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Atlan vs Microsoft Purview Data Governance 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

Atlan
Ranking in Data Governance
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
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 (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Atlan is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Governance is 8.6%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview Data Governance8.6%
Atlan1.9%
Other89.5%
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."
"Atlan is helpful for identifying datasets and discovering PI data, such as the classification levels of datasets (gold, silver, bronze)."
"Overall, I rate Atlan as a ten out of ten."
"The AI part is integrated for enriching metadata engagement, making it a comprehensive tool."
"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."
"Overall, I rate Atlan a nine out of ten."
"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."
"The interfaces and automated imports have helped me with transparency, as we have different sources from different techniques such as DBT, Snowflake, and other regular databases, making it effective to connect these sources and navigate through them, filter them, and enrich the data with additional meter information."
"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 e-discovery search is useful."
"The data lineage feature stands out. It tracks where the data comes from and any changes made."
"The most significant value lies in its seamless integration into the Azure ecosystem, automating various processes and reducing operational burdens."
"The reporting is excellent. Limiting what people can see is also valuable, especially when tagging documents."
"Has a good interface and is reasonably priced."
"Their data labeling or data classification is particularly valuable because we want to categorize all of our data into confidential, public, or internal."
"From my experience and customer feedback, one of the most valuable features of Microsoft Purview is ease of use, especially for content hosted within Microsoft 365 and Azure. I also like that the pricing model for the solution is reasonable."
 

Cons

"Certain UI changes could make Atlan more user-friendly."
"Customer support for Atlan is not so proactive."
"One of the main areas for improvement is its governance capabilities."
"Working with templates, Excel import, export, and running automations is not self-explanatory, and you always need help from Atlan support team."
"One area that could be improved is the capability to find duplicates of datasets."
"The challenge is in the lineage, where it requires improvement. Atlas needs to capture areas where organizations use less known applications."
"There are some improvements. There is a feature called Playbooks, which basically allows me to automate certain activities that would otherwise be manual. It's a very interesting feature, but there is room to improve it because, depending on the task you automate, the playbooks seem to have a hard time handling the task. So, it could be improved there. Even though it's a great feature, it can evolve further."
"The product could be improved by offering scheduled email reports for managed assets."
"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."
"Support should be improved in the form of good documentation and video lessons where a person can check things out. There is a community, but it takes a lot of time if we want to get an answer to a question."
"While Microsoft Purview currently allows weekly scans for data sources, this limitation hinders the usefulness of the tool for frequently changing data."
"The Microsoft Purview data connector platform, which supports ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, can be somewhat complex."
"Enhancing the tool's capability to connect to multiple sources would be valuable."
"Another area for improvement is in managing the business glossary terms. If they could provide the same type of method that we use to configure the scan rule sets, that would be helpful. Currently, there is no option like this, so we have to do it manually. Automatic detection would be great."
"Compared to Big-ID, Microsoft Purview Data Governance looks complicated to me. I do not feel it has a good user-level UI."
"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."
 

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."
"Some people find the tier licensing system complicated, but it offers a lot of value for money if we use the features."
"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."
"Aside from the complexity of the pricing model, the price itself is realistic. Features like AI components and automatic classification require additional licenses. Still, anyone can start using Purview with a basic E3 license if they're using Microsoft 365 and grow with additional licenses as needed. Overall, we're satisfied with the price."
"It's not cheap. I'm not exactly sure how much our license costs, but it is very expensive."
"The pricing depends on the client's requirements and the number of applications."
"The pricing is reasonable because it's part of the 365 E3 or E5 license you buy."
"We pay $15,000 per end user for the E5 license."
"People often and unjustly say that Microsoft product pricing is not in the scope of reality, that it's just too expensive at times. I do not feel that is the case at all... If I'm able to let go of 30 to 70 percent of my IT administration staff, that makes up for a lot of money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.