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Alation Data Catalog vs Microsoft Purview Data Governance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 Data Governance
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (2nd)
Microsoft Purview Data Gove...
Ranking in Data Governance
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.3%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Governance is 21.4%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Purview Data Governance21.4%
Alation Data Catalog5.3%
Other73.3%
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.…
AmrNaeem - PeerSpot reviewer
It helps us by reporting on and auditing leaks and breaches
One important feature is data security, which both end users and the organization seek. Microsoft Purview offers data protection across a multi-cloud and multi-platform environment. It's critical that Purview connects to iOS, Mac, and Android. We could only secure some of our data if it only covered Windows. It provides a comprehensive view of the entire ecosystem's threats and compliance in real time. It's very easy to use. Purview's compliance features are crucial. We have to match some cases in other countries to our own to comply with the policies, procedures, and regulatory frameworks here.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The tool's metadata cataloging is the most valuable feature."
"We can customize templates based on our use cases."
"Alation Data Catalog's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."
"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."
"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."
"Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"One important feature is data security, which both end users and the organization seek."
"The most valuable feature is the tracking activity and device onboarding."
"The most important aspect is our vision to create a data marketplace and Data Governance policies."
"The documentation is very exhaustive. Anyone can go ahead and try different use cases."
"It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies."
"The reporting is excellent. Limiting what people can see is also valuable, especially when tagging documents."
"The data protection feature is vital as it controls who can access data when it moves out of our protected boundary."
"One way that Microsoft Purview has benefited our organization is by preventing data leakage, which saves the company money on fines and protects its reputation."
 

Cons

"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 interface is not user-friendly."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"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."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"The tool's domain model needs to be changed."
"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."
"Some of the menu headings may not be easy to understand for some people."
"We are currently in the rollout phase, so I am not entirely sure about specific areas of improvement. However, there are some problems with DLP rules, and it would be great if the security around DLP could be expanded."
"The current event-based retention management is very poor."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to Purview's data connector platform in supporting ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources."
"Auto-tagging should be available at lower levels of licensing. Right now, a high level of licensing is needed for auto-tagging, and this feature should be made available at a lower license level."
"I'd like to see them improve the training for implementing this type of solution."
"One area for improvement is the detection of data types. This is really important. It has some of that functionality, but I consider it very limited. Maybe they can add some custom programming or machine learning could be particularly useful for the detection of the nature of the data."
"Two features are unsupported—custom insights and the DLP component—that would be beneficial to me as a consultant and for the customer in terms of security and monitoring. Regarding security, DLP would provide a more granular level of data masking. Custom insights would offer more detailed monitoring and alerts that can notify customers of failures or anything requiring urgent action."
 

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."
"While Purview's standard pricing might not be accessible to most small businesses, we were fortunate to benefit from the educational pricing which made it a financially viable option for our needs."
"The pricing is moderate. It's not too expensive, but it's not the most competitive."
"We pay $15,000 per end user for the E5 license."
"To get the full features of Purview, we currently need E5 enterprise licenses, which are expensive."
"Microsoft Purview is a subscription-based service, so we need either an E3 or E5 license to use it."
"It's not cheap. I'm not exactly sure how much our license costs, but it is very expensive."
"Purview is included in our Microsoft E5 licensing."
"Purview's price is pretty high when you factor in storage costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise30
 

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 Microsoft Azure Purview?
It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Purview?
Microsoft Purview Data Governance is quite affordable compared to other market solutions, which have high initial costs. It allows for a cost-effective start with negligible initial cost. However, ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Purview?
There should be more clarity about the costing, particularly how the cost is calculated, especially when utilizing health reports and quality features. Additionally, adding more tools around data q...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Microsoft Purview, MS Azure Purview
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
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868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.