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Alation Data Catalog vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 Informati...
Ranking in Data Governance
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Privacy Management Software (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Alation Data Catalog is 5.9%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.…
Heidi Hasting - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides an essential audit trail that helps prevent accidental exposure of sensitive data, but the changing product names are confusing
One of the key features of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is the auto-classification functionalities, although I have found them to be less effective in complex scenarios. The policy toggle, demanding justification for downgrading labels, provides an essential audit trail that helps prevent accidental exposure of sensitive data. The security tools integrate well. I like that you can scan several data or informational assets, such as your SharePoint list, Teams, etc., and bring them into Purview as a central repository. Partnering with other products, like Sentinel, for logging capability and inventory provides a service across the board. It's essential that Purview automatically prevents highly sensitive corporate secrets and data from being ingested into generative AI models, but the reality is that AI is a tool. It's problematic if consumers rely on a tool to protect them because they must be educated first. Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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's best feature is the SQL query publication."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature."
"The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation."
"The most valuable features of Alation Data Catalog are the simplicity in onboarding data sources, the security in securing the data sources, and the way the various users of Alation Data Catalog communicate with each other through a messenger."
"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 provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it."
"The most valuable feature is cloud integration."
"We can restrict access or specify who can see sensitivity labels, which can be based on the classification level. We can encrypt restricted content and limit who can see that from an internal view, too, so Purview is a powerful tool."
"I recommend Microsoft Purview Information Protection for organizations using the Microsoft ecosystem."
"We use the solution for our customers' services. It helps identify and protect sensitive data in documents, PDFs, emails, and Teams chats to prevent data leakage. It can detect and block emails containing credit card information sent outside the organization."
"Incorporating data loss prevention capabilities built into the Microsoft platform to endpoints, such as Windows 10 and Windows 11 computers, can also help prevent data loss and is highly advantageous."
"The UI is user-friendly, and I have observed that it improves further each year."
"It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is its ability to respond to sensitive data shared on Teams chat by deleting the message, not just monitoring or logging."
"Purview saves customers time by offering them a quick way to assess a situation and insights into how to improve."
 

Cons

"The interface is not user-friendly."
"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."
"It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying."
"Alation Data Catalog does not provide end-to-end data lineage."
"Alation Data Catalog is not user-friendly for business users. Its user experience is comparable to a Wikipedia page, lacking good visualization."
"We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues."
"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."
"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 communication around Microsoft product names and functionalities can be confusing, like when they combined Office 365 Risk and Compliance with Azure Purview. Then, they added Purview Hub to Fabric, and people thought Purview Hub would do data lineages, but it didn't. It isn't full-fledged Purview. It's just one feature set."
"I would evaluate Microsoft's customer support for Microsoft Purview Information Protection as not satisfactory. I'm not happy with Microsoft's customer support."
"Scalability is affected by the time it takes to update policies."
"I rate Microsoft support six out of 10. Response times are a challenge. It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support."
"There should be more training and communication regarding new features. I may be missing those communications, but it often seems like changes happen in the Purview portal without notice. Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients. If things are constantly changing, I sometimes look silly when I log in, and things have moved or changed."
"I am concerned about its accuracy levels. Sometimes it throws a lot of false positives."
"I would like the time it takes to update a DLP policy on an endpoint to be reduced."
"Purview could better integrate with third-party tools, but I don't have a specific use case for that because It's currently integrated into the managed services we offer to Microsoft customers using E5 licenses."
 

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."
"Initially, Purview's cost seemed quite high because it was for personal use. I was scanning a tiny tenant and thinking, "If I extrapolate this to an enterprise-scale tenant, it will be quite costly." However, I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started. At least, Purview has a free trial, so you can try some of the features early on."
"The pricing and setup costs are transferred to my clients, who find it affordable and are satisfied with what they receive."
"The product is affordable, and our clients agree. Sensitivity labels come with the MIP license at an additional $2 a month per user, an excellent deal for auto-labeling capabilities."
"The tool's pricing is not a problem for customers because they often purchase it as part of a bundle. With an E5 license, for example, users get access to the entire functionality. This is one of the main reasons why many customers are choosing Microsoft."
"The tool's pricing is fairly low, less than 100,000 for a year."
"The price is determined by the enterprise licensing, either the E3 or E5 licensing or the EMS plus security and other feature licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Retailer
7%
 

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 Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The pricing is not very high and is considered fine. Microsoft offers different licensing options. AIP Plan 2 is used for critical users. The AIP is included in the business standard license for cl...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The most difficult part in the labeling solution is the lack of direct PDF support on Macs, whereas on Windows, a Purview agent can label PDFs. This should be improved to support PDF protection on ...
 

Also Known As

Alation
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.