Alation Data Catalog vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management comparison

Alation Data Catalog vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

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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

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (3rd)

Microsoft Purview Data Life...

Ranking in Data Governance

25th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (8th), Document Management Software (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (30th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 3.9%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Alation Data Catalog	3.9%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management	1.2%
Other	94.9%

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

reviewer2776527

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.

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Ram-Krish

Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

A comprehensive data management solution shows potential for improvement while providing strong integration with existing infrastructure

One of the requirements is to have data leak policies and data access policies. This is very critical to enforce data governance standards, which relate to data classification, access control, data protection, and retention. It covers the entire lifecycle, helping us to protect, detect, and classify the documents. Challenges are mostly related to the security products onboarded into the bank; they have challenges in terms of those products complying with the internal standards. Sometimes, we cannot just use the DLP across the state. For example, using Microsoft products has been easy to adopt, such as OneDrive and SharePoint on-premise, but it becomes a challenge when it comes to AWS, as data also exists in S3 buckets. Testing is still ongoing, but it will eventually be done. The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges. These take time because we have high volume tickets in terms of connectivity, scanning failures, and related matters. There are also frequent change requests, especially regarding scoping or rescoping due to complexities, creating several challenges. In both organizations I work with, there are gaps, and there is no enterprise-wide data classification available. However, there are pockets of implementations for various products. Some agencies are using it, but otherwise, there's no product existing across the enterprise. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is definitely a good solution, but there is significant room for improvement from a product perspective. Reporting is another area that needs improvement.

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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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"We do see a return on investment, though I cannot share exact numbers."

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

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

More Alation Data Catalog pros

"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."

"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."

"The UI is the most valuable feature."

Cons

"Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"The interface is not user-friendly."

"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."

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

More Alation Data Catalog cons

"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."

"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."

"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market."

"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."

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884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	15

No data available

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?

We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?

I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?

My major use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is for the classification of data.

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Alation Data Catalog

Comparisons

Compared 21% of the time

Collibra Platform vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 14% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

OneTrust DataGovernance vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 8% of the time

Atlan vs Alation Data Catalog

Compared 4% of the time

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AWS Artifact vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 12% of the time

Alfresco vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Content Manager vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 7% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 7% of the time

M-Files vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management Competitors

Product Reports

Alation Data Catalog

Download Alation Data Catalog product report

Data Governance

Download Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management product report

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management report

Also Known As

Alation

Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management

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

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management helps businesses manage data effectively, enhancing compliance and control while optimizing data usage across the organization.

Designed for comprehensive data governance, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management aids businesses in automating data retention, labeling, and protection policies. It integrates seamlessly with existing systems, facilitating robust data management, which supports compliance and risk management efforts. Suitable for businesses seeking to consolidate data management processes, it ensures that valuable data is efficiently cataloged, accessible, and secured, contributing to informed decision-making and resource optimization.

What features should users be aware of?

Automated Data Retention: Simplifies data management by automatically applying retention policies.
Sensitivity Labeling: Offers robust capabilities to classify and protect sensitive information.
Data Insights: Provides analytical insights that help in monitoring compliance and data usage.
Policy Enforcement: Integrated tools for automating policy application across data assets.

What benefits can users expect from reviews?

Improved Compliance: Ensures adherence to regulations through automated policy enforcement.
Operational Efficiency: Streamlines data management tasks, reducing manual intervention and potential errors.
Cost Effectiveness: Reduces the need for multiple tools by consolidating data management activities.
Enhanced Security: Protects sensitive data through advanced labeling and encryption features.

In finance, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management facilitates compliance with strict regulations, in healthcare, it safeguards patient data while streamlining retention policies, and in retail, it organizes customer data for better insights and tailored marketing strategies, ensuring data is a strategic resource across sectors.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Alation Data Catalog vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management