Alation Data Catalog vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest comparison

Alation Data Catalog vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

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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

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (2nd)

erwin Data Intelligence by ...

Ranking in Data Governance

16th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.8%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of erwin Data Intelligence by Quest is 2.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Brahma Lam

Developer at CVS Health

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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Roy Pollack

Advisor Application Architect at CPS Energy

The solution provides more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term.

We have loaded over 300,000 attributes and more than 1000 mappings. The performance is slow, depending on the lineage or search. This is supposed to be fixed in the later versions, but we haven't upgraded yet. The integration with various metadata sources, including erwin Data Modeler, isn't smooth in the current version. It took some experimentation to get things working. We hope this is improved in the newer version. The initial version we used felt awkward because Erwin implemented features from other companies into their offering.

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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

"Alation Data Catalog was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."

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

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

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

"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 tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."

More Alation Data Catalog pros

"erwin has tremendous capabilities to map right from the business technologies to the endpoint, such as physical entities and physical attributes, from a lineage standpoint."

"Data Intelligence allows us to automate multiple tasks we had previously done manually, such as restructuring the metadata for our purposes, setting up ETL flows, and defining the data tables we create. It also enables us to standardize our approach and our technical processes."

"There is a wide range of widgets that enables the user to find the proper information quickly. The presentation of information is something very valuable."

"We use the codeset mapping quite a bit to match value pairs to use within the conversion as well. Those value pair mappings come in quite handy and are utilized quite extensively. They then feed into the automation of the source data extraction, like the source data mapping of the source data extraction, the code development, forward engineering using the ODI connector for the forward automation."

"The biggest impact for us is that erwin generates DDL extremely quickly. We're able to pull in metadata, map it to a target, generate DDL to create the tables, and generate SSIS packages. Previously, especially going back 10 to 15 years ago, hundreds of hours had to be spent to manually perform these tasks. This solution completely automates it and gets it 90% done. We can then pass it off to a developer to create the items in SSIS."

"Data Intelligence has provided more profound insights into legacy data movements, lineages, and definitions in the short term. We have linked three critical layers of data, providing us with an end-to-end lineage at the column level."

"Overall, DI's data cataloging, data literacy, and automation have helped our decision-makers because when a source wants to change something, we immediately know what the impact is going to be downstream."

"The solution saves time in data discovery and understanding our entire organization's data."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest pros

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."

"Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization."

"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."

"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"

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

"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."

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

More Alation Data Catalog cons

"It's a little bit clunky. I think a lot of these features were bolted on, and they don't necessarily transition smoothly in the interface. I would like to see a little more cohesion."

"The fact that I sometimes have to go in and out of different applications, even though it's all part of the whole erwin suite, perhaps means it could be architected a little bit better. I think they do have some ideas for improvements there."

"Everything about Data Intelligence is complex. Though we've used the tool for five years, we're still only using about 30 to 40 percent of its capabilities. It would be helpful if we could customize and simplify the user interface because there are so many redundant things."

"The data quality assessment requires third-party components and a separate license."

"The versioning can sometimes be confusing because we use the publishing feature for the mapping. Technical analysts sometimes have two versions, and they should know that the public version is the correct one."

"Really huge datasets, where the logical names or the lexicons weren't groomed or maintained well, were the only area where it really had room for improvement. A huge data set would cause erwin to crash. If there were half a million or 1 million tables, erwin would hang."

"We still need another layer of data quality assessments on the source to see if it is sending us the wrong data or if there are some issues with the source data. For those things, we need a rule-based data quality assessment or scoring where we can assess tools or other technology stacks. We need to be able to leverage where the business comes in, defining some business rules and have the ability to execute those rules, then score the data quality of all those attributes. Data quality is definitely not what we are leveraging from this tool, as of today."

"There was a huge learning curve, and I'd been in software development for most of my career. The application itself, and how it runs menus and screens when you can modify and code, is complex. I have found that kind of cumbersome."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest cons

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 price is reasonable and competitive. When you get into forward and reverse-engineering, the cost could go up. However, if you are a large organization, you would probably be able to access different packages. If, however, you don't need forward and reverse-engineering, then the price is relatively cheap."

"The price is too high."

"The price is reasonable, and a subscription is required."

"The solution is aggressively priced."

"erwin was at a good price. The federal government wouldn't buy something if the pricing wasn't good."

"The whole suite, not just the DI but the modeling software, the harvester, Mapping Manager — everything we have — is about $100,000 a year for our renewals. That works out to each module being something like $8,000 to $10,000."

"You buy a seat license for your portal. We have 100 seats for the portal, then you buy just the development licenses for the people who are going to put the data in."

"erwin's pricing was cheaper than its competitors."

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Insurance Company

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 erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The data mapping manager is the most valuable feature.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The price is reasonable, and a subscription is required.

What needs improvement with erwin Data Intelligence by Quest?

The data quality assessment requires third-party components and a separate license. I would like to have better integration around the data quality. I would appreciate the inclusion of a non-struct...

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Comparisons

Compared 46% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

Collibra Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 10% of the time

Atlan vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 4% of the time

OneTrust DataGovernance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 2% of the time

More Alation Data Catalog Competitors

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 34% of the time

Collibra Governance vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 25% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

Collibra Lineage vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager vs erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Compared 7% of the time

More erwin Data Intelligence by Quest Competitors

Product Reports

Alation Data Catalog

Download Alation Data Catalog product report

erwin Data Intelligence by Quest

Download erwin Data Intelligence by Quest product report

Also Known As

Alation

erwin DG, erwin Data Governance

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.

Alation

The erwin Data Intelligence Suite (erwin DI) combines data catalog and data literacy capabilities for greater awareness of and access to available data assets, guidance on their use, and guardrails to ensure data policies and best practices are followed. Automatically harvest, transform and feed metadata from a wide array of data sources, operational processes, business applications and data models into a central data catalog. Then make it accessible and understandable within context via role-based views. This complete metadata-driven approach to data governance facilitates greater IT and business collaboration.

erwin by Quest

Sample Customers

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

Oracle, Infosys, GSK, Toyota Motor Sales, HSBC

Alation Data Catalog vs. erwin Data Intelligence by Quest