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Alation Data Catalog vs Vanta 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Alation Data Catalog boosts efficiency by reducing search time, cutting costs, and enhancing user independence in data management.
Sentiment score
4.2
Vanta improves ROI by streamlining evidence collection and supports security enhancement, though precise ROI metrics are challenging to assess.
We have seen a return on investment, having saved close to 10.5% of our costs, with expected ROI growing yearly by about 17%.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself.
Data Engineer at Yum! Brands
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Alation's support is generally positive, with fast ticket processing but some issues with time zones and complex problem-solving.
Sentiment score
6.5
Vanta's customer support is responsive and effective, with quick responses and appreciated flexibility, despite occasional initial contact delays.
Some of them have dragged on for six months, which is much longer than we would ever want some support issues to go on.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
we have defined several SLAs that have resolved critical issues and incidents with excellent support.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Every time I ask their customer success team, if I get a technical question and I've done this half a dozen times in the last year, they will respond within the next 24 hours.
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The customer support from Vanta is good.
HITRUST and GRC Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Alation Data Catalog excels in scalability for expanding user bases and data size, with some API limitations on free versions.
Sentiment score
7.0
Vanta excels in scalability and adaptability, supporting diverse needs, smooth integration, and growth for expanding companies.
As data sizes grow, we can also scale categorizations, calibrations, and the types of data we ingest and catalog through this tool.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Alation Data Catalog's scalability has met our needs as our data and user base has grown.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Alation Data Catalog is praised for stability, reliable performance, excellent maintenance, with minor on-premises outages and DBT load concerns.
Sentiment score
7.7
Users perceive Vanta as stable and reliable, despite occasional latency and connection issues affecting some users.
It has never gone down when we wanted to access it.
Senior Data Engineer & Data Platform Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Alation Data Catalog has been stable for me, as I haven't seen much downtime.
Senior ORM Analyst Assistant Vice President at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
Senior Data Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vanta is very stable; we haven't had any downtimes or weird behavior so far, which we really appreciate.
DevOps Engineer / SRE at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
There are connection problems about 50% of the time because of the automated evidence collection.
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alation Data Catalog needs improved lineage, user interface, automation, security, and integration with Power BI and external APIs.
Vanta's user access module needs development, improved interfaces, flexible permissions, and better integration for effective policy management.
The platform needs improvement in integrating with BI tools, reducing manual efforts, and facilitating a smooth connection.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Additionally, bringing in AI capabilities to automate tracking and labeling can optimize how we handle data information levels.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
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.
Senior Data and Analytics Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Vanta has been really nice, with a nice user experience, clear layout, and very reasonable recommendations compared to other platforms we've tried.
DevOps Engineer / SRE at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
The UI is not super intuitive, but now that I've worked with it for a couple of years, I know how to navigate and get around.
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I have to clear all CVEs before the test will pass.
Vice President of Technology at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Setup Cost

Alation Data Catalog pricing is high, but discounts and long-term agreements offer better value compared to competitors.
Enterprise buyers have mixed views on Vanta's pricing, finding it expensive yet valuable for reducing audit costs.
Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that little bit of money was not a big deal.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Discussions with the vendor partners provided a detailed breakdown of costs and how they can be reduced over time.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
Vanta's pricing for small businesses allows you to double that person's SOC/ISO compliance capabilities for less than the cost of another staff member.
Vice President of Technology at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Alation Data Catalog boosts productivity with intuitive features, seamless data management, and enhances collaboration through advanced governance and cloud integration.
Vanta automates compliance, streamlines processes, and enhances integration, monitoring, and reporting to ensure data integrity and audit readiness.
It was the only data catalog tool where I could save and even create SQL queries.
Senior Data Governance at a university with 51-200 employees
Importantly, we establish a single source of truth, centralizing metadata and standardizing definitions, which minimizes confusion and helps with consistent data use across the organization.
Senior Staff Cyber Security Cloud Data Architect at GE Healthcare
My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data.
Data Engineer at Yum! Brands
Vanta has positively impacted my organization by helping us remediate a lot of vulnerabilities and bad practices, especially from vulnerable ECR repos, and enforced good behavior.
DevOps Engineer / SRE at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees
The best features Vanta offers in my opinion are the key performance indicators for framework compliance as well as integration into internal environments and accurate data provided towards compliance frameworks and metrics.
HITRUST and GRC Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
All our policy documents are organized so I always know where I can go to get the latest and greatest version of those.
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Alation Data Catalog
Ranking in Data Governance
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (3rd)
Vanta
Ranking in Data Governance
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Compliance Consulting (1st), Compliance Management (3rd)
 

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 Vanta is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alation Data Catalog3.9%
Vanta1.2%
Other94.9%
Data Governance
 

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.
reviewer2585640 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Compliance workflows have become organized and automation supports ongoing healthcare audits
There are always tons of rooms for improvement for Vanta. I kind of exaggerated a little bit about the policy control. I don't really love the way they handle the revision management of that feature. If I'm on V1 of the policy document and I make some changes to it, then I get rid of V1 and then I re-upload V2. It's not that it keeps a running history of each of the different revisions. A little bit of an issue with that, but workable. I don't really have any negative complaint right now that would be worthwhile expressing. It's just that there's a lot of features. The UI is not super intuitive, but now that I've worked with it for a couple of years, I know how to navigate and get around. Initially, it was a little bit of a struggle understanding how these things would all work.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
 

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 do you like most about Vanta?
The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks.
What needs improvement with Vanta?
Failed tests for device CVEs seem to be cumulative, meaning I have to clear all CVEs before the test will pass, which makes it difficult to resolve the test before the next round of CVEs are publis...
What is your primary use case for Vanta?
My use case involves SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance.
 

Also Known As

Alation
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salesforce, Snowflake, Citrix, eBay, TripAdvisor, Albertsons, Nasdaq, Pfizer, LinkedIn, Finnair.
Care Directives, Shortcut , Nayya, Heizenrader, Treasury Prime
Find out what your peers are saying about Alation Data Catalog vs. Vanta and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.