any code in the back end.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
 

Setup Cost

Alation Data Catalog pricing is high, but discounts and long-term agreements offer better value compared to competitors.
Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that little bit of money was not a big deal.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Discussions with the vendor partners provided a detailed breakdown of costs and how they can be reduced over time.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Regarding experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I think if we have a budget of one hundred thousand US dollars, we will be able to deploy a reasonable version and connect to a number of data sources.
Director at a university with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Alation Data Catalog boosts productivity with intuitive features, seamless data management, and enhances collaboration through advanced governance and cloud integration.
Data Hub boosts efficiency and trust with secure access, lineage tracking, user-friendly interface, scalability, and seamless tool integration.
It was the only data catalog tool where I could save and even create SQL queries.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Importantly, we establish a single source of truth, centralizing metadata and standardizing definitions, which minimizes confusion and helps with consistent data use across the organization.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data.
Data Engineer at Yum! Brands
Data Hub became a single source of truth for metadata, supporting both compliance requirements and day-to-day operational needs.
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Data Hub has positively impacted our organization by bringing the tribal knowledge that resides with team members into a single place where users can discover and understand the data elements before they make use of it.
Director at a university with 1-10 employees
Having a tool that shows the data lineage from the source until the target tables helps us a lot.
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
 

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog
Ranking in Metadata Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (5th)
Data Hub
Ranking in Metadata Management
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2776527 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data and Analytics Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Increases data discoverability and boosts self-service analytics through enriched metadata and intuitive search
The best features that Alation Data Catalog offers are its search capabilities and the fact that it works with many different data platforms; it is essentially platform agnostic. The other piece that I really think is important is how easy it is to use as well as to manage. What makes the search capabilities of Alation Data Catalog stand out for me is the fact that every item within the catalog is indexed and searchable, as well as the filtering features that allow you to narrow down to just the types of assets that you need. Wildcard searches are also very helpful. It is a very intuitive tool, as long as you are using the filters. Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by allowing users to answer questions that they had without trying to track down an expert. This has saved them quite a bit of time and frustration. It has allowed them to solve problems they probably would not have been able to solve had they not had the catalog. We have been measuring the curation of content within the catalog that has gone up over time, and we have also seen the number of users in the catalog increase, as well as the amount of activity within the catalog increase. We were seeing about an average of about 20% increase month over month for the last few months.
Henrique dos Anjos - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Quality Engineer at truelogic
Metadata governance has improved data lineage visibility but still needs simpler integrations
I know that the integrations are not easy to do, and I believe it happens because it's a customized solution. There always needs to be software developers to work on this. It's complicated; every time we want to integrate new things or new sources, we need to generate a ticket or a request to another department. When I had my experience with Atlan, for example, I was able to connect different sources in a very user-friendly way. I just needed to set up some configurations and connect to the source without having to be a software developer or develop any code in the back end. It was just a feature in the data catalog that enabled me to connect with different kinds of sources. That's why I think the disadvantage of having a customized solution. Although I think Data Hub itself is a very good tool, years ago I had the opportunity to work with it, but with a clear interface and the open-source solution, which was very clear and easy to connect. At Uber, we need to have a request when we want to integrate new sources. Regarding Data Hub's intuitiveness, regarding analytics, I would say that some quality dimensions are available for us. For example, for each field name or each column in a table, it's possible to see the frequency, how many values we have for a specific type or category, and we can see if there are new or null values, whether the columns are empty or not, along with some metrics. This is regarding the data quality dimensions, such as nullables and things of that nature. That is all we have for features. I remember when I was working with Atlan, there was a feature I liked very much—the possibility to have a sample. When I clicked on a table, I could see a short sample without needing SQL skills. I just clicked the table and could see some values or what the table represents; the data catalog would show a screen with some rows of the table. This feature was very good, but we don't have it in Data Hub the way it is implemented at Uber. I think it would be a very good feature for analytics, and we don't have it at the moment. The integration part could be better, but again, it's because it's a customized solution. I think if they used the native version of the tool, it would be simpler. The integration part and the process of setting up new data quality rules would be important for data governance players like me.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
13%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alation Data Catalog?
I haven't had any experience with pricing, setup costs, or licensing, as I have been strictly an end user and haven't had any administrative or management responsibilities.
What needs improvement with Alation Data Catalog?
Some of the downsides about the lineage is that some of the code is quite difficult to read as the formatting is a bit ugly sometimes. Alation Data Catalog can be improved with the lineage formatti...
What is your primary use case for Alation Data Catalog?
I have been using Alation Data Catalog for the past year now. My main use case for Alation Data Catalog is updating data descriptions and making sure analysts have what they need to do their job. W...
What needs improvement with Data Hub?
I know that the integrations are not easy to do, and I believe it happens because it's a customized solution. There always needs to be software developers to work on this. It's complicated; every t...
What is your primary use case for Data Hub?
I work with Data Hub as a user, but I also have some administrative responsibilities there. I'm not a final user; the final users are business users, and I play some administrative roles in the too...
What advice do you have for others considering Data Hub?
I have experience with Data Hub to some extent. I believe Data Hub uses a lot of APIs, but I don't think I'm the right person to answer that because it relies a lot on a technical aspect that I don...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Acryl Data
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Data Hub and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.