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Alation Data Catalog vs IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog comparison

 

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 (5th)
IBM InfoSphere Information ...
Ranking in Metadata Management
8th
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 May 2026, in the Metadata Management category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 10.5%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is 3.3%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Metadata Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alation Data Catalog10.5%
IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog3.3%
Other86.2%
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.
MF
Data Architect at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Provides good catalog integration but requires too much coding
This is a complex solution and quite expensive. The technology has changed and I think IBM needs to be more flexible with their licensing model. We've been with them for over 10 years and they were unable to provide decent options for us. As the consumer, they weren't offering much flexibility and certainly not the support we were looking for given our long-standing relationship with them. There is also too much coding required compared with other solutions where you can do a lot directly in the environment and see how the policies apply.

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's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"Alation Data Catalog positively impacts my organization by improving data efficiency, data quality, and collaboration, allowing analysts to spend more time on analysis instead of searching and preparing, so they can just start their analysis."
"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."
"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 was very useful for sharing SQL queries easily in a platform."
"IBM tools always get inherent trust from companies."
"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. The features of the product are very rich and comprehensive."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is a stable product."
"The solution allows us to leverage a concept called Open IGC to create custom assets and data lineages that are not technologies typically supported by IBM via connectors."
"The graphic flows and the lineage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Working on the roles, actually, is the most valuable aspect."
"Ability to connect with multiple types of sources."
"The valuable feature is that you can connect with multiple types of sources."
 

Cons

"I notice a couple of pain points with Alation Data Catalog: they can improve on the lineage perspective and improve their data sources integration."
"Data Catalog is not stable."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges"
"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"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 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."
"The simplicity of usage could improve. Perhaps the simplicity of use for end users, not for system integrators, but for the user, the end users."
"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."
"A complex solution that requires a lot of coding."
"Another area that needs improvement in the solution is stability because IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog also has some stability issues, and if one of the bundled IBM products has issues with stability, the rest of the products are affected as well."
"There were two failed installations and IBM could never actually get the product to work."
"An area for improvement in IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is that it's missing a lot of connectors. Clients complain about not being able to connect some data sources because there's no available connector, so my company raised that issue with IBM. In some cases, third-party connectors are available, but not for all data sources. Another area that needs improvement in the solution is stability because it also has some stability issues. This is the same issue with the other IBM products bundled with IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog. The solution is connected with IBM Infosphere Information Analyzer and IBM InfoSphere DataStage in my company, so if one has issues with stability, the rest of the products are affected as well."
"Sometimes, if the product is new, getting support is difficult and the team was facing some challenges."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
 

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."
"IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is expensive."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Licensing for IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Manufacturing Company
13%
University
6%
Legal Firm
5%
 

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 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: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.