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Atlan vs Microsoft Purview Data Governance comparison

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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

Atlan
Ranking in Data Governance
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (5th)
Microsoft Purview Data Gove...
Ranking in Data Governance
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Governance is 8.5%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview Data Governance8.5%
Atlan1.8%
Other89.7%
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Neumann - PeerSpot reviewer
IT consultant at Pathfinder
Has struggled to meet business needs but supports technical data exploration and transparency
Atlan can be improved by concentrating more on business data since it is developed from developers for developers, and it needs to be more business relevant. For instance, when re-importing data model diagrams, Atlan provides some diagram automation that is not connected to the business glossary, which I consider a significant fault. Atlan needs to improve by focusing more on the business side of data, not only on technical aspects.If you want to focus on technical considerations, it would be beneficial to have an interface with a real business data modeling tool such as Erwin or other business data tools, since data modeling is not the same as Draw.io. Additionally, Atlan can improve its workflows, which are hard to understand. Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team. If business people want to use it and run their own reports, it must be easier to customize for their business needs.
AS
Tech lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated data discovery has streamlined management while configuration remains complex
Compared to Big-ID, Microsoft Purview Data Governance looks complicated to me. I do not feel it has a good user-level UI. The interface feels a little complicated compared to Big-ID. I did not appreciate the configuration part. It felt complex, whereas when I went for a Big-ID demo, the interface looked better and was easier to understand for any user.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As a senior analytics engineer, Atlan's ability to show end-to-end data lineage is the most important feature for me."
"The best feature of Atlan is its integration with communication platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack, so business users don't have to go into a data catalog to see metadata about data assets."
"Overall, I rate Atlan a nine out of ten."
"Overall, I rate Atlan as a ten out of ten."
"By switching to Atlan, we have increased our productivity and saved a lot of business time."
"Atlan has positively impacted the organization since it helps in discovering already available assets, allowing for reduction of redundant ingestion of external data and reduction of time to market for any project."
"They also offer automated lineage embedded in the connectors, allowing us to track where the data is coming from and where it's going. We find it very efficient in cataloging data sources. Additionally, the user-friendly interface is a big plus, making it easy for users to familiarize themselves with the solution. These two features, in my opinion, stand out the most."
"The AI part is integrated for enriching metadata engagement, making it a comprehensive tool."
"Overall, I would laud its ease of use, intuitive interface, and easy navigation."
"Microsoft Purview stands out for its automatic data recovery system, which prioritizes critical data for the fastest restoration."
"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."
"Microsoft Purview Data Governance enables us to show our compliance in real time."
"I really like the entire system for auto-labeling content. It's a very refined system. I use the Keyword Query Language to define refined string-based metadata, and then I can really go deep into the specific data with the specific properties labeled in such and such a way."
"The custom classifications are one of the most valuable features."
"It gives you the opportunity to know your data and apply policies around it. If those policies are flouted, you can always track what's happening. You have options such as alerting the person who is committing that action, or you can take automatic action by blocking, for example, an email that is been sent externally. It's very useful."
"The DLP part and the AI related ones are the most valuable features; I mostly appreciate their automated data discovery."
 

Cons

"Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."
"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."
"In my experience, it might be less suited for collaboration across teams."
"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."
"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities. Atlan supports only basic out-of-the-box workflows, and it becomes challenging to customize features like how data owners should approve access to data assets."
"Atlan can be improved by integrating agents that can support users in finding assets of interest."
"There are some limitations to the solution with regard to the lineage of data from different systems."
"We haven't really gotten too far into it to identify areas for improvement just yet."
"One area for improvement is the detection of data types. This is really important."
"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."
"One drawback of Microsoft Purview, though it's beneficial and easy to use, is that when you start plugging in connectors for third-party sources when setting the solution up for data collection, it becomes a bit more tricky."
"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."
"It could reduce pricing to encourage usage."
"If we could have a view something like we have in CrowdStrike—which is, I believe, the biggest competitor to Microsoft when it comes to security—a node nodal view, which we also have in Defender, that would make it a more complete, one-stop solution. That would save a lot of time for the admins and the engineers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay per-user license. It's a different classification model than with other solutions, where they usually charge you for resources. So, that was a better model for us. And because of this difference in models or classification, it was cheaper for us to go with Atlan."
"The categorization within the licensing could be improved. There are a lot of solutions within Microsoft Purview. If the licensing could be a bit clearer and the solutions could be better categorized according to function and across multiple environments, that would be excellent. The licensing is very confusing."
"Price-wise, I think it's very generous and accessible to not just enterprises but small to medium-sized companies as well. I think it's very fair in terms of how they break apart the storage and the actual computing, and that makes it very accessible. So, that is a very big plus for Purview."
"The pricing is decent. It is neither too low nor too high. Given its capabilities, the pricing is justified."
"Microsoft Purview is a subscription-based service, so we need either an E3 or E5 license to use it."
"Currently, the licensing differs for the governance side compared to the risk and compliance side."
"The interesting part is how they are bundling the version into the E5 stack. If it was not for that inclusion, this would have been a difficult conversation for us, so kudos to Microsoft on that. Separating it out may become a problem for customer retention. It is definitely a good move on Microsoft's part to include it as part of any existing or any system upgrades for customers that were on E3."
"Purview's price is pretty high when you factor in storage costs."
"I would rate the cost of Microsoft Purview a six out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlan?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the licensing cost is a bit flexible but not affordable for smaller organizations. It might be way out of their budget, but it is very ...
What needs improvement with Atlan?
Atlan can be improved by enhancing their support process by reducing the resolution time. They have really bad and incomplete documentation, so they should work on the documentation as well, especi...
What is your primary use case for Atlan?
My main use case for Atlan is to define a flexible set of metadata, including measuring the quality of said data. Atlan is also a partner of ours, so we use it to integrate with our own tool. It al...
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?
The features in the actual data governance could be improved, and I think there is room for improvement in the product. We haven't used role-based access control in a complex way; it's somehow embe...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Purview?
We are currently working with Microsoft Purview Data Governance and other Microsoft products. We are using Microsoft Purview Data Governance.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Purview, MS Azure Purview
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Atlan vs. Microsoft Purview Data Governance and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.