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Alation Data Catalog vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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 Metadata Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (6th)
IBM InfoSphere Information ...
Ranking in Metadata Management
10th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 9.9%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 2.8%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alation Data Catalog9.9%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog2.8%
Other87.3%
Metadata Management
 

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.
Giuseppe Innamorato - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Client Director at Alkemy digital_enabler
Reasonably priced, easy to install, and reliable
We recently suggested FlexiCapture and the ABBYY platform to a customer in Italy, but we are now waiting for their response. Unfortunately, we have no direct experience with the platform. We are a consulting service and a consulting company that also works on system integration. We use a variety of platforms ranging from IBM to Microsoft. We are specifically focused on data management and artificial intelligence solution. We use many different solutions, such as InfoSphere, and Db2 for databases for example. We have many projects also on Information Governance where we use not only IBM products but also Informatica products, for example, in the MDM arena. We work with both IBM InfoSphere Information Server and Governance Catalog.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by improving the data marketplace section, the data utilization section, and the quality of the data."
"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 have improved data quality and accuracy, made informed decisions faster while reducing risks, and ensured compliance by enabling security and efficient access."
"We do see a return on investment, though I cannot share exact numbers."
"Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by allowing analysts to be onboarded much quicker and easier as a lot of their questions are answered within Alation Data Catalog."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"The ability to create special rules inside the solution using Portuguese is the most valuable feature."
"What I liked about IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it seemed to have most of the options that you would want from a government catalog and the features of the product are very rich and comprehensive."
"Anyone looking into using IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog should go for it because it's a leading governance provider, and IBM is known across the globe."
"The best feature of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog for me is that it's easy to use and only requires a little bit of manual intervention. Once you discover the data sources, everything flows into the tool automatically, so you do not have to map it manually. There's been a lot of automation in the solution which I like best."
"It is easy to use."
"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It helped us streamline and organize our data."
"The feature I found most valuable in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is the lineage as it's very powerful and it provides data analytics in terms of where the data lives and where it goes. The interface is also clear, though it could still be sorted out, but the lineage is the most powerful thing in the solution."
 

Cons

"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"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 Catalog is not stable."
"The product's data governance features need improvement."
"The current search functionality in Alation Data Catalog is not necessarily great. It mostly searches titles, and we would prefer it to search the description and some of the source comments to find answers that we need."
"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."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"Sometimes, if the product is new, getting support is difficult and the team was facing some challenges."
"The solution has performance issues when scaling up small sets of information such as assets and data lineage to the ITC."
"They need to improve asset management."
"There were two failed installations and IBM could never actually get the product to work."
"A few years ago, I would have rated the solution an eight or nine. With competition in the market and other products available, IBM needs to focus on fixing existing issues and adding more customizable features that provide the end user with a better product."
"What I would tell IBM in terms of what needs to change or improve is that the product is too complicated. IBM purchased various components from different vendors over time and certainly in the UK, IBM did not have anybody that had the expertise to be able to get IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog to run properly."
"What could be improved in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is its query tool, including its terms, labels, and reports because the query tool isn't user-friendly. This would also be an additional feature or enhancement in the solution that would make it more attractive to users and would make IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog a really good solution."
"We are currently evaluating other products because we want to move more quickly than we can with InfoSphere and we're held back because of all the coding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."
"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."
"I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
"In terms of pricing, I find IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog excessive. It's at the top end of the price range in terms of what you get for your money. It's an expensive product, and contractually, IBM is difficult to deal with. I can't remember the exact cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog, but it could be in the region of three hundred thousand pounds."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

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...
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Also Known As

Alation
IBM Information Governance Catalog
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Rabobank, QuadReal Property Group, Jakarta Smart City
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.